I’m uploading the images now so I can provide them with commentary here, so others don’t have to make the jump if they don’t want to. I just thought there were some good points to make when EC mentioned he’d gone there for his AF training (Who knew? he could have been in my “brother” flight at Lackland!) I knew the base was closed, but had NO IDEA it was in this state.
EL Coyote
December 27, 2015 5:01 pm
Our sister flight was all male. Mid 70’s, not the 90’s. Sorry, sister.
Axel
December 27, 2015 5:25 pm
Eerily, these look just like scenes out of a computer game I am playing–Fallout 4.
Billy
December 27, 2015 5:27 pm
I’ll take those big old chalkboards…
I love slate chalkboards.
Maggie
Author
December 27, 2015 5:29 pm
Chanute was a BIG training base when I first entered the Air Force. If I hadn’t gotten my first choice of AWACS Radar, my second choice was to be stationed at Chanute where I would at least be reasonably close to home (and the old boyfriend, of course. Thankful beyond belief I got AWACS.)
But, when I casually went to this site to look at these photos of the “abandoned training base” I was shocked at how destroyed it is.
Walter Arnold is the photographer who snuck onto the base to take the photos: He says “It didn’t take long for me to discover that shortly after the decision was made to close the base, the Illinois EPA found Asbestos and Mold on the base.”
This caused the base to be declared it an environmental disaster site. The base was completely abandoned, declared unsafe for human habitation (in spite of the fact that the better part of a century it had housed many tens of thousands of trainees for years at a time) and the entire facility was left to rot and become what you see below.
Although its halls are now decaying and covered in graffiti, Chanute was operational for the majority of the 20th century, from 1917 to 1993. For those 75 years and over two World Wars, it functioned as a technical training center for the Air Force. At the time of its closure, it was the country’s third-oldest active base.
Arnold’s photos take us inside the eerie ruins of the Chanute base, which looks as if it has been abandoned for far longer than 22 years.
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The interior of the White Hall at Chanute.
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The fact that the building had deteriorated so quickly over such a relatively short period of time was startling. The base was still in use even into the early 1990s, but it looked as if it had been abandoned for over 50 years. This was easily one of the more toxic locations visited.
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Asbestos and mold were abundant. Many of the inside rooms had standing water. Drop ceilings had fallen, along with light fixtures, and everything was rusted. In most of the interior spaces there were calcium stalactites and stalagmites as if the ceilings were dissolving. The photographers used breathers in parts of the building, especially in areas that were closed off with no outside air circulation.
After the shoot Arnold found EPA reports online that talked of heavy contamination on the grounds, and even some articles that claimed the possibility of “Agent Orange” on the site but could not be confirmed.
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From a different article: [https://www.dcbureau.org/201403319751/natural-resources-news-service/chanute-air-force-base-air-forces-legacy-lies-heartland.html]
Military flight operations ceased in 1971 – an indication of Chanute’s waning strategic importance. The base almost closed in 1979, but the U.S. government decided to keep it open. Capital expansion projects were completed in the 1980s, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. But these projects did not stop the Department of Defense in 1988 from listing Chanute as one of 17 bases to be closed.
The local community is a wasteland, with unemployment and poverty taking over what was once a thriving little community.
Rantoul Today
Just off Interstate 57, Rantoul is an economically-challenged, blue-collar community in a predominantly agricultural region. The village shrank from about 25,000 to under 13,000 citizens after the base closed. With the surplus of vacant rental properties and homes, the school district lost a large portion of its tax base. It went from economic prosperity to poverty in quick succession. Vacant housing became occupied with Section 8 low-income tenants. Crime sharply increased. Large businesses were reluctant to invest in the community. In the ghostly downtown, several of the buildings are vacant or dilapidated. Some businesses are only open part-time.
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Back to original article…
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[https://www.dcbureau.org/201403319751/natural-resources-news-service/chanute-air-force-base-air-forces-legacy-lies-heartland.html] Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan wanted Chanute placed on the NPL because the state and Air Force could not agree on how to clean it up. For seven years, from the closure in 1993 until the presidential election in 2000, the Air Force fought the NPL nomination, fearing the listing would be a stigma, citing its “exemplary cooperation” in Chanute’s chemical cleanup, despite the minimal action that was taken.
Bush’s OMB Keeps Chanute Off Superfund List
During the George W. Bush administration, the DOD claimed victory over the EPA. Under President Bush, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget mediated the EPA and Air Force dispute and ruled in favor of the Air Force in 2003. The Base Realignment and Closure Cleanup Team (BCT) signed an agreement to have Chanute cleaned up by Oct. 1, 2005, or be placed on the NPL. That date has come and gone, but Chanute has not been either cleaned up or placed on the NPL.]
Back to original article:
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Maggie
Author
December 27, 2015 5:30 pm
EC, I joined early 80s. I’m one of the first female AWACers… opened to women in ’82.
Maggie
Author
December 27, 2015 5:35 pm
My big issue with discovering this abandoned base that is so “toxic” to the environment it had to be abandoned to the point of letting it turn into garbage rather than let Billy salvage the chalkboards.
Why? Did the EPA dicks who labelled it as environmentally unsafe get a big promotion and not brief their replacement on what to do about it. How does such a thing just fall off the radar?
kokoda
December 27, 2015 5:44 pm
Looks like a city in Syria.
Maggie
Author
December 27, 2015 6:00 pm
@kokoda… EXACTLY. It looks like something from a war torn ghetto.
IndenturedServant
December 27, 2015 6:13 pm
I wish I had a single source of images for parts of Torrejob Air Base juse east of Madrid, Spain. It would take days to gather them all up and edit as needed so I won’t bother.
The USA moved out in 1992 when Spain refused to renew the contract. TJ or TAB was a joint base with the Spansh Air Force operating on one end and us gringos operating the rest of it. The runway there is the longest in all of Europe. Although never needed, it was an alternate landing site for the Space Shuttle if it had to abort powered flight to space. After we bailed the Spaniards intended to greatly expand their operations there but quickly figured out they could not to live beyond theirs means at the same level we did.
My high school was just about in the center of that base and it and many other portions of the base have fallen into complete disrepair and collapse. Each year a former classmate gains access and posts a few more pictures of the advancing decay. It’s pretty damned sad to see a place that played such a significant part of your youth in ruins.
