U.S.A.F.

Born one year before the "baby boom" began, Jeff Hunter seems perpetually one year behind his peers, or several years ahead of another group. At thirteen, Jeff had left 'normal' life to enter the priesthood. Two and one-half years later, he became a junior at a regular high school, academically far ahead of his peers, but socially two years further behind.

Jeff had been anxiously waiting to hear from the college of his choice, a small, coed Catholic school in western Iowa. Knowing he had procrastinated, perhaps too long, knowing that he did not have the kind of grades he should have had, he was full of anxiety that he would not be accepted for the coming semester, if at all. So it was with great apprehension that he opened the letter which had finally arrived, and with great joy that he read of his acceptance at Loras College, a small catholic liberal arts college in Western Iowa, sufficiently far from home.

Apparently, his entrance essay, and his 2100 score on the sat's had made the difference. His joy was to be short-lived. Late that night, too excited to sleep, while he was digging through his secret stash between the floor joists of his room, an argument between his parents drifted up through the floor grate.

"Well, aren't you going to tell him yourself," he heard his mothers voice, full of scorn and disdain. "I suppose you're going to leave it to me to tell him the bad news. I've been after you for months to tell him and you just put it off and put it off. I know that you were probably hoping he wouldn't be accepted, but now that he has, you can't hide it from him any longer."

"I don't have to tell him anything," Jeff's father replied. I never promised him anything. That money has always belonged to the whole family. So, the family needed it. So what? That's it. That's all there is to it! If he wants to go to school, let him pay for it himself. He can get a job and work his way through school. Lots of kids have done it before him. His dad's voice is rough with beer and brandy. He is increasingly fearful for his mother's safety as their voices rise.

"For Christ's sake Wes." (If his mom was taking the Lord's name in vain, this was indeed some serious shit.) "That's exactly what he's been doing. You know he's worked for that money for years, sometimes two jobs. And saving. How's he ever going to come up with enough money in two months to pay for books and tuition and everything else?"

"Aw, what the hell? He'll never make it in college anyway. He's only got "C" grades. And he's always walking around with his head up his ass, sniveling and crying and crap. Better I should put the money to good use than to piss it away on some stupid little college in Iowa."

About this time it became clear to Jeff that it was his very self they were arguing about.

"He's not whiny and he's not stupid. Just because he's quiet and creative is no reason for you to put him down. And maybe if you ever gave him some help and encouragement, maybe his grades would be higher."

"Bullshit! He's a goddam lazy pissant sissy."

"Even if he were, which he's not, does that give you the right to take his money that he's worked so hard for? Are you going to tell him yourself or are you too big a coward?"

"So I'm coward am I? You would say that. Same old shit. Always ready to put me down. I'll show you who's a coward!"

The sounds which now wafted up through the register like a foul odor, were not unfamiliar to Jeff. What he heard left no doubt that the blows had begun. Each blow was accompanied by an invective such as "bitch", "cunt", or "whore". This was not the first time Jeff would sit silent while his father beat his mother. It was himself he hated at these times; despised his piss ant chicken-shittedness, his cowardliness, his tiny, flabby body. He longed mightily to rush down and impose his body between his mother and his father's blows, but he could not overcome the abject terror he felt before his father's rage.

The topic at hand was obviously Jeff's savings account downtown.

Apparentl his dad had looted his college fund. Apparently there was now no money to finance school.Mom was right Even with the lucrative (for a seventeen-year-old) job he had held as a caddy at a country club with very wealthy members, he would never be able to save enough. Even if he also took back his former restaurant job, which Mathon would give him in a second.

It wasn't as if he had many options. His dad was right, too. With his mediocre grades, he was lucky to have been accepted at any college. It was probably his high scores on IQ (171) and SAT (2100) that got him in.

He was a loser. And it seemed he would remain a loser, would not get his chance to break out.

He was trained only as busboy, dish washer, cook, and caddy. The money from caddying was very good and could get a lot better with time and luck, but it was strictly seasonal. He could not now break the cycle as easily as he had thought. Now it seemed his dad was conspiring with fate to condemn him to a life of poverty and failure, to keep him the loser they both would always be.

