McLean and McLean, the North Atlantic Squadron

Its all in fun...and perfect for a festive Saturday night!

Driving While Drunk

Drunk Driving. A tale of how foolish you get when you get schnockered.

Oh yeah. Not guilty your worship, you see this is how it happened. (actually it never made it to court...that was just for dramatic emphasis!) There we were, in downtown Ottawa at Diamond Lil's Saloon. Me, Roger, and a young lady I'll call Jill. Skutch and Jim were with us, and the party went on until the wee hours. If you can call Ottawa's 1AM closing times "the wee hours".

Jill was our designated driver, so we just let the good times roll. We got well and truly pissed. They played all the old favorites...folksy stuff mostly, and when it came time to hit the road we ran into a slight problem. Seems that our designated driver could not drive a standard. Somehow we had overlooked this little problem in our original search for potable entertainment. Good old Roger though. He had an idea. I was smallest, and would sit behind the wheel, foot to clutch and hand to shift lever. Jill would sit on my lap, and would be responsible for gas, brakes, and steering. Skutch and Jim stayed in back and promptly passed out. Roger sat in the passenger seat and for some reason, worked the CB radio, as if it would make any difference.

Have you ever tried to work a clutch with somebody else working the gas pedal? Oh lordy, it was a disaster in the making. We must have stalled out a dozen times before we got started, and at least once every time we came to a stop at a red light. Jill would call out "first gear". I would say "rev the engine a bit Jill", and would get rolling. Then Jill would call out "second gear", I would shove in the clutch and pop it into second. And so on. And so forth. The Austin Marina had five forward gears, so I was kept pretty busy...couldn't even cop a feel off of Jill I was so busy! Didn't stop her from dipping her hand down from time to time to wake me up! Hmmph. The memories of a temptation resisted are always bitter.

Well, we rolled into the barracks just fine, and parked at the mess. No damage done. Roger signed off, thanking a fella he was chatting with who was ready to dispatch an ambulance at any moment, I tried to stand up and couldn't because there was no feeling left in my legs. Roger crashed in my absent roomies' bed, and Jill wandered off to the female barrack block. The next morning, over dry toast, coffee and aspirin, we got together and wondered once again how far adrift from common sense a bottle of alcohol can lead you.

The road less traveled part 2

It was General DeChastelaine who was attending a parade over in Europe that got pissed off by not being able to count the belt buckles on his soldiers. To be fair, these were pot bellied pasty faced highly experienced radar watchers, not flat bellied steel eyed French soldiers serving out their conscripted tour before going into University, but they looked bloody arful and by extension, made him look bad, no doubt his fellow NATO generals were giggling behind his back. And these same slack bellied geeks were still beating the pants off every other nation in military exercise after military exercise because, well, experience counts. We had just had force reduction after force reduction, and there was zero deadwood left to trim! A decade of getting rid of the lower scoring 25% of the force had resulted in a large number of very experienced, very competent, highly trained old guys who didn't really do PT any more, thank you. But we could fix those radar units and aircraft better and faster than anybody else.
The usual physical fitness test was yearly, and it involved running a mile and half in under 12 minutes. That was about it. Yup. Since we only did the tests once a year, it was unsurprising that people were keeling over from the sudden stress.
So enter the BMI tests. That means "Body Mass Index", and they test 5 rolls of fat all around your body, add your height, and take the square root of the added up total to come up with the BMI. Honestly I don't think I could come up with anything better....but it is a truism that BMI is not applicable when a group of athletes is being tested. The error is that General DeC. wanted to make us all into athletes. Ten years later, the results are in. The BMI system is pretty much discredited since not ALL of the techies being subjected to compulsory PT were slack asses....many of them WERE athletes. If running 5 miles a day makes me an athlete, then I flatter myself that I was one. And I never once passed my BMI.

