Owen
Hornstien sitting in my hooch room, obviously under some influence
In 1972, I was in the Air Force and stationed with the 23rd
Tactical Fighter Wing in England Air Force Base, Louisiana. Not a great assignment,
but not a bad one either. It was really hot and humid in the summer, but not
too bad in the winter. When I chose the assignment, one of my other choices
was Minot, North Dakota. I wonder if I made the best choice.
In 1973, we mobilized and went to Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base and was assigned to the 388th TFW. It was during the end of the Vietnam War.
I wanted to take a guitar along with me, but our baggage was limited to a duffel bag and our tool box. There was no way that I could smuggle a guitar along.
I had bought a Harmony banjo and was dinking around with it as a result of seeing the movie Jeremiah Johnson which featured the classic "Dueling Banjos." I wasn't very good at it, but it was a goal that was helping me grow musically.
I took a good look at the banjo and discovered that it could be broken down to a pile of pieces that looked nothing like a banjo. The longest piece ended up being the neck which was little more than a walking stick by the time it was totally disassembled. I managed to get it all into my tool box and duffel bag and carried the "stick." Once I got to Thailand, I reassembled it and had at least something to pick when I got there. I eventually bought a classical guitar there which I couldn't bring back, being under the same baggage constraints on my return.
I worked pretty diligently on the banjo and was making progress on it. I had picked up limited versions of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" and "Earl's Breakdown" and was getting more familiar with chord positions. I couldn't improvise any lead work though, and that was where my real interest lied.
Somehow, word started getting around that I was a banjo player and through a series of contacts that I cannot recall, I managed to tag up with a fellow named Lynn Collins. He was playing a regular gig at the Officers Club there and had managed to get his gear over there. That included a Fender Telecaster guitar that he had modified with a second string bender that he invented and his Fender Twin Reverb Amp. Lynn was from California and had played with Tom T. Hall (I think) as well as a few other Southern California country artists. He was good.
Lynn and I sat in his room one evening and he asked if I would like to join him for a few songs at the club. I wanted to, but didn't feel like a good enough banjo player to pick with someone of his caliber. He insisted that it would be great and so I agreed. I practiced as hard as possible for the days leading up to the gig and was getting fairly comfortable with the idea.
I worked the graveyard shift at the time, starting at midnight and ending at 8 a.m. My job was to clean up all the unfinished jobs as well as possible and I was pretty good at it. I had pride in my work and was fairly well respected for my work ethics. Air data computers and oil quantity problems were two of my specialties and those jobs generally waited until I came in to be tackled. I didn't sleep well during the daytime, but I managed to cat nap through the days and evenings to get enough rest.
So, I could play and then head over to the shop afterwards. Or so I thought.
When I got to the club, I decided to have a beer before I had to go on stage. During the second set, Lynn called me up and I nervously went up on stage. He introduced me, probably the first professional introduction I had ever had, and we launched into "Dueling Banjos." The place went crazy! The only thing I remember specifically about the playing was that I was terrible. But the flyboys, and that's what made up the majority of the crowd, did an awful lot of whooping it up. My guess is that it was the beer talking.
We did four songs, and "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" was repeated during that set as a fifth. I was nervous as a cat dropped into death row at the dog pound. I decided to have another beer. At the end of the set, Lynn asked if I could stay and do the same material during the last set. I checked the time and decided that would be okay. I had another beer.
The next set went marginally better than the first, and I was pretty euphoric by the time I was finished. I opted not to have one more beer at the conclusion of my stint on the stage, grabbed my banjo and headed off for work.
To get to the instrument shop where I worked, you had to enter a secure area. That meant a security clearance and a line badge to show you belonged there. I had mine and went in as normal. When I got to the shop, no one was there, but there was a note that only one guy from swing shift was still there and he was at the trim pad, a place where they anchor a jet to the ground so they can run the engines up to 100 percent, working on an oil quantity job.
So, I called for transportation (a Thai-driven panel van that could carry about 15 men), grabbed my tool bag and looked over some of the other jobs that needed to be worked on or finished. It was hot, so I took my jungle fatigue shirt off so I could just work in my t-shirt. I forgot to get my line badge off the fatigue shirt.
When transportation arrived, I climbed aboard and told the driver I needed to go to the trim pad. It was about a mile away at the end of the runway, out in the "boonies." After a few stops for other guys, we headed down to the trim pad. When I got there, the swing shift guy—let's call him Jones, who I had little faith that could complete any job—told me they were just starting to run the engines for our tests. He quickly jumped on the truck and disappeared off into the night without so much as a "kiss off."