Jeff resolved, however, to break out of this household as soon as he possibly could, however he could. He needed a plan. He needed a good, full time, year round job.

To his beloved sister Julie fell the unpleasant task of informing him that his cash, his link to the future, his lifeline, was no more. "Remember that fancy car and boat that Duane bought just before he left last summer," Julie began. "I know you thought he had made a lot of money at the store downtown, and, yes, it was a very good job, but the money he had to buy the car and boat, to go away, was all from his account down at the bank. Mom managed to pull it out, to rescue it and give it to Duane before dad could take it like he did all the rest. Yours and Ernie's, mine too! You know dad had to buy a car for his new job and new clothes and stuff. Mom was against it. She tried to stop him. For some reason, he hadn't gotten to Duane's money yet, so she was able to save it. As it was, she had trouble getting the bank to release the account to her, even though they had given the rest to him without her signature. She had to threaten to take them to court. She was only a woman, so they tried to tell her she had to have dad's signature, but he didn't need hers. So you see, champ, Duane's was the only money she was able to save. I'm sorry, champ. Is there any way you could swing it without that money?"

Jeff could only merely shake his head, afraid if he spoke, the hot, angry tears would spill over. He was determined not to give his father the satisfaction of his tears, especially in front of Julie.

Gaining control after a few moments, he finally spoke. "Five years! For five years I've saved that money. Almost three thousand dollars! How could I ever save that much in one summer?"

"Try not to judge dad too harshly," Julie said. "He really can't help what he is, what he does. He sees this new job as a once in a lifetime chance for him. Try not to carry all that anger around with you, it will just make your own life harder."

What Julie never did tell Jeff, what he discovered many years later, was that dad's looting of her account had prevented her planned elopement with George, delaying their marriage for more than a year.

Jeff became determined to leave as soon as possible. All through the rest of that long hot summer, he came and went as he pleased. Dad tried from time to time to place some restrictions on him, but he simply ignored them, basically daring a confrontation. By the end of August, he knew he could not, would not, bear another year, knew it was his last summer for a summer job.

Then one night, sitting in his room, reading one of the tomes from The Foundation Trilogy, loud sounds of his parents arguing wafted once more up through the old floor vent. Jeff never knew, never cared, what had started that terrible fight, except that it most likely came from a can and/or bottle. Dad's violent screams had been through the gamut of "whore" and "bitch" and a lexicon of other female derogatives, his volume increasing as each new round began. Jeff's mother's screams changed in pitch from offense to pain, he could take no more.

A series of red explosions went off in Jeff's brain. He rose from his bed and hurried to the Kitchen. His mother cowered in one corner, trapped against the Sears yellow Naugahyde and Formica breakfast nook. His blows rained on her, accompanied by another round of invective. Without thinking, Jeff interposed his puny young body between them. Several blows struck him. He was surprised at their ineffectiveness. Instinctively He began to press his palms against his father's chest and push him backward, advancing until he was nearly into the walk- in pantry. His father seemed to shrink before his eyes. Had he always been so short?

Now his mother was hovering behind him,afraid Jeff might harm her beloved husband. His dad's back came in contact with the fridge. Deflated, his arms fell to his sides.Jeff stepped in very close, their faces inches apart. "If you ever hit her again I'll kill you," he told his father. Wordless, his dad spat in his face. Jeff returned the favor. "Remember what I said. I'm not fucking around!" Jeff told him, then turned on his heel and strode from the room.

One late September evening, Jeff tossed a packet of papers on the table in front of his father. "Sign where the red exes are and don't fuck with me," Jeff said, the last words he was to speak to his father for a very long time.

The next morning Jeff reported to Milwaukee, riding rapidly North on the Electroliner, the same train his grandfather served as Superintendent of Dining Cars, to receive his physical exam and induction into the United States Air Force. He spent the night in a flea bag hotel, listening to a heavyweight fight during which some braggart newcomer named Cassius Clay knocked out his beloved champion Sonny Liston in less than two minutes, then flew off the next morning to Lackland AFB, San Antonio, Texas.

And so it was one one broiling hot summer day, Jeff's fine young ass ended up under the snarling tutelage of the small, coal black, extremely arrogant Master Sergeant John Henry Bippy, USAF TI par excellence.