The compulsory PT was kind of neat....the usual suspects would show up, run around the gym for awhile, wait for the bored supervisor to go into his office, and they would duck out the door to have a smoke. At one point, I was the only one running in a gym which had about fourteen people only a few moments before. They thought they were unobserved...ha!. I just ran. And ran. And ran. Then I would hit the gym, lift weights for a couple of hours, then shower, chow down, and show up for a full days work. The slack asses of course were slack asses on their jobs, and they got cycled out in the normal course of events in any case. Though I do have to admit to learning a valuable lesson from those slackers....the guy who never does anything never does anything wrong! Its hard to get rid of a guy who never does anything wrong!

I got my first BMI test in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, and when my promotion came through, my Warrant Officer had to have a letter from my physician that I was losing weight. And was likely to continue to lose weight. His phone call that morning was priceless since he called me really early, told me not to eat breakfast, nor drink any coffee. That if possible I was to have a really good sxxx because they would be weighing me that morning. The weight was the lowest I had ever had, and they gave me my rather overdue promotion to Master Corporal....a rank equivalent to tech sergeant, and in my opinion a very big deal. In civilian life, that would be considered foreman, or straw boss.

Upon the closing down of Summerside Base, I was transferred to Ottawa, where I seemed to hit it off badly with every single supervisor, and this led to the incident I outlined in the first part. And by request, here is the rest of the story. Its not pretty. And there are no winners. There may be lessons though, so it is worth writing it all down.

I will make a statement that seems very strange, but I have plenty of reason to back it up...and that is it seems the only real way a newly minted Sergeant or for that matter, a Master Corporal can get ahead is to prove that they are ruthless enough to destroy some body's career. The rungs of their ladder of success is made up of the careers of people they have destroyed on the way up. Somebody likened it to the "Eye of Sauron" which you avoid at all costs, and then when it focuses on you, you feel like an ant in the focus of a burning glass. The BMI program just gave these people another weapon they can use for their nefarious purposes. Oh, I am sure that this doesn't REALLY happen...but it is a solid bet that if you treat every situation that comes up as an eye of Sauron situation, you will be okay. Rather like defensive driving....you know...where will I drive to if that guy coming up the road suddenly swerves into my path, that sort of thing. In this case, I found it helpful to write down every single order in my notebook and my response to it because I had discovered the hard way that the guy giving the order really WAS out to get me!
And the spin they can put on it! I had a Sergeant come up to me one time and tell me "You know you have to electrically ground the airplanes." I was in the process of doing just that, even to holding a grounding cable in my hand, and it was such an odd thing that I made a note of it. Some three months later, that same sergeant was referring to her notes and among other things, stated "On the 23rd of June, had to be told to ground the airplanes". Another time, she said "You know, you need 6 people on a tow crew." I looked out at my crew, counted a full six plus one extra I had just called up to help manoeuvre this big plane around some equipment. Again, I made a note of it and the names of the crew, and sure enough, it came out later "Master Corporal needed to be told the correct number of people to tow an aircraft safely". I had to refer to my notes to be able to refute those absurd statements, but without my notebook, I would have been sunk!
And its a darned good thing that I photocopied that notebook. I had to turn it over a dozen times, never to be seen again! As was the medical report that said my BMI was just fine for the athlete I clearly was. That report was supposed to be on my record, but every year when I was called in to review my record, I had to re-insert a copy of that deferment because it had somehow gone missing!
That summer, every single Master Corporal ended up on charge, heels together, hat under the arm. Not a court martial, but a lesser drum head trial called a "summary trial". Including me. And even now, years later, I still contend that another fellow did me in and wasn't man enough to admit it. My notebook was unaccountably silent for the time in question. Just rushing that day, didn't bother to write it all down. But...to avoid the Eye for two years was pretty good!

