That afternoon we were taken to the local airport where we were boarded onto a Northeast Airlines airliner. It appeared to be a regular commercial flight as it was filled with civilian passengers. Once aboard, we were seated as a group toward the back of the plane. We all had that “deer in the headlights” look to our eyes. We were squirming around in our seats trying to take everything in. I’m sure most of these guys were like me, just boys who had never really been away from home before. I had never flown on an airplane and it was quite the experience. As soon as we had taken off and were at cruising altitude the stewardess started offering the passengers “liquid refreshment”. I noticed some of the boys were winking and grinning at each other. Soon the stewardess was handing the boys miniature bottles of "booze" which they paid for and quickly poured into their glasses. The stewardess never questioned any of the boys ages, assuming that if they were old enough to serve in the military they were old enough to drink. My anxiety rose as I saw them order more drinks and knew that before long that they would be intoxicated. I was way too inexperienced and timid to say anything. I knew no one would pay any attention to me anyway. I just sank back in my seat and closed my eyes.
We landed in New York and were to be transferred to a different airline. I can remember sitting in a hallway somewhere half scared out of my wits. My head was killing me and I felt sick to my stomach. Luckily, after a while my headache backed off and I started to feel better. Eventually someone came to get us and directed us to follow them. We were led back out onto the tarmac. Sitting there, shining in the late evening sun, was this old style airliner. It was a Piedmont Airlines DC3.
This old airplane had a tip down door with stairs built into it. We climbed the stairs into the passenger cabin. The plane had two large wheels in the front and a small trailing wheel in the back. As we entered the cabin we had to walk uphill to climb into our seats. I thought, “Great, another bargain for the U.S. government.” As we flew on this last leg of the flight the guys continued to drink. I had grown weary of worrying and decided I would just take my lumps when we showed up at Fort Bragg. I finally just fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.
We landed somewhere late in the night. I had no idea where. We wearily got off the plane and stepped into the chill damp night air. Blinking my sleepy eyes, I looked around, trying to see where we were and noticed a young, sleepy looking, army corporal waiting nearby, apparently waiting for us . He seemed no older than we were. On the damp and puddled tarmac, we gathered together into this ragged group of tired young boys in wrinkled and smelly civilian clothes. The young corporal, doing his best to sound authoritive, told us to follow him. He led us to what appeared in the dim, misty surroundings, to be some kind of loading dock made of old wooden timbers. Everything was saturated as though it had just recently stopped raining heavily. In between yawns, he wearily instructed us sit down and wait. We were not to wander off, that someone was coming from Fort Bragg to pick us up, and would be there in a few minutes. After making sure that we understood him, he stumbled off into the darkness leaving us to our own thoughts of, what seemed to us, an unknown fate. He had apparently had been given this late night assignment of meeting our plane and was now headed back to his nice warm bed.
Lucky him!
1 comment:
Hurry up and wait.... I remember it well.
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