Today the base itself is doing better. Us gringos maintain a very tiny presence there in case we need to use the base for staging as we did during both Iraqi wars. In recent years private enterprise has gained a foothold and the Spanish lease out land and buildings on the base. The Royal family moved their official and private air fleet there. Aerial fire fighters established a base of operations there flying PBY Catalinas. The European Space Agency has a number of facilities there now and the Spanish Air Force is still doing their thing.
The buildings that made up my high school are probably too far gone to save. They were among the first built as dormitories for the American contractors that built the base in the 1950’s. They were converted into classrooms in 1962 when the high school moved from Calle Fleming Street in Madrid to the base.
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VietVet
December 27, 2015 7:01 pm
I did my avionics training at Chanute AFB from Aug 1971 to May 1972, then spent 19 months bouncing between U-Tapao AB and Nakhom Phanom ( Operating Location – NKP) Thailand with the 100th Reconnaissance Wing.
We flew drones into N. Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos finding targets for B-52s to destroy.
Chanute was a shithole then. I went to Torrejon AB Spain in June 1975 with the 401st Tactical Fighter Wing until my discharge after we were kicked out of Thailand.
Maggie
December 27, 2015 7:07 pm
Okay, VietVet, I believe you about it being a shithole then (am assuming it was an older WWII type base and a lot of the facilities had NOT been upgraded.), but am wondering if your training there was as terrible as mine (Electronics/Radar Theory and Operation) was at Keesler AFB, Ms.
Keesler twice. 1976 and 1978. Basic RADAR, then AN-FPS26 school. Then back to Minot.
OutLookingIn
December 27, 2015 7:19 pm
Kinda like a mirror image of American society.
VietVet
December 27, 2015 7:20 pm
@Ghost
I trained in flight instruments, compass and magnetic navigation and automatic flight control systems. There wasn’t a moment at Chanute that didn’t suck. All my classes were in White Hall. SE Asia was an upgrade from Chanute.
Rathole Illinois had no redeeming value. Keesler is still the AF training base for all avionics now. Chanute also was the training site for the missile, munitions guys hence the Agent Orange connection, and Nakhom Phanom was the Thai storage site for same substance.
Do you have any documents ir letters to share about this
VietVet
December 27, 2015 7:24 pm
At least you had the Gulf Coast to explore. ?????
Maggie
December 27, 2015 8:11 pm
VietVet… is true, although back then the beach was covered with globules of tar from the oil drilling offshore without proper filtering.
Chanute does sound like a pit… But, Keesler wasn’t much better, to be honest. There is a LOT of propaganda about how great the AF training is.
SSS
December 27, 2015 8:21 pm
I have visited, or stationed at, every Air Force base mentioned so far in this article by Maggie and commenters. All of them – Chanute, Lackland, Torrejon, U-Tapao, Nakhom Phanom (aka Naked Phantom), Keesler.
Most are gone. I feel older than dirt.
VietVet
December 27, 2015 8:35 pm
Maggie, the training in those days was what they called “self paced”. Basically you worked through blocks which contained some actual instructors, but mostly self learning modules. There was very little hands on, mostly basic electronics theory, function. Everything was still vacuum tube in those days.
I never believed that they cared if you actually learned anything as long as you progressed through the blocks. Most of my skills were “earned in the field”.
You’re correct on the buildings, I think White Hall was actually pre-WWII. The winter was brutal and the wind actually blew through the hallways. I spent that entire winter in longjohns and parka in class.
The dorm was WWII era but as you know, the AF methods have always been once built never repaired. Ice would form inside our room literally every night. I grew up in Arizona so winter weather was totally foreign to me in those days.
We had to march from the dorms and chow hall to class every morning about three miles down the old runways to White Hall, I had never been so cold in my life nor since.
I have a definitive hatred for Illinois to this day.
bb
December 27, 2015 9:22 pm
Maggie , let’s be honest . The only reason you got any promotion in the Air Force was because of Affirmative Action and Political Correctness.Your really not smart enough to be in the AWACers Are you ?You were the first AA placement. Nothing More.
Maggie
December 27, 2015 9:52 pm
I scored in the 98th percentile on the ASVAB and got rated as EWQ (Extremely Well Qualified). And I actually KNOW that means that 1 percentile scored higher than I. I was guaranteed either my first job choice (AWACS) or my first base choice (Chanute). Thankfully, I got my job choice, because it sounds like the fact that Chanute was just a few hours from my high school boyfriend had limited ability to make up for the shithole it was. Somewhere in my “I love me” paperwork and award boxes I have my original scoresheet from the recruiter, but I’ll skip finding it for you, since you’ve never bothered to figure out why your punctuation annoys me so.
VietVet, Basic Electronic blocks were “self-paced.” We built and soldered one circuit, used one multimeter to measure resistance and voltage and wrote one basic program. The instructors were simply there to take attendance. It was a terrible introduction to Air Force way of doing things. I had been fascinated with my brother’s electronics manuals from the early seventies from his training on avionics equipment in the Navy. He fixed airplane systems on the USS Forestall before the really bad crash (and yes, he was a firefighter on duty during that horrific night.)
Anyway, when I was in junior high school, he’d left his training books at the house and I’d grown fascinated with the slide rule and learned my way through his books. I was encouraged to join the AF because there were a lot of opportunities opening up in “high tech” careers, so having done poorly at college due to lack of preparation, I worked for a while, then opted for Air Force. But, I was very disappointed in the training and hoped that once I got to “sets” (strange how the nomenclature just comes right back to me here… I haven’t thought of this in years) it would improve.
It did NOT. The trainer for AWACS at Keesler had been created by Northrup Grumman, who played NO ROLE in the AWACS plane itself. In one of those bizarre contract bid fiascos, a company with no access to how the equipment actually worked built the trainer. Because they said they could do it for less.
Anyway, I guess the reason I found this whole situation of interest is that such an ENORMOUS amount of waste is involved in everything military. It is heartbreaking to me that so many lives are put on the line for so many unjust reasons and the preparation of young troops to do jobs that mean the life and death of so many are just kabuki theater. (Actually, to be honest, I don’t know if kabuki theater is the term I want… I just know that the training I went through at Keesler was pretend) Sure, I came out as a “honor grad.” So what… so did several other idiots in my class. You would have had to be a moron to fail; as a matter of fact, I don’t think they would LET anyone fail.
My real training at Tinker was slightly better, only because we had access to the real equipment and I could see how it worked and since I did understand circuitry and logic, I made a good technician. But, most of my fellow technicians did not and most of the people in charge really didn’t care.
The more I realize that everyone else’s military experience was similar to mine, the more it makes me think there is something terribly rotten in Denmark.