I can't say I enjoyed those four years, but it was the most intense four years of my life. The game was clearly laid out, and I was playing it pretty well. And from what I can tell from people who are still in, that the game is still being played much the same way, with much the same results. I am still not sure what I did to piss off so many people, but I THINK it was because I was always the loose cannon...the one they barely had control over. I don't have any hatred for those people...they just picked on the wrong guy, and I generally played better than they did....though sooner or later, you come to the proverbial "horse which never bin rode"*. They only have to win once....you have to win every time.
I guess the only thing that kept me going during that time was the old story about the Tsar and the Cossack. Seems the Cossack had been caught stealing the Tsar's horses and the Tsar sentenced him to death. "Wait, your majesty, wait....there is something you should know!" What is that? asked the Tsar. "If you spare my life, your majesty, although I have no treasure to give you, I can do one thing....and that is, I can teach your horse to talk". I see by the look on your face that you don't believe me! Well, you know, we Cossacks have a way with horses, and if you spare me for a year, I can teach your horse to talk!" Truly! Well, the Tsar spared the wiley cossack for a year, and forced him to live in the stables to spend every day teaching his horse how to talk. The stablehand saw him doing that, day after day, and scoffed "You can't teach a horse to talk!" The cossack answered...well maybe...but you see, I have bought myself a year. A lot can happen in a year. I might die, or the Tsar might die. Or maybe, just maybe...the horse will talk."

*(old cowboy quote..."aint never been a horse that never bin rode, aint never bin a rider that never bin throwed")

Reminisciences

I told this story before....but its still a good 'un. This time of year makes me think about the times I spent fixing "Tracker" airplanes in Newfoundland. Winter time was our busy time because we would be supporting the search and rescue people in the very unforgiving North Atlantic Ocean, plus dealing with all those factory ships stealing our fish.

(another story of the characters I met while on Detached Duty..."on Det" in Torbay Newfoundland sometime in the late '90s.)

A poser, technically speaking, is somebody who is attempting to be something they are not. In particular, something they perceive their peer group expects them to be. When they suceed, they often get promoted, when they fail, they get branded a "Poser". Military people meet them all the time....the foul mouth drill sergeant who raises flowers, and has to psych himself up to stand there and shout at the troopies. The pay accounts clerk who drops her paycheck into the G-string of the male stripper on"Ladies Night"and leaves him in the parking lot well out of site of her girfriends.

All the folks who sow their wild oats all week, and go to church on Sunday to pray for a crop failure.Guys have this bad, and military guys even more so. The stories and rumours of infidelities among military guys is statistically unlikely, and surprisingly enough (especially to our wives who talk about us incessantly in coffee klatches) the stories are mostly not true.

Which brings us to the biggest Poser I ever knew, Pierre C. (Name is truncated to protect the damned guilty!) A Man's Man, big, tough, works out in a gym he actually pays for instead of the one on the base, talks big. According to Pierre, he has laid with every woman in St. John, Summerside, Halifax, Trenton and as far as I know, Tim Buc Tu. He used to say with great emphasis and meaning "What Happens on Det STAYS on Det". Which I suspect means something like "I won't tell on you if you don't tell on me." Yeah, fine, whatever. I worked with his wife, and just decided that the less I dealt with this guy, the better me, my career and my mental health would stay. But on this occasion, he was the Master Corporal 2 i c of the Detached Duty team in Torbay Newfoundland that I was assigned to.


So one fine evening as the fog finally grounded the airplanes after a bee-och of 13 hour shift, yet again, we were sittin' around the common room in the barracks. Frying sausages, shooting the breeze, swapping lies. We were all pretty tired...it had been a long day, and some had ducked over to George Street to listen to the music and have a few brewskies before bedding down. There was a 6AM launch, so by ten, most of us had made it back home and were watching Hockey Night In Canada. Just like in a movie, the door opens, and in comes Pierre, all quiet like. Not like him at all!

So he brings us a bottle of Woods Dark Rum (my favorite!) and says "hey guys, I got a girl here, stay out of my room for the next hour or so eh!". So I sez to Pierre....Well, bring her in here for a drink Pete, we won't bite! Pierre gets kind of evasive, and says he has to go, she's waitin in his room for him. "Enjoy the bottle, and I'll see you all in the morning" . Why was this odd? Well, we were a really small det, and we each had rooms to ourselves that trip. Privacy is something we had, and jealously guarded when we managed to get it. So, like , Pierre didn't have to tell us to not bother him, in fact there was no reason other than bragging to inform us of his situation. And that business with the bottle. Well, he WAS an openhanded sort, but rarely like this. Something fishy here.