Sergeant Bippy stood only five-three, but like his legendary namesake he was a mountain of a man. The original was a steel drivin' man. This John Henry was a recruit drivin' man. He always went the extra mile to add misery to the military skills he teaches. Jeff experiences extra trauma at his hands, having arrived at Lackland with his golf clubs slung over his shoulder, his recruiter having informed him that the base had an excellent golf course, failing, of course, to add that the excellent 18 hole club was on the far side of the base, reserved for officers. Beautiful San Antonio! Wonderful Texas! Day after day of sweltering heat and near desert conditions. Scorpions and sand spurs and cactus. And the grating, hateful sounding voice of John Henry Bippy, calling jeff a 'dipshit'.

Back home the trees were changing colors, golds and russets and scarlet. To his last day, Jeff will remain convinced that if the earth ever needs an enema, the tube will be placed in Texas, specifically, San Antonio.

Not being accustomed to being called dirty names twenty-four hours a day, Jeff barely squeeked through basic training. Two weeks later he was asking himself, "What have I done?" Jeff and military life simply did not agree; he had always had a difficult time showing respect to those stupider than himself. That description seemed to apply to everyone he met in the Air Force. While Jeff was in basic training, some genius general, Curtis LeMay, no doubt, had decided it was a waste of Air Force personnel to have airmen do KP one day a month; the cooks should handle it. So right away, the USAF needed thousands more cooks. Jeff became one of this numberless hoard. One of thirty such recruits sent to Eglin Air Force Base in northern Florida, he quickly became qualified as a cook, but KP was his regular duty. He was stuck in one filthy job, seemingly with one stinking stripe, no place to advance, no where to go that didn't already have guys like him trying to get away. for whatever remained of his military career.

In addition to KP duties, Jeff, by some odd quirk of fate or USAF logic, received a top-secret clearance to become a provisional Air Policeman, called into service as a cop during alerts, exercises and the like. Usually he was given a M-16 with no ammo and sent to guard some desolate slice of road in the middle of Eglin's vast forest, to prevent civilians from wandering into an exercise and getting their asses shot off.

On one occasion he was asked to patrol, for several hours of a test alert, a certain road inside the base proper. No one was to pass without authorization and a pass. No one. That included base Commander, Lt. Col Harry MacKnight's wife, whom the colonel had forgotten to tell about the alert. Despite her protestations, despite her very believable story that she needed to change cars with her husband to pick up their children from high school, despite the colonel being busy doing alert things so he could not be reached on his walkie-talkie thingy; Jeff refused to let her pass. He heard through the grapevine later that she caused quite an uproar when the alert ended. For a few hours, Jeff was a minor underground hero, for this was the same woman who had caused disruption for months by redecorating the dinning hall, making every cook and dishwasher's life more difficult. (One of her innovations had been to add thousands of plastic flowers that had to be constantly dusted.)

That summer, The various Air Force fighter wings held their annual competition in the vast forests of Eglin Air Force Base. One fighter wing (the equivalent of an army 'army' (as in Fifth Army) contains about 20 squadrons of 10 planes each, so approximately 1000 aircraft were involved, not counting the various support aircraft and ground vehicles. Jeff was given a poncho, box lunch, and the usual empty M-16 and told to guard a stretch of dirt road about six hundred miles from nowhere. Jeff heard the roar of jets in the distance constantly, but saw nothing and no one. Mid way through the first day, An AF jeep suddenly roared up beside him, blowing a ton of dust into the atmosphere and Jeff's face. "Hop in," an AP Tech Sergeant shouted at him

"Uh, sarge my orders are to maintain this post until my relief arrives at 1900 hours."

"Never mind the bullshit, airman, get in the fucking jeep!"

"Where are we going?"

"A couple a miles down the road, don't know where exactly. We'll know it when we see it. Some junk jockey got target fixation and took down a couple a miles of forest."

It took Jeff a few silent minutes, bumping along on the washboard road, to figure out the lingo meant a fighter pilot had crashed. "What the hell do they need me for?" He wondered. After about ten minutes of racing at breakneck speed, we paused briefly to pick up another sucker like me, then another. By the time the jeep became uncomfortably full we could see smoke ahead rising blackly into the hot blue Florida sky like an exclamation point of doom. Tech Sergeant Anderson paused almost long enough to disgorge us all before roaring away. "Report to Lieutenant Caparelli, he shouted over his shoulder before the dust clouded out his visage.