I started working on the job and noticed that Jones had picked up one of the bad oil quantity testers. It was marked "bad" but he had picked it up anyway. That really pissed me off and began a downhill spiral for me. I now had to call back to the operations center and tell them I needed transportation back to the shop. Now I could only sit and wait.
A word about oil quantity testers. The oil quantity on an A7D upon which I was working was based on radiation passing through the oil tank. The more oil, the less radiation is received by the receiving sensor, the less oil, the more radiation. The tester, being a radiation measuring device, had a large radiation warning marker on all of its sides. It looked rather ominous, although it was not really dangerous at all.
And now, back to our story.
I packed up the bad tester and the truck came to pick me up. By this time, I had noticed that I did not have my line badge. I specifically told the driver, "Don't leave the flight line because I left my badge in the shop. He nodded and we headed back toward the shop. However, we drove right past it. I was now even more angry because we were heading all the way to the other end of the secure area to drop some other guys off. He could have let me out, but didn't. So I'm stewing in the back of his truck, mumbling something about wasted time and the lameness of the swing shift and getting madder by the minute.
Then, the driver, against my earlier request, drives right out the gate of the secure area. You don't need a badge to get out, just in.
We drive all the way to the chow hall to drop off three guys and then promptly drive right back to the same gate we just came out. The guards, two Thais, won't let me in. I explain the whole story, but they don't speak enough English and I don't speak enough Thai to get the situation across. I have to get out. I told the driver to contact Control to tell them where I am and that my badge is in the shop and he says he will and drives his cargo of men off to their respective destinations.
Now I'm really mad! I know he won't call and I'm sure I can't get the guards to understand my predicament.
I've got this 10-pound tester, a 10-pound tool bag, and I'm at least a half mile from my shop with no way to get to my badge. I start walking toward the gate that is closer to my shop. I have to stop and change hands frequently because the tester cuts into my hand. Here I am, 2 a.m. in the morning, no military uniform of note, walking down the fence of the secure area with a "radioactive" device in my hand. You would think that someone, anyone, would stop me and ask what's going on.
Not a soul.
After a hot and sweaty half mile walk carrying 10 pounds in each hand, I arrive at the gate. They won't let me in either. I'm so pissed off that I can't see straight.
I look around—I can see my shop and can darn near throw my took bag to its door—and I notice that Control is just to my left. The secure fence runs right up to the side of the building. So I carry my stuff over to the front door of Control, set it down and try the front door. It's open and I pick up my stuff and walk in. Now, I'm a t-shirted, radioactive device carrying stranger in the Control building. I walk through its halls, past the darkened Control Room where all the maintenance activities are monitored, people look at me but don't say anything, and I finally walk out the back door…which is inside the secure area and right behind my shop.
For a brief moment, I'm feel satisfied.
I walk into the shop, get my badge off my shirt and clip it to my t-shirt, set down the bad tester and look for one that is good. We have four, but they are problematic and constantly needing repair. I pick up one, open it up and discover that I have written "BAD" on a card inside it. I set it on the table intending to fuss about it in the morning at shift change. I pick up the third one and there are no markings on it, so I assume it is good. I call for transportation and wait once again, doing some paperwork and organizing while I wait. I hear a honk and head out again.
Again, I ride down to the trim pad with tester and tools in tow, badge clipped to shirt. Once there, I crank up the power unit, power up the plane, and begin my tests. At this point, I discovered that the tester I now have is also disfunctional. I now pissed off that I've spent at least three hours on a job that I can't finish. I'm frustrated, angry and ready to explode. I call for transportation and am soon back in the shop rummaging through our oil quantity testers only to discover that we don't have a single tester that is functional.
At this point, I lost it.
I picked up the oil quantity tester in front of me, lifted it high above my head and for all practical purposes, looked as if I was about to dash it onto the floor. At that instant, the NCOIC (non-commissioned officer in charge), one Master Sargeant Willington, opened the door to the shop and saw what looked like a maniac about to throw a nuclear device to the ground. He quickly slammed the door and I assume was running for the hills thinking his number was up. I will state right here that Willington was a weenie and everyone knew it.
I thought better of my actions and put the tester back onto the table. I looked through the remaining jobs and picked up all the work orders and headed back out to the flight line. From this point on, I kept a cool head and corrected and signed off on at least four or five jobs that had grounded those particular planes. In three hours, I put all of those planes back into service and none of them repeated; that is, none had a recurring problem with what I had repaired.