VietVet
December 27, 2015 10:27 pm
Maggie
One must consider the philosophical differences between AF and Navy’s purposes. The AF trains to specific system platforms i.e. F16 engine instruments. That’s all you will work once trained where the Navy trains electronics technician such that you’re eventually expected to repair “anything on the boat “. Navy techs are much superior in my experience.
Tech schools in the AF are mostly generalized with systems training in the field. I had retired navy guys working for me and they can literally repair anything.
Maggie
December 27, 2015 10:41 pm
@VietVet… I agree completely, but having learned all the academics from the Navy tech school my brother attended, I expected the Air Force to be similar. When it was NOT, I was very disappointed. I could repair the equipment on the AWACS radar, within the limitations of the airborne environment, because most of the cross trainees who I’d gone through tech school were former technicians as well. About half of them went into maintenance at Tinker and they taught me what they learned in FTD (wow! where did that come from out of my memory) while I was doing boring training like chem warfare, flight safety and other nonsensical BS the AF makes everyone do all the time to make them feel like they have a purpose.
Thanks for the information though. I really knew that though, because when I was asked to help write the Type One training for some IFF equipment that was modified for the AWACS, I jumped right into the Navy manuals and found the training materials they had put together for the same receiver transmitter put on the E=2C. Everyone thought I was a genius… the genius was in realizing the information already existed in excellent form in the Navy training manuals.
But, if I’d told them most of my stuff was derived from the Navy, I wouldn’t have gotten Airman of the Quarter and been awarded a 3-day pass, would I?
indialantic
December 27, 2015 11:04 pm
I attended “tech school” at Chanute AFB for five months from early March to August 1977 after basic training at Lackland. Chanute was a dump even in 1977. Get up early in the morning, eat, form up for roll call, then march to class by squadron in a long string of multiple troop flights.
I graduated from Analog Flight Simulator Specialist tech school on August 16, 1977…the day Elvis died.
EL Coyote
December 27, 2015 11:34 pm
indialantic, I might have seen you there. I was there from Christmas until the day Elvis died. Or thereabouts, because I recall we heard the news before it got west, when we called home, they knew nothing.
I got a little green listening to Maggie and VV’s conversation but I never knew dorm life there, I lived in town with my then wife. The missile dicks school was next to our class’ dorms. I had to be there each morning to march to school.
We were there almost a year so I have mostly forgotten all but a few things of no consequence. Having driven across from El Paso through Texarkana and up towards Chicago passing nondescript towns, Rantoul was no surprise, no disappointment. C/U was our weekend escape and Chicago a place to visit family in the person of my wife’s great-aunt and her family.
bb
December 27, 2015 11:47 pm
Indialantic , if I remember correctly you said you were in a boat accident. I was wondering if you ever got anything back ? Like your coins ? Or anothet boat ?
robert h siddell jr
December 28, 2015 12:03 am
OMG, bb and Maggie: Ya’ll play nice ya’hear. I think highly of you both. I went to Keesler Apr71 and there was still some destruction from Camile (Aug69); was class leader and had a 99 test avg (they put an observer on both sides when I took a test). Ignorantly thought that would get me something but the USAF Brass mostly care about Rank Privileges, Brown Nosing, the O Club, golf, the Academy Grads, minority promotions, good OERs and assignments, and The Very Loose Spare Tail Assemblies. PS: You don’t know cold until N. Dakota. I was called in the middle of the night to exercise a Tactical Communications Team and I told the Commander it’s a blizzard out there with -120 chill factor. He said if you can succeed now, I’ll know you can succeed anytime; great memories.
Maggie
December 28, 2015 12:52 am
I’m good robert h. sidewinder. haha
It was in the Air Force at Keesler that I got my liking for twisting people’s names into nicknames. when I went through leadership school as a SSgt, I wrote a tribute to all the ass kissers in the class who were always trying to get a few brownie points from the Commandant so they might get some “wood.” I even presented it to the Commandant and offered to read it at graduation. He loved the poem but declined my offer. It started “Baa, Baa Black Sheep, Have you any wood? I’ve been kissing teacher’s ass and doing it so good, stating “yessir, I agree with you” every time I could! I need a plaque for my Crew Chief and one for my Shirt and one for the little crap I took down in the dirt.
I wrote a stanza for each of the dozen or so “top notch” airmen who were obviously competing for the much sought after awards on the lovely wooden plaques that proclaimed them to be the “best speaker” or the “best leader” or the “best patriot” and so on until ten of the stupid awards were handed out and then the Commadant’s personal award would be given to the highest scorer on all the tests. (No, I did not get it.)
It was hilarious, though, and when the awards were given out, some of my fellow students were withholding chuckles because they’d read it.
I went to Leadership School at All of my garbage, New Mexico. You ever go there SSS?
indialantic
December 28, 2015 8:15 am
You were training at Chanute AFB in 1977, Coyote? Small world. I really miss marching through the snow, ice and rain during March and early April. Loads of fun as you surely will recall.
The standing joke for all lowly AF/Army incoming troops was: “They don’t shoot you here; they “Chanute” you.” Take care my friend.
Rob in Nova Scotia
December 28, 2015 8:28 am
I find it neat to look at all this ruin porn. It reminds me that nothing lasts forever not even Laurentia. There are some neat blogs of abandoned buildings and houses. Maybe I’ll find a few links.
Maggie
Author
December 28, 2015 8:52 am
Rob, apparently the photographer of this piece makes a career out of photographing abandoned towns/cities/factories. I’d planned to look at some of them later but got distracted. We have a rainstorm that is literally dumping all the waters of the heavens on us.
Thank (ME) that the hillside in front of the log home has all that grass in place. If it didn’t, my lawn would be in the driveway now. There is just a bit of sod along the top edge, to prevent runoff of the final seeded portion planted in late November, but I got enough sunny days to sprout it and watered it enough to get it rooted.
October hillside:
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December hillside:
[img[/img]
Maggie
Author
December 28, 2015 8:59 am
@IS… I went to tech school with a Puerto Rican named Alex Muniz who was an honor guard and sharp as a tack in radar theory. He was stationed at Torrejob Air Base and within a couple years was dishonorably discharged for some sort of drug related charges and the very few contacts mutual friends have had tell a sad story of someone who lost his way while there.
He was a good guy in tech school with high hopes of building a better life.
Rob in Nova Scotia
December 28, 2015 9:18 am
Good job on the lawn Maggie. My front yard looked much like that a couple of days ago. It has stopped snowing here. Well sort of, anyways at first it was nice to have the snow but now after shovelling driveway I’m cursing it. Again.
prusmc
December 28, 2015 9:25 am
In 2004 the US Navy was forced out of Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico by local anti American jihadists.
