Life on the Air Base

Compared to the Army and Marines in the field, being in the Air Force was like belonging to a country club.  Even though the barracks was one long open room, we formed 4 man cubicles with our lockers and bunks. My three roommates and I bought a refrigerator off of someone who shipped out. We then promptly stocked it with beer and soda.  The refrigerator was never locked and beer and soda was sold on the honor system and the paper money was put into a box in the fridge.  We doubled the actual cost of beer and soda.  We sold beer for 50 cents and soda for a quarter.  This allowed us to drink as much soda and beer as we wanted to for free. The sale of beer covered the cost of our beer and soda.

Ken, who was from my home state of Massachusetts, always bought one case of Carling Black Label Beer. Everyone was forbidden to drink his beer.  What he did not understand is that no one else wanted his beer, so it worked out fine. We only had one problem, beer was rationed.  We could only buy 3 cases of beer a month.  We always ran out of beer before the month was out, so we had to find someone who was not a beer drinker and entice them into going to the base exchange (BX) with us to use his ration card to buy 3 more cases of beer.

I had a friend on our flight, who refused to walk to the BX to use his ration card because a walk to the BX caused one to sweat so badly that you felt like you needed to take another shower when you got back to the barracks.  No problem.  Walter was blue eyed, blond, weighed about the same as me and was about my height. Instead of walking to the BX, he gave me his ID and his ration card,  3 more cases of beer became available for the refrigerator, and as soon as I retire I will visit my friend Walter and thank him for being such a great friend during one of the most stressful times of our lives.