Yesterday, as I was wading through old family documents and pictures, I came across some photos of my time in an old prison of war camp. Well, actually I was going through USAF Base Defensive training at Camp Bullis in 1976. Camp Bullis is just north of San Antonio Texas and part of Fort Sam Houston. The camp has been used as a military training site from WWI through current times. It also was a prisoner of war camp in WWII. We lived in semi permanent Mash style tents, where each morning we needed to shake our clothes before putting them on, inspect the inside of our boots before sticking our feet within and quickly look around the floor before stepping out of bed with bare feet. There were many a morning, where someone would scream out because they had an unwanted visitor in their bed with them. The reason for all this morning active was the many bitey, stinging and poisonous critters that call Texas home; scorpions, spiders, and snakes. Each day we would patrol around the 17,000 acres or set up a defensive position and then waiting for enemy forces to attack. The latrine was an open bay with twenty toilets in a row and across the aisle another twenty. No privacy here! There was an old pool that was reportedly built by WWII Germany soldier while they were encamped here. They dammed up a creek and hand plastered a pit to hold the water. We stayed in camp for six week, and some stayed longer for more specialized training. The guys in the picture are all Military Police buddies with long forgotten names.
I liked the addendum story you told me, of thwarting the 'enemy forces' (aka your instructors) being able to sneak up on you, by your idea of stringing up used ration cans each filled with a stone, that their approach would set off and warn you with - sort of a Bill Reynolds Kobayashi Maru moment! (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru) Ingenious. ;)
ReplyDeleteI was there at the same time. Left in Jan 77. Always reminded me of MASH.
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