Mr. Cynical ruins it for everyone. (long and pointless)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

As some of you may know, I spent some time in the Air Force. A year in Denver, for technical school, two years in California doing flight test research, and two years in Italy working for NATO.

This time, I’m going to talk about the two years in Italy, specifically the first few weeks.

I was stationed at Aviano Air Base. It was a small place, originally designed to support maybe 500 people. Practically overnight, 1500 more moved in. Things got very busy.

One requirement upon arriving at the base was to attend the Benvenuto in Italia class. It was a basic culture/learn enough of the language to find the restroom type thing. Two weeks, we sat in class, repeating after the teacher.

Until the field trip.

We left the base early in the morning, getting off our big blue bus at the Fontannafredda train station. Upon arrival, we were to order round-trip tickets to Pordenone, returning in the early afternoon. In Pordenone, we toured churches that were older than the country of our birth. We sampled the local fare, and we snuck in the occasional shot of grappa in espresso.

On to the bus.

Several of us occupied the back seats, opened the windows, and proceeded to raise Cain, much to the dismay of the leader of the class. Everyone was officially “off duty” and some of us were more than a little buzzed, so her protests went unnoticed over the awful din we were creating.

We drove toward the mountains just north of the base, and went to a restaurant. The goal was for us to apply our new language skills in ordering our late lunch/early dinner. By doing this, we would learn how to survive on the economy.

In actuality, we learned that when you run out of table wine, they just keep bringing out more.

The table I sat at had 8 people at it. In the course of 90 minutes, we blazed through 13 bottles of wine. Granted, we were eating as well, but the food didn’t touch the alcohol. Back to the bus.

This time, we were not only raising hell, we had snuck additional bottles of wine out, and were passing them around, smoking cigarettes, and in general partying our asses off. Nothing could stop us by this point; the party was in full swing. We soon arrived at a place that I only recall as “the Grotto”.

It was a beautiful place, that’s for sure. It was lush, dense with trees. There was a river that we followed up to the base of a mountain, where a spring flowed from beneath. Down in the water was a statue of Jesus.

I remember going in the water to retrieve a girl who was so drunk that she wanted to “Go see Jesus”. I figured that if she went in swimming in that condition, she might not just see the statue, if you get my drift. Besides, she was really cute, and that gave me permission to touch her when I might not otherwise get to. Yow.

When they dropped us off at the base, the instructor smiled genially, and said that she was glad we enjoyed the trip. No future classes were allowed to consume alcohol.

Sorry guys.

You would have done it too, and you know it. :smiley:

2

Says the former wingnut

Grrrr.
Speaking as a trusty, crusty chief, you’re never officially off duty!!!

Ah, well. That’s the Air Force for you.

BTW, an ex-Sigonella boy here… grappa rocks.

3

Hence the quotation marks :slight_smile:

You’re double never officially off duty when you’re in an operating location :smiley:

4

Anyway, here’s how I fixed it for everyone, when I was in the military:

During the first year of my seven year stint in the Army, I went to Radiography school at Ft Sam Houston in San Antonio, TX. Part of that training was a one week field problem at a nearby base. Since it was November, and there was a bit of a chill in the air, we decided to set up the diesel stove/heaters. No one had any experience with them, but I volunteered to set them up, figuring I could wing it…

Pretty much everything fit together except for one strange piece. But it didn’t look neccessary anyway. I double checked the stoves and was sure they would work. We lit 'em up and…ahhh, warmth. That night we had a grand old time tossing all our used MRE wrappers into the stove and watching them burn up. Did I also mention that our GP Large tents were right under an old oak tree? Anyway, pretty soon we smell smoke, then we hear screams from the girl’s tent. We run outside to see that a large oak branch has caught on fire and has fallen on the girl’s tent, which has caught on fire itself. We all run around like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to save all our stuff. Someone kicks over the stove, so the little fuel cannister is rolling around, dumping diesel on the ground and setting everything else on fire. In the end, we had two tents burn to the ground, as well as most of an oak tree and several hundered square feet of dry grass. I consider us lucky.

Turns out that funny looking piece was the spark arrestor. Hmmph, who’d’a thunk it?

Anyway, no one ever had to sleep in tents out there again. They stayed at a nearby barracks building in comfort.

You’re welcome.

5

Never been in the service, and I haven’t ruined it for anyone that I know of, but I was present one time when my friend fixed it so that there were no more class trips in my high school.

We were in New Hope, PA for a drama competition (performance of original plays). Between the performances and the judges’ review, we had several hous to go out and see the town (it’s a real tourist trap, if you’ve never been there.)

My friend and this girl from some other high school did more than see the town. They were caught in a park doing…ahem, doing what people usually do in the bedroom.

They were arrested, and the police came and got the teachers from the theatre in the middle of the judges’ review. Luckily, they were released without bail. But charges were still pressed and the incident made the paper.

From that point on, all trips must be approved by the principal and have a damn good reason.