Everyone thought it would be turned into a local government run paradise. Much of the old Naval Station is on the way to Chanute shape today, The local government was unable to harvest the implied “peace dividend” and now is heading for default on bonds, notes and payrolls. The answer is clear, go to congress with a tin cup and reap an unearned and uninsured bailout.After a series of relatively sound referendum rejections of statehood, it is likely that statehood will be requested by a luke- warm majority or plurality in a possible new referendum. This is solely to facilitate an even more generous helping of federal funds than the present largess provides.
There are fine people here with the most ambitious heading for the mainland. The vast number of unemployed subsist comfortably via the welfare safety-net and the wide-spread disability granted by Social Security Judges native to PR. A substantial underground economy with black-market cigarettes and alcoholic beverages, as well as, off-the books day jobs keep the poor in food, entertainment and cell phones.
Is the new interest in Statehood a sudden desire to share pride and the destiny of the US as a nation (citizenship is held now) or a scheme to milk ever more from the norteamericano cow. The same government (PDP) democrats that gleefully smeared the US as imperialists and blackguards-when kicking the Navy out of Roosevelt Roads in 2001-2004 now argues that it deserves a rescue by the empire. The Empire it recently kicked in the groin and stomped on while it was down. The local political cabal, now,proclaims it warrants succor and benefits delivered by the same greedy metro pole, that it proudly poked in the eye and laughed at 10 years before.. What is the true sentiment of the populace: that of mobs frothing with PDP-PIP whipped up yanqui go home enthusiasm when the island is asked to sacrifice as part of an obligation for common defense or the assertion by the same alliance that we demand you to help us because we are your fellow citizens and entitled to this consideration and we want it now. That was then, this is now. What is yours is mine but what is mine is my own.
Maggie
December 28, 2015 9:47 am
prusmc, I spent two miserable tdy adventures at Rosy Roads on the Misguided Drug Ops adventures of the AWACS planes sent there by Wm Sessions of the FBI. I mentioned in an earlier comment that I got to be part of the dog and pony crew that briefed him and other trenchcoat clad FBIers on AWACS capabilities in over-water drug interdiction.
I actually wrote a really good fiction story based on my time there and if I could ever come up with a better name than the real one for the tramp who lived down the hall from me and had a line of men outside her door waiting turns to visit, cash in hand, I might consider publishing it. Without a name change, it isn’t very good fiction at all. It is true.
The young woman assigned to be my roommate that slept in the bunk above mine threw up in the night the first night we were there. The rest of the trip went downhill for me.
IndenturedServant
December 28, 2015 3:52 pm
Maggie, Torrejon was considered one of the best kept secrets in the AF. Not the base itself but the assignment. For most of it’s existence the extremely favorable to those with US dollars. The locals in general were very accepting of Americans. The traditional foods of Spain are extremely good. The history, culture and customs were compatible. Nearly everything about the place suited me to a T! It took all of five minutes to fall in love with the place. Save for a few dorm rats and shut in types everyone I ever met that was stationed there absolutely loved it.
The night life was extraordinary and I’d bet unmatched except in similar sized places like L.A., NYC, Paris etc. Alcohol/cigarettes were plentiful and cheap. There was a significant black market for the American variety despite ration cards. Spaniards were willing to pay a significant premium for them. Drugs were plentiful and the quality/purity was good. Hash came from MENA and was excellent! Heroin came from the Afghanistan/China and everything else came from Amsterdam. I was there in the early/mid 80’s and saw quite a few GI’s get booted for drugs due to increased testing. They guys I saw get booted were not addicts as far as I could tell but the AF had begun instituting its zero tolerance policies so once was enough. Prior to that it would have been easy to become an addict while assigned there.
A heroin epidemic was waning but still claiming victims during my time there. I had a number of Spanish friends who died from it and number of friends who kicked it but later found out they had contracted HIV/AIDS as needle sharing was common.
Maggie
Author
December 28, 2015 4:52 pm
Sounds like my old AF Acquaintance fell victim to the zero tolerance policies in the mid-80s. Early in my AF career I was put on detail while awaiting training with a TSgt who was awaiting nonjudicial punishment for “something” which I was not in the know. While working during the day, he informed me that he’d tested positive for marijuana during a surprise urine test, but that the test had just detected the sesame seeds he tended to eat on his hamburger buns. He said it had been proven that people who eat sesame seeds can test positive on the tests and that he was just waiting for his own lawyers to get his case ready for rebuttal because he had 18 years in the service and there was no way they were kicking him out for a false positive.
Well, I was outraged… Even though I was only an Airman First Class out of my initial flight training, I just knew that when something was “right” it was “right” so I decided that I would just jump right in and champion my new friend, Rocky. I made an appointment with the First Sergeant, who I’d already had dealings with regarding a young lady who’d been groped by a snarky smug bastard with the poor judgment to do so in front of ME. That meeting occurred on a Friday and the First Shirt was very nice, telling me that he would talk to TSgt Rochelle and make sure he wasn’t being unjustly charged.
Well, Monday morning Rocky took me aside and told me very kindly that he appreciated what I’d done. Then he told me that he’d been caught red-handed; that he’d smoked a joint on the way to work that morning before the piss test. He said he would have never have carried on like he had if he had known I would take it to heart and decide to plead his case to management. He told me to wise up a bit because there were a lot of people in the Air Force who were more than ready to take advantage of my willingness to fight for their cause.
I probably didn’t learn that lesson well enough, but I did pay attention.
VietVet
December 28, 2015 7:19 pm
I loved my time at Torrejon, Madrid was an incredible place for a young man to explore. The thing that tended to surprise me were the taxi drivers. We would negotiate a rate for the night so the driver was available to assist in running the night spots. It was a good while for me to realize he was drinking at the other end of the bar until we were ready to move on.
The people were awesome, the ladies weren’t allowed out without chaperone, and never in the bars until they were 21.
Spain was superb duty, yet many dorm rats hated it because they never bothered to explore the country and the culture.
From there we had TDY commitments in Germany, Italy and Greece. Overall my 8 years active duty gave me many opportunities to travel. The AF was good to me, I transitioned to civil service after my active years and recently retired after 42 years of service.
