Thee was a thread (that was deleted) in Silver that reminded me of a silly war story: During the first Gulf War, our F4G Wing was stationed at Shaikh Isa AB, Bahrain. We had a big name Bob Hope USO show go through. A pilot in our squadron, Zippy, was minding his own biz taking a dump in a stall when he heard the Wing Commander burst into the bathroom and yell, "Anybody in here?" Zippy replied "yes sir" while sitting at attention, mid crap. Never mind he was in a closed stall. "Well, get out! Brooke Shields needs to use the restroom!" Before our hero could answer, he heard a meek little voice say "Well, I don't mind if he doesn't" The Wing Commander huffed out, and Zippy now tells how these two cute little ankles under the stall wall next to him lowered their jeans and sat down for a pee. Zippy, a man's man in many things including stature, could only bend over so far to peek. She finished flushed and was out in just a moment allowing the Zippster to finish his bomb drop. How close our brushes with fame!
LMAO! It's one thing to say you've met Brooke Shields, it's a whole other to say you've heard her pee.
Another Zippy war story: Zippy had an extremely well endowed British girlfriend not subject to American travel restrictions, so she came to Bahrain to see him during the war. Anyway, she actually was able to get on the Bahraini base. So one day, we had a no notice door to door recall. When they knocked on Zippy's door, there was muffled rustling and low voices. Eventually, he came to the door wearing only his gym shorts, with an evidence standing proud of his immediate activities. Based on his appearance that day, Zippy and his girlfriend had their respective callsigns given Pup-tent and Bigtop.
You should have seen the size of the writing on the que cards for Bob Hope. He must have been about blind, seems like it was about one or two words per card. Incidently, that was his last USO tour and it was an honor to be there in the audience to see and be a part of long running history. Russ, were you stationed at Spang? I was on the south end of the revetments with GAFB.
Well, Tim, we were there at the same time. I worked with the GAFB flight surgeon, Jim Petty, since I was the FS from Spang. I watched Bob fromn the top of the ambulances. Hey, whatever happened to the cute redhead admin officer from George? I had a killer crush on her, but she had a boyfriend. I never was a fan of the USo shows as I saw them on TV growing up, as he seemed too vanilla plain -- but lemme tell you, they are a RIOT off camera. Tim, see if you remember this: They did many takes and there was a lot of down time to set up the shot. Bob could tell the crowd, the 35th FW and MAG11, were getting a bit restless. He looked out and said,"You look like a hot crowd", and then Bob Hope, Mr G-rated, told the following joke off camera to 3000+ troops: A father walks in and catches his son masturbating. He says, "son, if you keep doing that, you'll go blind." His son replied "Dad, I'm over here". The crowd went totally NUTS, and from then on, I have held Mr Hope as a true American icon.
Good memory! Yep good ol' Doc Petty. He did a flight physical on me after the war for cross training to Boom Operator (job requirement closed before I got it all done) and as I was looking at the plaques on his wall, I saw one there that had a doctors name on it as an instructor or something in a course or board he took. That doctor was the man that brought me into this world and was our family doctor all my life until I joind the AF. Small world! I don't recall the admin officer with red hair... I was busy writing my girlfriend I guess whom I later married and we're on an 18 year honeymoon! Life is good. Yes, I lucked out big time.
Well, I come on here to learn about Ferrari 308's and find a bunch of folks purely by accident that have similar backgrounds. What are the odds that I read up on my favorite car and in another section of the forum there's a member that trod the same ground I did at the same time? Life is short and the world really is small in a manner of speaking. Hell, I bet he even had a beer at the "Weasel Dome". I work with a guy who was there with a Marine Corps EA-6B outfit the same time I was there which was for the duration. Our squadron motto was "First In, Last Out" and they were serious about that. I thought I'd never get outta there. You like stories, well here's a short one and something to think about. When we flew over there it took 26 hours via commercial carrier. I kept a log starting the day I got notified we were going to war. At each place we stopped for gas I wrote down things about the flight, where we were, zulu time at take off and all that. When we landed the Captain came over the P.A. system and said.. and I quote. "Ladies and gentlmen, welcome to Daharan International Airport, Saudi Arabia; local time is 12 midnight, temperature is 134 degrees F and 86% humidity." I wrote that down and thought, hell, don't open the door!!!
I think her name was Lucy. Anyway, I was just smitten with her, but alas, she was from George and I was from Spang... I did take her to mid-rats every night for tacos, but that was as far as I got. She did have some very operationally signifigant skills though. At Shaikh Isa airbase, we were co-located with a Patriot Battery, which along with eyes in the sky kept a lookout with the most ultramodern technology to give us early warning of Scud attacks. But NONE of these space age systems were anywhere near as reliable at predicting when a Scud attack was about to happen as anytime Lucy went to the latrine. You could damn near set your watch sometimes. She's have just enough time to get loose from her chem gear when the blower went off. It got to the point when she would leave to go, I would go ahead and get my mask out. Hey Taz - do you remember the admin Captain?
