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T-Tail-Tall-Tail:
One for All
(but me)
Dale Richardson
It was early fall in 1974, I was a young SSgt flight
engineer student. We
were on a '509' training mission to the Pacific, and
started at Travis, flew to
Hilo for a bunch of touch-and-gos, then on to Hickam
for crew rest. The next
day we were scheduled to go to Guam for more
touch-and-gos, fuel and a grease
burger, then to Clark for crew rest.
Just before landing at Anderson, my examiner, MSgt.
John Olson, informed me
that it was my duty to purchase a 'crew bottle' to
be shared by the boys upon
the unlikely event that I passed my initial FE
check ride. I informed him that I
wasn't 'legal' due to the short time since I'd been
through customs on my
'recommend' ride a couple of weeks earlier. He told
me not to worry because the
bottle wouldn't last long enough to see customs at
Elmendorf anyway. Upon
arrival at Clark (and supposedly the end of my check
ride), we were told by the
Command Post that a typhoon was on its way and we
were going to have to press
on to Yokota. The check ride continued, of course.
After refueling and another grease burger, we
finally made it to Yokota. Were
were all so dead tired that we went directly to the
'Q' for a night of much
needed sleep. The next day we headed off to Shemya
for touch-and-gos, and
finally arrived at Elmendorf.
I still had the unopened bottle of Jim Beam in my
book bag and was worried
about getting it through Customs. We must have had 8
pilots, 5 engineers, 3 or
4 navs, and at least 3 loads on the trip and none of
them would help me out and
claim the bottle on their decs so I had to pay the
duty myself. It was $5.00
duty on my $3.00 bottle of whiskey. When we were all
back on the crew bus, John
asked if he could take a closer look at that bottle
of Beam and, and being the
trusting new guy that I was, I gave it to him.
He promptly twisted the cap off, threw it out the
window, and then took a long
pull from the bottle. He handed it to the guy
sitting next to him, he says
'This don't taste like $8.00 whiskey, what do you
think?' The bottle traveled
around the bus from one guy to the next and they all
agreed that I got ripped
off by the customs guy. Just as the bottle got back
to me, the last guy said
'Wait a minute, I think this tastes pretty darn
good, you better try it again!'
and started it back the way it came. Just as it got
back to John, he drained
the last drop and handed me the empty bottle.
I started to protest. With a grin on his face, he
proclaimed that I was now a
'real' flight engineer and this was the price of my
initiation.
Many years later I ran into John at the crew hotel
in Riyadh, both of us Chiefs
(he from AWACS and me from KC-10s). We enjoyed an
afternoon sipping Pepsi and
talking over old times in the C-141. Both of us
remembered (fondly) my first
check ride and that bottle of Jim Beam. Too bad I
didn't get as good a taste as
he did.