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Show Marvin J. Miller June 11 20 1 And we were up at h pherd Field-and I ha e this t say ab ut that part f J a , it', the one place where you can stand in the mud, knee-d ep and ha sand bl w in y ur fa e. We would go out and stand in the parade and the wind would blow. You'd be all w aty and have to come in and scrape the mud off. There was a mechanic's school, an airplane mechanics school at the base. And, so, part of our training round would be to familiarize us with the different things going on. And it was kind of basic training all over again being in the air force. We were waiting to be assigned to pre-flight training where they would send us to various colleges around the country. I was looking forward to that because some of the fellows-a young man that was in our group, his name began with "B". His name was Bates. He got his assignment and it was to Logan, Utah. Boy, I was looking forward to that. I thought, "Hey, that would be pretty hard to take, going up to Utah State. It was the AC then, an agriculture college, but that would be real neat and close to home. Before they got down to the M's-one of my best buddies was sent to pre-flight training-but before they got to the M's the order came down to close cadets. And the ones that had been sent to pre-flight training were reassigned to the infantry. My buddy happened to be a mechanic, and so he was assigned to a motor pool unit in the infantry. They gave us some tests there at Shepherd Field. And, according to the tests, I had the aptitude to be an airplane mechanic. But, lo and behold, there was no vacancy in the school. And they'd just suffered some losses of aerial gunners. And, so, they said, "You'll be assigned as a gunner on a bomber. We'll send you to gunnery school. And when you complete gunnery 5 |