There’s stupid everywhere no matter your choice of careers or experiences, it’s up to you to make it what you want.
henry adam
December 28, 2015 7:53 pm
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no, I was married and because of my illstate, my wife left me but luckingly she didnt contacted it. What am I talking about, HIV/AIDS,
she always insisted that we should use condom because she was affraid to get it, she later left me a month after our wedding.
I lived like a helpless animal for 6 months, I went to hospital but there was no cure for me just good healthcare. I almost lost my job
because of my ilness. A day came when i search in the internet and met D odetokun, an African doctor that cures hiv/aids, I told him about my
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EL Coyote
December 29, 2015 12:56 am
Anybody here been to Palmerola in the mid 80’s?
EL Coyote
December 29, 2015 1:05 am
Indi, there was a guy in tech school who acted like a dick with his dumb buddy. I saw him again after a couple of years. He got diarrhea of the mouth and told me he’d gone to Germany and married a gal there and he was achanged person and he really regretted being a dick to me…I said, I don’t remember.
Most of my class went on the the depot in San Antonio. My buddy Mark from Detroit said it was terrible there, just a factory job repairing weather vanes. Crap. All that class time for that. He said some guy killed himself over some a blonde in our class. He said she got a big head after that.
Another guy was a real pothead and he got into a fatal accident.
Were you at Chanute already when those airmen got to racing the train to the RR Crossing and lost?
I’m uploading the images now so I can provide them with commentary here, so others don’t have to make the jump if they don’t want to. I just thought there were some good points to make when EC mentioned he’d gone there for his AF training (Who knew? he could have been in my “brother” flight at Lackland!) I knew the base was closed, but had NO IDEA it was in this state.
Our sister flight was all male. Mid 70’s, not the 90’s. Sorry, sister.
Eerily, these look just like scenes out of a computer game I am playing–Fallout 4.
I’ll take those big old chalkboards…
I love slate chalkboards.
Chanute was a BIG training base when I first entered the Air Force. If I hadn’t gotten my first choice of AWACS Radar, my second choice was to be stationed at Chanute where I would at least be reasonably close to home (and the old boyfriend, of course. Thankful beyond belief I got AWACS.)
But, when I casually went to this site to look at these photos of the “abandoned training base” I was shocked at how destroyed it is.
Walter Arnold is the photographer who snuck onto the base to take the photos: He says “It didn’t take long for me to discover that shortly after the decision was made to close the base, the Illinois EPA found Asbestos and Mold on the base.”
This caused the base to be declared it an environmental disaster site. The base was completely abandoned, declared unsafe for human habitation (in spite of the fact that the better part of a century it had housed many tens of thousands of trainees for years at a time) and the entire facility was left to rot and become what you see below.
Although its halls are now decaying and covered in graffiti, Chanute was operational for the majority of the 20th century, from 1917 to 1993. For those 75 years and over two World Wars, it functioned as a technical training center for the Air Force. At the time of its closure, it was the country’s third-oldest active base.
Arnold’s photos take us inside the eerie ruins of the Chanute base, which looks as if it has been abandoned for far longer than 22 years.
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The interior of the White Hall at Chanute.
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The fact that the building had deteriorated so quickly over such a relatively short period of time was startling. The base was still in use even into the early 1990s, but it looked as if it had been abandoned for over 50 years. This was easily one of the more toxic locations visited.
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Asbestos and mold were abundant. Many of the inside rooms had standing water. Drop ceilings had fallen, along with light fixtures, and everything was rusted. In most of the interior spaces there were calcium stalactites and stalagmites as if the ceilings were dissolving. The photographers used breathers in parts of the building, especially in areas that were closed off with no outside air circulation.
After the shoot Arnold found EPA reports online that talked of heavy contamination on the grounds, and even some articles that claimed the possibility of “Agent Orange” on the site but could not be confirmed.
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From a different article: [https://www.dcbureau.org/201403319751/natural-resources-news-service/chanute-air-force-base-air-forces-legacy-lies-heartland.html]
Military flight operations ceased in 1971 – an indication of Chanute’s waning strategic importance. The base almost closed in 1979, but the U.S. government decided to keep it open. Capital expansion projects were completed in the 1980s, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. But these projects did not stop the Department of Defense in 1988 from listing Chanute as one of 17 bases to be closed.
The local community is a wasteland, with unemployment and poverty taking over what was once a thriving little community.
Rantoul Today
Just off Interstate 57, Rantoul is an economically-challenged, blue-collar community in a predominantly agricultural region. The village shrank from about 25,000 to under 13,000 citizens after the base closed. With the surplus of vacant rental properties and homes, the school district lost a large portion of its tax base. It went from economic prosperity to poverty in quick succession. Vacant housing became occupied with Section 8 low-income tenants. Crime sharply increased. Large businesses were reluctant to invest in the community. In the ghostly downtown, several of the buildings are vacant or dilapidated. Some businesses are only open part-time.
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Back to original article…
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[https://www.dcbureau.org/201403319751/natural-resources-news-service/chanute-air-force-base-air-forces-legacy-lies-heartland.html] Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan wanted Chanute placed on the NPL because the state and Air Force could not agree on how to clean it up. For seven years, from the closure in 1993 until the presidential election in 2000, the Air Force fought the NPL nomination, fearing the listing would be a stigma, citing its “exemplary cooperation” in Chanute’s chemical cleanup, despite the minimal action that was taken.
Bush’s OMB Keeps Chanute Off Superfund List
During the George W. Bush administration, the DOD claimed victory over the EPA. Under President Bush, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget mediated the EPA and Air Force dispute and ruled in favor of the Air Force in 2003. The Base Realignment and Closure Cleanup Team (BCT) signed an agreement to have Chanute cleaned up by Oct. 1, 2005, or be placed on the NPL. That date has come and gone, but Chanute has not been either cleaned up or placed on the NPL.]
Back to original article:
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EC, I joined early 80s. I’m one of the first female AWACers… opened to women in ’82.
My big issue with discovering this abandoned base that is so “toxic” to the environment it had to be abandoned to the point of letting it turn into garbage rather than let Billy salvage the chalkboards.
Why? Did the EPA dicks who labelled it as environmentally unsafe get a big promotion and not brief their replacement on what to do about it. How does such a thing just fall off the radar?
Looks like a city in Syria.
@kokoda… EXACTLY. It looks like something from a war torn ghetto.
I wish I had a single source of images for parts of Torrejob Air Base juse east of Madrid, Spain. It would take days to gather them all up and edit as needed so I won’t bother.