Russ- My brother Mike was at George in F-4Gs when they deployed to Bahrain in 1990 for Desert Shield. He had been at Spang from 85-87 or thereabouts. I deployed from Lakenheath (F-111Fs) to Taif in Aug 1990, as well, so my parents had both of us ready to kill bad guys for the taxpayers. Mike hurt his back, however, and was sent home before the fun started. Will ask him about Lucy. You guys in Bahrain really pissed off the rest of us. Las Vegas of the ME with beer, etc. Us in SA with no booze and Camel Spiders. Few stories to tell about those. Taz Terry Phillips
I'm trying to place your brother in my mind but can't do it by name alone. I was in Blue section so he was probably in Yellow. We were at Nellis on TDY for a Green Flag if I remember right and they told us the day after we got there to get the jets ready to fly back home, we're going to war. I couldn't believe it so I called the flight chief and he said yep, pack your ditty bag, you're going to Iraq in 10 days. ...more to come.
We knew we had it good. But, under the heading of there is always something to ***** about, we heard that all of the British in theater received a gratitude payment, several thousand quid, from the Saudi gov for their service, which the Crown allowed. The Americans were offered the same bonus but it was turned down by the American Generals. Thanks for asking about Lucy.
Back then a friend I used to help restore old Corvettes made the mistake of letting me drive his recent frame off restored 62' Roman Red convertible with the injected 327 up Cajon pass one night after work. I was hooked and had Blair's Speed Shop build that same engine and I put it in a 67 Camaro I had and drove that to Nellis for that TDY, my co-worker and I. When we got the news, I walked accross the ramp to the F-15's and saw this hot little female crew chief and asked her what was going on. She said Saddam invaded Kuwait. I didn't know who he was at the time as I had no TV, didn't read newspapers and spent every spare moment off duty rock climbing or skirt chasing. The night before we went back to George we got lit up a little and I just wanted to sleep on the way back. So my friend Darren Patterson drove my car the 189 miles back to George with me snoozing a while. I woke up a little before Barstow to see this big smile on Darren's face. I said "what have you been doing?" and he said, "DAMN this thing is fast!" ...Damn crew chiefs can't keep their foot out of their mouths or the gas pedal... Anyway I packed my crap, gave my springer spaniel away, and wrote a will and shipped out. We were all bored waiting for the "war" to start. Just after new years, the Chaplain, First Sergeant, and Captain came to our tent and wanted to see ME outside. My dad had been found dead, so they shipped me back to bury him. There wasn't anything going on so I used that leave well after the funeral. I visited my girlfriend whom I am now married to, went to El Mirage dry lake which is between George and Edwards; and started at one end of the lake bed and FLOORED that Camaro and watched the dust rooster tail behind me and that speedometer needle go past 120, past the battery idiot light, and on around to the other idiot light next to zero. The front end was light feeling and wallering around and I thought I had had about enough of this nonsense and that if I were a light I just might be an IDIOT light. That car wasn't made to do that sort of thing but it was still pulling hard to my amazement. Remember that smile on Darren's face I mentioned before? Well, that knuckle head was doing that same ass haulin' adrenalin rush down that rutted out I-15 on the way back home and me over there sleeping with my head against the door completely oblivious. I hated to sell that car...
When I was on bereavement leave I went to Nashville to visit my musician friends, all Bluegrassers. I was sitting in a place in Hendersonville called the Bell Cove Club at a table with Bill Monroe (the Father of Bluegrass Music) and Glen Duncan (Reba's former fiddle player) during a break in the picking and we were watching this big screen TV tuned to CNN and saw the first tracer fire over Bagdad. I said in a few days I was going back over there, and in my mind I was glad it had started really because I knew it wouldn't take long to put a whuppin' on Saddam's ass. Bill and Ricky Skaggs went to church down the street from the Bell Cove club back then at Holiday Heights Baptist Church and after service let out Bill would usually come by and sit in with whatever band had assembled that night and play a few "numbers" as he called them. I miss that old man. As a side note. Glen had evidently quit Reba McIntire's band and another friend of mine left Skagg's band and joined Reba's band as a "utility man" (mandolin, fiddle, banjo, guitar and harmony vocals). His name was Chris Austin, a superb human being. The day I got back from the war in late March, I picked up a magazine at the checkout counter in the BX and learned that my friend had died in the plane crash that claimed most of Reba's band. He was ready to go as far as being right with his maker but it was still tragic news. He and my Dad both died too young.
Great stories - Thanks for sharing. Reminded me of a "tale" in (IIRC) a Tom clancy "novel" - Apparently, the RAF and USAF shared radio transmissions but whenever the Yanks were listening to the Brit controllers ask for location information from their jockey's, the response was invariably "over MMFD"..... They scoured their maps for "MMFD" but couldn't find anything - Maybe it was the funny Brit accent and they were mis-hearing an abbreviation of "King Khalid AFB" - Nope. Obviously, they weren't going to ask and indeed went as far as "purloining" some RAF maps to see if it was something that only showed up on the Brit versions - Nope. Eventually, curiosity got the better of 'em, and someone broke down and asked. "MMFD"........ Anyone? Cheers, Ian
Sorta in the theme of the thread....... In Nov 77 I am onboard a CAF 707 landing at Cairo International for a 6 month TDY with the UN peacekeeping force at Ismailia on the Suez Canal. We are taxiing to the terminal when the captain says on the PA........"Welcome to Cairo International Airport where the temperature is currently 110 degrees.....in order to adjust your watches to the local time please set them back 2,000 years"...... He wasn't kidding........ Image Unavailable, Please Login