At the end of shift, I talked to the day shift supervisor and told him of the night's events, minus the angry bits. He listened, made notes and thanked me. I headed off to the hooch (my barracks). Once there, I showered to cool down and climbed into my bunk. I had just drifted off to sleep when I heard the phone down the hall ring. I knew it was for me.
I heard one of the mama sans call me, so I drug my incredibly tired and worn-out body out of my bunk and down to the phone. It was the shop chief. The Major wanted to see me. For an instant, I thought he might want to congratulate me on a job well done. But then my better judgement prevailed and I knew that Willington had said something about the events.
When I got to the Major's office, I was escorted in and, sure enough, there was Willington. The Major, who was a likeable kind of guy, put me at ease and then proceeded to inform me that Willington had filed a compalint about my actions. I relayed the entire story to the Major while Willington sat there—like a weenie.
Then the Major laid it on the line. Willington claimed that I had "red eyes" and might have been under the influence of drugs. He said that I had been seen personally by him holding a dangerous piece of equipment over my head.
Crap.
I told the Major about the previous evening and the three beers I had drunk, but that I had not done any drugs. I also told him about the nature of the piece of test equipment that I had been having issues with and that I was only frustrated over not being able to do my job to the best of my ability. It didn't matter and I got remanded to mandatory urinary testing. That means that you have to go to the hospital and pee in a bottle so they can check it out. I had no problem with what they would find, but I had not had anything to eat since the day before, and I had had copious amounts of coffee.
I requested that I be allowed to eat breakfast first, but was denied. So, I went over to the hospital with my sheet saying that I had to pee in a bottle. I freely admit to having a somewhat "shy peter" and that peeing on command in front of another guy is not the easiest thing to do. But I did my best and managed a bottle of fluid that could best be described as water with a few parasites. The orderly took one look at it and said, "Not enough gravity."
I said, "What?"
He said, "It's not yellow enough."
I countered, "How could it be? I've got nothing but coffee coursing through my veins."
By this time, it was about 9 a.m. I tried unsuccessfully to pee in the bottle at least three more times, but I was so dry that I got nothing. I sat and waited for the urge to hit me, but I could tell it wasn't going to happen. The waiting game began.
Then, about 11:30, a miracle happened in the form of Owen "Horny" Hornstien. Horny was my best friend in Thailand and an entire volume could be written about him alone. Suffice it to say, he was irreverent, overweight, hysterically funny, and commanded the respect of most who knew him.
Owen
Hornstien sitting in my hooch room, obviously under some influence
Horny walked into the hospital to get a scheduled shot and spotted me sitting on a couch. He asked me what I was doing. I relayed the entire story to him. He jumped up and said, "They can't do that to you! I'm going to talk to the Major!" At that he stormed out.
I sat there for a few more minutes and finally went over to the orderly. I said, "Listen. I am not going to have enough gravity until I can get something into my system. Please let me walk over to the chow hall and eat lunch." To my surprise, he did.
Upon my return, I now had to pee. I said, "Let's go," and we both walked into the men's room. He stood behind me to make sure I didn't somehow have a cup of someone else's pee and I let fly into the cup. It was yellow. Upon completion, I walked out, handed the bottle to the lab guy and headed for the door to go get some rest. Just then, Horny jumped off the bus and yelled, "Dave, you don't have to do it. The Major says you can leave."
I thanked him, but said it was taken care of and headed back to the hooch.
The next morning, I got a message to go see the Major at the end of my shift. When I went in, he smiled at me, put me at ease and told me that I had quite a friend in "Sgt. Hornstien." I agreed. He told me that Horny had walked into his office and said, "You can't do that to Melton. He's my friend." Horny said he pounded his fist on the Major's desk. The Major didn't mention that. He apologized that the situation got somewhat out of hand and told me that I should be careful and not drink within a certain period of duty. I said, "Yes, sir," and assured him that I would not do it again.
The Major also told me that he realized that Willington can be a real weenie sometimes and that I should be careful around him.
I played many more times with Lynn Collins and learned a great deal about showmanship
from him. The last time I saw him, we had just seen "2001: A Space Oddessy"
and I said my goodbyes to him in front of the theater. I gave him a hug, probably
the first adult male hug I ever gave, and damn near cried when I walked away.
I miss good guys like that.