Clever guy this Pierre. He knew the first thing we would do as soon as we heard his door close is creep real silent like down the hallway, and put a glass to the door. (Oh come on, you'd a done the same!) So heres the three of us, listening at the door. We can hear a man's voice, the sound of shoes hitting the floor. Four shoes...good sign. Then the squeak of the iron army bed. A pause, and another squeek, then another. Then a nice rythymic squeeking! "Ah" said I, "The game is afoot". (Or slurred words to that effect). We went back to the common room, the guys were all buzzing about what kind of a guy this Pierre is, and what would we tell his wife, (Hey, you KNOW, what happens on Det STAYS on Det eh!) , and maybe there was just a tiny touch of envy.
Then, I had an idea.
Many ideas I had in those days I blame on the skinfull of black pusser rum, causes me to do things I shouldn't. ....so I suggested that perhaps we should get a look at this cutie. He is on the ground floor, right? Uh huh. We could see the light under the door so the light is on right? Uh huh. Maybe he didn't pull his curtains? You could almost see the lights come on behind their eyes as they suddenly got it. So, we turned the TV up a little louder, and snuck outside, tramping through the snow to peek into Pete's window.


What we saw was Lucky Pierre, the Man's Man, "woman in every port", the guy who cheated on his wife by his own admission every chance he got, sitting on his bed, all by himself, bouncing up and down on the mattress, making the springs squeek. "Right," we all agreed later. "This guy really IS a devoted family man, and a good father, a hard worker, who wants us to believe that he is this drunken cheatin' bastard. We know his secret now...he's a good man after all! All that cheating and hard drinking stuff! Thats bogus!"What a Poser!"


But oh damn....we can't tell anybody. Because what happens on Det STAYS on det.

Christmas Day 1978

The nice thing about being in the Military is the routine. There is always a fish dish on Fridays in the Mess Hall, and downstairs in the wet mess, the beer is always cold. Not such a bad life, all in all, unless of course you are the Duty Corporal. There is always a "duty corporal" selling meal tickets to people who don't have meal passes, and he cards visitors at the wet mess all evening. He wears a hat all day, and is not allowed to drink.

Being a Duty Corporal is an all day job. That is to say, it starts at nine in the morning, and goes until nine in the morning. In Uplands Air Base, there was a billet in the barracks that the Duty Dog would attempt to sleep in. The Duty Corporal was one of those positions where you can mess up really easily, and get zero credit for doing things right.

Along with a handshake from my CO, my promotion to Corporal was accompanied by a request to see the Base Chief Warrant Officer. In the army, this fellow would be called the RSM, but in the Air Element, we called him the Base Chief, though not to his face of course. I expected to get my first Duty Dog Duty that day, and sure enough, thats what it was all about. Pick up the cash box, hang around the HQ for a briefing and a HUGE ring of keys, go draw my blankets and make my bed at the barracks, all the usual rigamarole which goes with a minor military duty like this. I remember this particular briefing quite clearly however because the Base Chief asked me to (get this!!!) "shut the door, sit down and I want to make you a deal".

Base Chiefs don't make deals with Corporals.

"Its coming up on Christmas next week, and I don't want to put a family guy in the job as Duty Corporal. Most of the other Cororals who are "living in" are on leave this Christmas...but you are in Aircraft Servicing, and THEY don't get holidays. Here's the deal...you work the Christmas Day, and I won't assign you to a Duty for a whole year!

I thought about that one for about 2 point five seconds. Secondary duties play havoc on shift workers, and to get out of this one for a year would mean at least 5 or 6 times that my schedule would not be thrown wonky by sudden sleep pattern changes. So, I agreed to it. Then, (OMG!) he actually shook my hand and congratulated me on my promotion!

So you guessed it. I was there for the next three years, and for the next three years I did Christmas Day Duty.