The USA moved out in 1992 when Spain refused to renew the contract. TJ or TAB was a joint base with the Spansh Air Force operating on one end and us gringos operating the rest of it. The runway there is the longest in all of Europe. Although never needed, it was an alternate landing site for the Space Shuttle if it had to abort powered flight to space. After we bailed the Spaniards intended to greatly expand their operations there but quickly figured out they could not to live beyond theirs means at the same level we did.
My high school was just about in the center of that base and it and many other portions of the base have fallen into complete disrepair and collapse. Each year a former classmate gains access and posts a few more pictures of the advancing decay. It’s pretty damned sad to see a place that played such a significant part of your youth in ruins.
Today the base itself is doing better. Us gringos maintain a very tiny presence there in case we need to use the base for staging as we did during both Iraqi wars. In recent years private enterprise has gained a foothold and the Spanish lease out land and buildings on the base. The Royal family moved their official and private air fleet there. Aerial fire fighters established a base of operations there flying PBY Catalinas. The European Space Agency has a number of facilities there now and the Spanish Air Force is still doing their thing.
The buildings that made up my high school are probably too far gone to save. They were among the first built as dormitories for the American contractors that built the base in the 1950’s. They were converted into classrooms in 1962 when the high school moved from Calle Fleming Street in Madrid to the base.
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I did my avionics training at Chanute AFB from Aug 1971 to May 1972, then spent 19 months bouncing between U-Tapao AB and Nakhom Phanom ( Operating Location – NKP) Thailand with the 100th Reconnaissance Wing.
See http://www.psywarrior.com/buffalo.html
We flew drones into N. Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos finding targets for B-52s to destroy.
Chanute was a shithole then. I went to Torrejon AB Spain in June 1975 with the 401st Tactical Fighter Wing until my discharge after we were kicked out of Thailand.
Okay, VietVet, I believe you about it being a shithole then (am assuming it was an older WWII type base and a lot of the facilities had NOT been upgraded.), but am wondering if your training there was as terrible as mine (Electronics/Radar Theory and Operation) was at Keesler AFB, Ms.
Keesler twice. 1976 and 1978. Basic RADAR, then AN-FPS26 school. Then back to Minot.
Kinda like a mirror image of American society.
@Ghost
I trained in flight instruments, compass and magnetic navigation and automatic flight control systems. There wasn’t a moment at Chanute that didn’t suck. All my classes were in White Hall. SE Asia was an upgrade from Chanute.
Rathole Illinois had no redeeming value. Keesler is still the AF training base for all avionics now. Chanute also was the training site for the missile, munitions guys hence the Agent Orange connection, and Nakhom Phanom was the Thai storage site for same substance.
Do you have any documents ir letters to share about this
At least you had the Gulf Coast to explore. ?????
VietVet… is true, although back then the beach was covered with globules of tar from the oil drilling offshore without proper filtering.
Chanute does sound like a pit… But, Keesler wasn’t much better, to be honest. There is a LOT of propaganda about how great the AF training is.
I have visited, or stationed at, every Air Force base mentioned so far in this article by Maggie and commenters. All of them – Chanute, Lackland, Torrejon, U-Tapao, Nakhom Phanom (aka Naked Phantom), Keesler.
Most are gone. I feel older than dirt.
Maggie, the training in those days was what they called “self paced”. Basically you worked through blocks which contained some actual instructors, but mostly self learning modules. There was very little hands on, mostly basic electronics theory, function. Everything was still vacuum tube in those days.
I never believed that they cared if you actually learned anything as long as you progressed through the blocks. Most of my skills were “earned in the field”.
You’re correct on the buildings, I think White Hall was actually pre-WWII. The winter was brutal and the wind actually blew through the hallways. I spent that entire winter in longjohns and parka in class.
The dorm was WWII era but as you know, the AF methods have always been once built never repaired. Ice would form inside our room literally every night. I grew up in Arizona so winter weather was totally foreign to me in those days.
We had to march from the dorms and chow hall to class every morning about three miles down the old runways to White Hall, I had never been so cold in my life nor since.
I have a definitive hatred for Illinois to this day.
Maggie , let’s be honest . The only reason you got any promotion in the Air Force was because of Affirmative Action and Political Correctness.Your really not smart enough to be in the AWACers Are you ?You were the first AA placement. Nothing More.
I scored in the 98th percentile on the ASVAB and got rated as EWQ (Extremely Well Qualified). And I actually KNOW that means that 1 percentile scored higher than I. I was guaranteed either my first job choice (AWACS) or my first base choice (Chanute). Thankfully, I got my job choice, because it sounds like the fact that Chanute was just a few hours from my high school boyfriend had limited ability to make up for the shithole it was. Somewhere in my “I love me” paperwork and award boxes I have my original scoresheet from the recruiter, but I’ll skip finding it for you, since you’ve never bothered to figure out why your punctuation annoys me so.
VietVet, Basic Electronic blocks were “self-paced.” We built and soldered one circuit, used one multimeter to measure resistance and voltage and wrote one basic program. The instructors were simply there to take attendance. It was a terrible introduction to Air Force way of doing things. I had been fascinated with my brother’s electronics manuals from the early seventies from his training on avionics equipment in the Navy. He fixed airplane systems on the USS Forestall before the really bad crash (and yes, he was a firefighter on duty during that horrific night.)
Anyway, when I was in junior high school, he’d left his training books at the house and I’d grown fascinated with the slide rule and learned my way through his books. I was encouraged to join the AF because there were a lot of opportunities opening up in “high tech” careers, so having done poorly at college due to lack of preparation, I worked for a while, then opted for Air Force. But, I was very disappointed in the training and hoped that once I got to “sets” (strange how the nomenclature just comes right back to me here… I haven’t thought of this in years) it would improve.
It did NOT. The trainer for AWACS at Keesler had been created by Northrup Grumman, who played NO ROLE in the AWACS plane itself. In one of those bizarre contract bid fiascos, a company with no access to how the equipment actually worked built the trainer. Because they said they could do it for less.
Anyway, I guess the reason I found this whole situation of interest is that such an ENORMOUS amount of waste is involved in everything military. It is heartbreaking to me that so many lives are put on the line for so many unjust reasons and the preparation of young troops to do jobs that mean the life and death of so many are just kabuki theater. (Actually, to be honest, I don’t know if kabuki theater is the term I want… I just know that the training I went through at Keesler was pretend) Sure, I came out as a “honor grad.” So what… so did several other idiots in my class. You would have had to be a moron to fail; as a matter of fact, I don’t think they would LET anyone fail.