The scene was like something out of a fifties monster movie. Ripped and torn trunks of jack pine and live oak trees were thrown asunder as if Godzilla had roared through, slashing a path about thirty feet wide for as for as Jeff could see. Smoke rose from small fires all along the track. Spanish moss hung here and there as in a cheap horror film. The forest had been further damage by bulldozers and heavy trucks and fire trucks and emergency vehicles, all with yellow and red lights flashing. Though it was only early afternoon of a boiling hot Florida summer day, the air was gray with dust and smoke.

"You my clean-up detail?" a voice rang out to us."

"Don't know, Sir, Jeff answered, before noticing the shouter was a lithe blonde female about thirty with hips and gorgeous breasts not even the tight blue jacket could confine; the first female officer Jeff had encountered. "We were told to report to Lieutenant Caparelli."

"Do I look like a sir to you?"her voice was mellifluous,airy and light, if full of sarcasm.

"No Sir," Jeff stupidly replied.

The lieutenant, her skin a deep golden brown, Italian, Jeff guessed from her name, spoke through rich luscious lips with the tiniest hint of pink gloss. "Never mind. You are hopeless." She reached into the dark rear of a duece-and-a-half, hauling out several small boxes and laying them on the tailgate. "This box, she said, pointing, contains super zip lock bags. You will find them difficult to open and close. However, you must close them tightly each time you insert something, That is to say, do not walk around with the bag open, ever. Understood?"

"What will we be putting in the bag, Ma'am," one airman second asked.

"We'll get to that in a moment," the sexy officer replied.

Jeff was busy fantasizing about where he might like those luscious officer lips. He thought about sex about ten times an hour. His hated virginal status was a burden he was anxious to lay down.

"This box," sexy lips continued, contains protective face masks. You are to each take one and put it on. I highly suggest you put it on and do not remove it. This bag contains disposable plasticine gloves. You are to wear them at all times. Should you ever take one off to scratch your nose or whatever, it must be discarded and replaced immediately.

One very young looking E-2 raised his hand as if in school, but she dismissed him with a shrug of her shoulders that made her large breasts jiggle ever so slightly under her Ike jacket. "Okay," she said, "listen up. These are your instructions and I am only going to say them once. We are in a bit of a hurry here.

"This large broken trail you see here was caused by an aircraft, an F-102, to be specific. Its wings were shorn off by trees and lie mostly in fragments about you. About one half mile down this open space you will see what remains of the fuselage. Fifty feet further you will see the pilot's ejection seat. Unfortunately, the pilot was too low to eject. We have not found his remains but strongly suspect they are scattered over quite a large area. We have recovered his boots and parts of his lower legs, still with his seat assembly.

Your job is to search carefully, starting at the location of the fuselage and working forward as far as the forest will allow. You will unzip your bag if you see something you even wildly suspect might be a part of the pilot or his flight suit. You are not, repeat not to touch anything with your bare hands, nor to keep anything you find, Am I clear? Are there any questions?"

"You mean, Jeff stammered, we are supposed to pick up his, his. . . "

"Spit it out airman."

"Collect body parts?"

"Yes. Hopefully. Not up to the task?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Yes ma'am you are, or are not?"

Jeff had a quick urge to open his trousers and show her just how 'up' he could be, but quickly stuffed away that fantasy. "Yes ma'am," he said, "I can handle it."

"Well, get to it!" Even unmilitary Jeff recognized that as an order.

"For the next six hours, until dusk shut down the search, Jeff criss-crossed his portion of that torn jagged pathway of destruction, searching for any bit of cloth, any scrap of skin or bone that might possibly have had its origin in the cockpit of that plane. Jeff found a few small pieces of something resembling meat covered in torn burnt cloth. Those discoveries nearly made him retch. One of his comrades, however, came up with an empty flight helmet, holding it high and gloating at his discovery. Jeff was to learn from another airman, during debriefing late that night, that the helmet had contained some bloody hair and piece of flat bone, probably skull.