Fire Watch

"DORM GUARD!" The static-filled voice almost made me jump, but I collected myself enough to snap to attention.

"Sir, dorm guard, dorm 1816," was my crisp response. I was proud of myself. I was getting the hang of this whole "being in the military" thing.

"IT'S MA'AM, YOU IDIOT! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? IS YOUR HEARING BAD? WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY BY GAWD AIR FORCE IF YOU CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN?"

"Ma'am, dorm guard, dorm 1816," was my next crisp response. The static of the intercom system was what was wrong with my hearing. It was impossible to distinguish male from female voices. To this day, I believe the T.I.s (Air Force Training Instructors) used the faulty intercoms to enjoy a joke or two at the expense of the trainees. I can still envision two or three of them (the T.I.s) gathered around the microphone in the orderly room chuckling and spinning in their chairs as they ran some hapless trainee in circles. It wouldn't matter how the trainee answered and it wouldn't matter the sex of the T.I. on the intercom. The trainee's guess was going to be wrong, because when the T.I. said the sky was cherry orange and purply blue, the trainee's proper response was, "Sir, the sky is cherry orange and purply blue." Which would lead the T.I. into an endless harangue about the lack of common sense and intelligence displayed by this particular group of trainees and how we might as well all start learning to speak Russian and eat borscht.

"LIGHTS OUT!"

"Ma'am, lights out, dorm 1816." A flick of a switch or three did the trick. A chuckle or two escaped from the first floor bay as a couple of my flight mates had a laugh at my predicament.

"QUIET IN THE BARRACKS! LIGHTS ARE OUT!"

And that was the crux of the matter in basic training. The T.I.s saw all and heard all, even when they weren't there to see it or hear it. We just never really knew whether they could hear us over the intercom, or they knew that a certain amount of rambunctious behavior would take place at lights out. Either way, the chuckles stopped.

And I was alone. Dorm guard. The most important job, next to chow runner, in basic training. The dorm guard is the alarm clock for the flight. The dorm guard is the night watchman for the flight. The dorm guard, as Staff Sergeant Hart explained in that first day of training on the dorm guard duties, "will conduct a visual inspection of the barracks every fifteen minutes, alerting the flight to the presence of fire and, in the event of fire, evacuating the flight to safety, even though these old barracks will burn down around your sorry asses in less than thirty seconds, so I guess we'll be sending telegrams to your mommies, because your dumbass dorm guard didn't wake you up in time, dammit people keep your eyes and ears open and your mouths shut. Don't make me fill out a report because your dumb ass got turned into toastie critters."

Yep. That was basic training, all warm and fuzzy around the campfire.

On our first night in basic training, the Night of the Four Hundred Crazed Screaming Banshees, we were guarded by trainees from a flight that was in its third or fourth week of training. We were their baby flight. The extent of our contact with them, other than seeing them marching to and fro or at the chow hall, was limited to about three hours of dorm guard on our first night in basic. That, and the fact that our bunks that first night had been made by a squad from that same flight.

After that first night, we were on our own. Dorm guard was pulled in two hour shifts. Everybody pulled dorm guard duty, except for the Dorm Chief and the Latrine Queen. The Dorm Chief was the flight leader. He was the trainee that was expected to excel in all matters of basic training. He was responsible for keeping us in line whenever the T.I.s were not in the barracks. In reality, the Dorm Chief got in trouble every time one of the trainees got in trouble. Nobody wanted to be in the Dorm Chief's shoes and nobody wanted to get him in trouble, because he was a pretty good guy. The Latrine Queen, chosen because he claimed to be the best bowler, was in charge of the team that kept the latrines, i.e. toilet bowls, sparkling clean. That duty was enough to exempt him from his two hour stint as dorm guard.

There was no good time to pull dorm guard duty. During the day you were more likely to be scrutinized by your own T.I.s or play no-win intercom games with orderly room personnel. In the evening, your two hour shift took you away from shining boots, squaring away gear, studying your manual, or just bonding with flight mates. In the wee hours of the morning, you stood alone, desperately trying to keep your eyes open, feeling the weight of responsibility for the safety of every single man in your barracks, which included at least one of the flight's T.I.s on those first few nights when you just couldn't do anything right.

My first dorm guard duty fell on the 2 AM to 4 AM shift. The previous dorm guard shook me awake, then returned to the barracks' entrance. I was still wiping the sleep from my eyes as he handed me the dorm guard web belt, arm band, flashlight, and whatever odd paraphernalia that came along with the job and that I forgot about many, many, many years ago. I signed the roster list for my time slot. The other trainee stood relieved, trudged down the hallway, took off his uniform, then collapsed into his bunk. He was lucky. He could grab three hours of much-needed z-time before reveille. I would spend the next two hours trying to do anything and everything, except fall asleep.

When I was a mere ten or eleven years old, I was fascinated by the Statler Brothers song "Counting Flowers On the Wall". For some reason that I can't explain, I wanted to play "solitaire till dawn, with a deck of fifty-one". I don't know. Maybe, to a ten year old with an eight o'clock bedtime, the freedom to stay up all night doing whatever came to mind was a siren song.

Now, here I was, semi-awake in the wee hours, with no freedom, no deck of cards, and no flowers on the wall to count. Talk about crushing a childhood dream.

I tried everything to stay awake. I read the manual. Trust me, reading the manual at 2 AM will not keep your eyes open. I recited baseball rosters. It was October of 1975. My beloved Red Sox were in the World Series for the first time since I was in sixth grade. It would be one of the most thrilling World Series of all time, with the rosters of both teams stuffed with future Hall of Famers, and one who would be banned from the Hall of Fame. And I couldn't even get news about the Series. We were not allowed any outside communication those first couple of weeks, except for one phone call home to announce our safe arrival, and one post card to convey our mailing address. No television. No radio. No newspapers. No friendly chit chat with people who had access to the outside world. Nothing.

Names blurred in my mind. I shook my head, checked the clock, and made my rounds. Up the stairs, quietly. Shine the flashlight at the foot of each bunk to make sure the bunk was occupied. Nobody stirred. Basic training cured any cases of insomnia with little fanfare. Down the center aisle to the fire escape door. Make sure the fire escape door is closed properly. Down the back aisles to make sure there are no shoes or clothing obstructing clear passage to the fire escape. Down the stairs. Repeat the process on the first floor. Check the latrine. Check the laundry room. Read the manual. Recite baseball rosters. Climb the stairs.

Fourteen hours later, or so it seemed to me, I checked the dorm guard roster, then went to wake my relief. I returned to the entrance, strangely wide awake. My relief trudged to the dorm guard station. He accepted, and strapped on, dorm guard paraphernalia, signed the roster sheet, held his hand out for the flashlight, and opened his manual. I shook my head and chuckled.....quietly. I trudged off to my bunk, disrobed, collapsed on my bunk, and caught forty winks before the 5 AM reveille accompanied by, "DORM GUARDS, GET 'EM UP!!!" and "GET UP! GET OUT OF BED! MOVE MOVE MOVE!!!!!"

As we hustled out the door to make formation I heard a woman's voice over the intercom say, "DORM GUARD". My relief snapped to attention and blurted, "Ma'am, dorm guard, dorm 1816".

"MA'AM????!!!!!!! DO I SOUND LIKE A MA'AM TO YOU??????!!!!!! DO I???!!!"

Sometimes, you just couldn't win, but there would be many, many more chances to screw up in the days to come.