My real training at Tinker was slightly better, only because we had access to the real equipment and I could see how it worked and since I did understand circuitry and logic, I made a good technician. But, most of my fellow technicians did not and most of the people in charge really didn’t care.
The more I realize that everyone else’s military experience was similar to mine, the more it makes me think there is something terribly rotten in Denmark.
Maggie
One must consider the philosophical differences between AF and Navy’s purposes. The AF trains to specific system platforms i.e. F16 engine instruments. That’s all you will work once trained where the Navy trains electronics technician such that you’re eventually expected to repair “anything on the boat “. Navy techs are much superior in my experience.
Tech schools in the AF are mostly generalized with systems training in the field. I had retired navy guys working for me and they can literally repair anything.
@VietVet… I agree completely, but having learned all the academics from the Navy tech school my brother attended, I expected the Air Force to be similar. When it was NOT, I was very disappointed. I could repair the equipment on the AWACS radar, within the limitations of the airborne environment, because most of the cross trainees who I’d gone through tech school were former technicians as well. About half of them went into maintenance at Tinker and they taught me what they learned in FTD (wow! where did that come from out of my memory) while I was doing boring training like chem warfare, flight safety and other nonsensical BS the AF makes everyone do all the time to make them feel like they have a purpose.
Thanks for the information though. I really knew that though, because when I was asked to help write the Type One training for some IFF equipment that was modified for the AWACS, I jumped right into the Navy manuals and found the training materials they had put together for the same receiver transmitter put on the E=2C. Everyone thought I was a genius… the genius was in realizing the information already existed in excellent form in the Navy training manuals.
But, if I’d told them most of my stuff was derived from the Navy, I wouldn’t have gotten Airman of the Quarter and been awarded a 3-day pass, would I?
I attended “tech school” at Chanute AFB for five months from early March to August 1977 after basic training at Lackland. Chanute was a dump even in 1977. Get up early in the morning, eat, form up for roll call, then march to class by squadron in a long string of multiple troop flights.
I graduated from Analog Flight Simulator Specialist tech school on August 16, 1977…the day Elvis died.
indialantic, I might have seen you there. I was there from Christmas until the day Elvis died. Or thereabouts, because I recall we heard the news before it got west, when we called home, they knew nothing.
I got a little green listening to Maggie and VV’s conversation but I never knew dorm life there, I lived in town with my then wife. The missile dicks school was next to our class’ dorms. I had to be there each morning to march to school.
We were there almost a year so I have mostly forgotten all but a few things of no consequence. Having driven across from El Paso through Texarkana and up towards Chicago passing nondescript towns, Rantoul was no surprise, no disappointment. C/U was our weekend escape and Chicago a place to visit family in the person of my wife’s great-aunt and her family.
Indialantic , if I remember correctly you said you were in a boat accident. I was wondering if you ever got anything back ? Like your coins ? Or anothet boat ?
OMG, bb and Maggie: Ya’ll play nice ya’hear. I think highly of you both. I went to Keesler Apr71 and there was still some destruction from Camile (Aug69); was class leader and had a 99 test avg (they put an observer on both sides when I took a test). Ignorantly thought that would get me something but the USAF Brass mostly care about Rank Privileges, Brown Nosing, the O Club, golf, the Academy Grads, minority promotions, good OERs and assignments, and The Very Loose Spare Tail Assemblies. PS: You don’t know cold until N. Dakota. I was called in the middle of the night to exercise a Tactical Communications Team and I told the Commander it’s a blizzard out there with -120 chill factor. He said if you can succeed now, I’ll know you can succeed anytime; great memories.
I’m good robert h. sidewinder. haha
It was in the Air Force at Keesler that I got my liking for twisting people’s names into nicknames. when I went through leadership school as a SSgt, I wrote a tribute to all the ass kissers in the class who were always trying to get a few brownie points from the Commandant so they might get some “wood.” I even presented it to the Commandant and offered to read it at graduation. He loved the poem but declined my offer. It started “Baa, Baa Black Sheep, Have you any wood? I’ve been kissing teacher’s ass and doing it so good, stating “yessir, I agree with you” every time I could! I need a plaque for my Crew Chief and one for my Shirt and one for the little crap I took down in the dirt.
I wrote a stanza for each of the dozen or so “top notch” airmen who were obviously competing for the much sought after awards on the lovely wooden plaques that proclaimed them to be the “best speaker” or the “best leader” or the “best patriot” and so on until ten of the stupid awards were handed out and then the Commadant’s personal award would be given to the highest scorer on all the tests. (No, I did not get it.)
It was hilarious, though, and when the awards were given out, some of my fellow students were withholding chuckles because they’d read it.
I went to Leadership School at All of my garbage, New Mexico. You ever go there SSS?
You were training at Chanute AFB in 1977, Coyote? Small world. I really miss marching through the snow, ice and rain during March and early April. Loads of fun as you surely will recall.
The standing joke for all lowly AF/Army incoming troops was: “They don’t shoot you here; they “Chanute” you.” Take care my friend.
I find it neat to look at all this ruin porn. It reminds me that nothing lasts forever not even Laurentia. There are some neat blogs of abandoned buildings and houses. Maybe I’ll find a few links.
Rob, apparently the photographer of this piece makes a career out of photographing abandoned towns/cities/factories. I’d planned to look at some of them later but got distracted. We have a rainstorm that is literally dumping all the waters of the heavens on us.
Thank (ME) that the hillside in front of the log home has all that grass in place. If it didn’t, my lawn would be in the driveway now. There is just a bit of sod along the top edge, to prevent runoff of the final seeded portion planted in late November, but I got enough sunny days to sprout it and watered it enough to get it rooted.
October hillside:
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December hillside:
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@IS… I went to tech school with a Puerto Rican named Alex Muniz who was an honor guard and sharp as a tack in radar theory. He was stationed at Torrejob Air Base and within a couple years was dishonorably discharged for some sort of drug related charges and the very few contacts mutual friends have had tell a sad story of someone who lost his way while there.
He was a good guy in tech school with high hopes of building a better life.
Good job on the lawn Maggie. My front yard looked much like that a couple of days ago. It has stopped snowing here. Well sort of, anyways at first it was nice to have the snow but now after shovelling driveway I’m cursing it. Again.
In 2004 the US Navy was forced out of Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico by local anti American jihadists.
