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Keesler AFB Drill Team, 1962-1963
USAFA Prep 1963-1964
by Gary L. Wolfstone
garywolfstone@gmail.com
 Where is Joe Lopez? Joe Lopez of San Antonio who was our most excellent drillmaster at the Keesler
Drill Team in 1962? I remember our parade through the streets of
New Orleans during Mardi Gras ... Lt. Head, Joe Lopez, Scholfield,
Needendorfer (I called him Sprocket), and Barracks Chief Olson.
Where are they now? Protesting the War? Pushing up Daisies?
Clipping Coupons and living frugally? Am I the only lover of women left
among them? Bitter about the Military? Bitter about Life?
Bitter about Women? I still believe that most women are beautiful and mysterious creatures.
Where is Jim Beggins? Does he recall the confrontation with the lieutenant
in the small grocery store in the little Mississippi town just before the
parade began? Am I the only one of this group who is still alive?
Navigator training ... Com/Nav ... (Loran; Tacan; IFF/SIFF; ILS) ... Crush Depth ...
Key West (90 miles to Cuba!) ... CIC (Combat Information Center) ... Racist Team ... M1 Rifles ... D&B ...
Signs on the beach ... "No Coloreds" ... lots of evidence of segregation ...
restrooms ... water fountains ... rednecks clearly in authority ... James
Meredith at Ole Miss in Oxford, Mississippi. Lee Harvey Oswald on Canal
Street in New Orleans handing out leaflets.
Live ammo during the Cuban Missle Crisis (October 1962) ... Nuclear Winter ...
the U-2 spy planes (Gary Francis Powell) ... Nikita Krushchev ... I was in New
Orleans with the wild women of that town.
Marcia Lee Broadus was 15 years old in 1962, and she was still in
high school. She told me that her "Daddy was in the Klan" and I never
knew for certain whether he was a Klu Kluxer, but he damn sure was a
Mississippi redneck in the early Sixties. He was big and tall and strong
and had a booming baritone voice ... sure enough scared the hell out of me!
He could have had me lynched. She was a woman with character and charm ... not
only physically but also emotionally. She drove her own car (a T-bird bought by her
Daddy), but she had no driver's license. She got what she wanted ... and
nobody crossed her ... not her Mommy, not her Daddy, and certainly not me.
I was deeply in love with Marcia, and I suppose that I still love her.
She had long blond hair and sparkling blue eyes, and she taught me to
french kiss with ice cubes. I wrote love poetry for her and she was very pleased.
New Years in New Orleans ... Bourbon Street ... The President (a paddle
wheel steamboat) ... the French Quarter ... Marcia ... she
warned me about the crazies.
On the national scene ... Marilyn Monroe checks out ... Beach Boys
"Surfin Safari" ... Yanks beat the Giants in the World Series ...
Sonny Liston KO's Floyd Patterson for the Championship!
The trip to Houston ... Lacey, the Canadian who could
play a few chords on his guitar ... the beautiful young woman with whom I
was paired ... what a creature from heaven!
I quit smoking but Bizball started me smoking again ... not to worry ... I
have now been a non-smoker for 40 years!
Rick Lassiter who said, "I am going to let the women chase me!" The trips up and
down the strip in Biloxi ... retracing Elvis Presley's life in Biloxi ...
the Jefferson Davis mansion!
Only steps away from the Air Force Academy
Prep School ... Colonel Black's Boy's School ... Colonel Lee C. Black ... November 22, 1963 ... Lt. Doug
Cooke, Math Teacher, USAFA Prep, said, "The man who shot the president was my height,
my weight, my size," ... and I felt like telling Doug that Oswald had
pushed his pamphlets in my face on Canal Street in New Orleans and that I
could have and should have punched out his lights. L.H. Garrett, NCOIC, Military Training.
Wrestling simultaneously with the Young Dot (Richard Doty Jr.) and Young Pete and beating them both!
My speech from the Commander's Podium at the Dining Inn ~ "I saw something
that made me realize how important this Dining Inn really is ... it seems the cooks
were hiding the beef stroganoff in the broom closet!" Major Campbell ... Cager Mampbell ... he caught us driving through the
Prep School parking lot with a T-33 on the roof of my Chevy ... We could have been
disenrolled, but we were not punished ... It was taken in anticipation of the Prep
School's upcoming football game with the AFA 4th Classmen (it even shows up in the
Prep School Yearbook!) ... I graduated ... with honors ... I resolved that
I would return to civilian life and start working toward my new goal ~ Harvard Law School.
I have many rich blessings, and I have achieved all of my life's dreams.
Knocking out all of those "10's" Prep Candids ~ 1st Lt. Gerald W. Richman ... where is
he now? Did he write the English manual singlehandedly? So many wonderful memories ...
Was this a previous lifetime?
I am proud of my military service, and I am
proud that I was awarded an Honorable Discharge. Indeed, at the time of my discharge,
I was promoted one rank above the rank at which I had been serving. I did not apply for
this promotion, but the promotion confirmed my feelings that I had made a valuable contribution
to my country. I spent most of my service time in sophisticated electronics training and
college level schooling. My colleagues in the military were high quality people who were
intelligent, honest and hard working. To my knowledge, not one of my colleagues was a
war criminal ~ but today when I view the Collateral Murder video
released by Julian Assange at WikiLeaks, I am prompted to ask: "What have we become?"
My attitude toward "military solutions" has evolved ~
I now believe that the real enemy cannot be defeated ... In the nuclear age, the real enemy is
War itself!
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