Everyone thought it would be turned into a local government run paradise. Much of the old Naval Station is on the way to Chanute shape today, The local government was unable to harvest the implied “peace dividend” and now is heading for default on bonds, notes and payrolls. The answer is clear, go to congress with a tin cup and reap an unearned and uninsured bailout.After a series of relatively sound referendum rejections of statehood, it is likely that statehood will be requested by a luke- warm majority or plurality in a possible new referendum. This is solely to facilitate an even more generous helping of federal funds than the present largess provides.
There are fine people here with the most ambitious heading for the mainland. The vast number of unemployed subsist comfortably via the welfare safety-net and the wide-spread disability granted by Social Security Judges native to PR. A substantial underground economy with black-market cigarettes and alcoholic beverages, as well as, off-the books day jobs keep the poor in food, entertainment and cell phones.
Is the new interest in Statehood a sudden desire to share pride and the destiny of the US as a nation (citizenship is held now) or a scheme to milk ever more from the norteamericano cow. The same government (PDP) democrats that gleefully smeared the US as imperialists and blackguards-when kicking the Navy out of Roosevelt Roads in 2001-2004 now argues that it deserves a rescue by the empire. The Empire it recently kicked in the groin and stomped on while it was down. The local political cabal, now,proclaims it warrants succor and benefits delivered by the same greedy metro pole, that it proudly poked in the eye and laughed at 10 years before.. What is the true sentiment of the populace: that of mobs frothing with PDP-PIP whipped up yanqui go home enthusiasm when the island is asked to sacrifice as part of an obligation for common defense or the assertion by the same alliance that we demand you to help us because we are your fellow citizens and entitled to this consideration and we want it now. That was then, this is now. What is yours is mine but what is mine is my own.
prusmc, I spent two miserable tdy adventures at Rosy Roads on the Misguided Drug Ops adventures of the AWACS planes sent there by Wm Sessions of the FBI. I mentioned in an earlier comment that I got to be part of the dog and pony crew that briefed him and other trenchcoat clad FBIers on AWACS capabilities in over-water drug interdiction.
I actually wrote a really good fiction story based on my time there and if I could ever come up with a better name than the real one for the tramp who lived down the hall from me and had a line of men outside her door waiting turns to visit, cash in hand, I might consider publishing it. Without a name change, it isn’t very good fiction at all. It is true.
The young woman assigned to be my roommate that slept in the bunk above mine threw up in the night the first night we were there. The rest of the trip went downhill for me.
Maggie, Torrejon was considered one of the best kept secrets in the AF. Not the base itself but the assignment. For most of it’s existence the extremely favorable to those with US dollars. The locals in general were very accepting of Americans. The traditional foods of Spain are extremely good. The history, culture and customs were compatible. Nearly everything about the place suited me to a T! It took all of five minutes to fall in love with the place. Save for a few dorm rats and shut in types everyone I ever met that was stationed there absolutely loved it.
The night life was extraordinary and I’d bet unmatched except in similar sized places like L.A., NYC, Paris etc. Alcohol/cigarettes were plentiful and cheap. There was a significant black market for the American variety despite ration cards. Spaniards were willing to pay a significant premium for them. Drugs were plentiful and the quality/purity was good. Hash came from MENA and was excellent! Heroin came from the Afghanistan/China and everything else came from Amsterdam. I was there in the early/mid 80’s and saw quite a few GI’s get booted for drugs due to increased testing. They guys I saw get booted were not addicts as far as I could tell but the AF had begun instituting its zero tolerance policies so once was enough. Prior to that it would have been easy to become an addict while assigned there.
A heroin epidemic was waning but still claiming victims during my time there. I had a number of Spanish friends who died from it and number of friends who kicked it but later found out they had contracted HIV/AIDS as needle sharing was common.
Sounds like my old AF Acquaintance fell victim to the zero tolerance policies in the mid-80s. Early in my AF career I was put on detail while awaiting training with a TSgt who was awaiting nonjudicial punishment for “something” which I was not in the know. While working during the day, he informed me that he’d tested positive for marijuana during a surprise urine test, but that the test had just detected the sesame seeds he tended to eat on his hamburger buns. He said it had been proven that people who eat sesame seeds can test positive on the tests and that he was just waiting for his own lawyers to get his case ready for rebuttal because he had 18 years in the service and there was no way they were kicking him out for a false positive.
Well, I was outraged… Even though I was only an Airman First Class out of my initial flight training, I just knew that when something was “right” it was “right” so I decided that I would just jump right in and champion my new friend, Rocky. I made an appointment with the First Sergeant, who I’d already had dealings with regarding a young lady who’d been groped by a snarky smug bastard with the poor judgment to do so in front of ME. That meeting occurred on a Friday and the First Shirt was very nice, telling me that he would talk to TSgt Rochelle and make sure he wasn’t being unjustly charged.
Well, Monday morning Rocky took me aside and told me very kindly that he appreciated what I’d done. Then he told me that he’d been caught red-handed; that he’d smoked a joint on the way to work that morning before the piss test. He said he would have never have carried on like he had if he had known I would take it to heart and decide to plead his case to management. He told me to wise up a bit because there were a lot of people in the Air Force who were more than ready to take advantage of my willingness to fight for their cause.
I probably didn’t learn that lesson well enough, but I did pay attention.
I loved my time at Torrejon, Madrid was an incredible place for a young man to explore. The thing that tended to surprise me were the taxi drivers. We would negotiate a rate for the night so the driver was available to assist in running the night spots. It was a good while for me to realize he was drinking at the other end of the bar until we were ready to move on.
The people were awesome, the ladies weren’t allowed out without chaperone, and never in the bars until they were 21.
Spain was superb duty, yet many dorm rats hated it because they never bothered to explore the country and the culture.
From there we had TDY commitments in Germany, Italy and Greece. Overall my 8 years active duty gave me many opportunities to travel. The AF was good to me, I transitioned to civil service after my active years and recently retired after 42 years of service.
There’s stupid everywhere no matter your choice of careers or experiences, it’s up to you to make it what you want.
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Anybody here been to Palmerola in the mid 80’s?
Indi, there was a guy in tech school who acted like a dick with his dumb buddy. I saw him again after a couple of years. He got diarrhea of the mouth and told me he’d gone to Germany and married a gal there and he was achanged person and he really regretted being a dick to me…I said, I don’t remember.
Most of my class went on the the depot in San Antonio. My buddy Mark from Detroit said it was terrible there, just a factory job repairing weather vanes. Crap. All that class time for that. He said some guy killed himself over some a blonde in our class. He said she got a big head after that.
Another guy was a real pothead and he got into a fatal accident.
Were you at Chanute already when those airmen got to racing the train to the RR Crossing and lost?