Updated from 2015: “Lifeblood of the Navy”

 Ok, I tried to get back to an original  posting, unfortunately, I got nothin'. Drained me dry, Sarge did.  So...Another Repost. Hope he gets back soon.  His tales of daring do are highly entertaining.

About 11 years ago,  Old NFO had a tale of woe about the trials and tribulations involved in his move from the (ptui!) DC area to some as yet undisclosed location in God’s Country. (Those of you unlucky enough to not live here might refer to it as Texas.)  In that tale of woe, he mentioned that he had somehow misplaced his coffee pot.  

That harmless statement, as it always seems to, set off a flood of commentary.  One commenter went so far as to describe coffee as the “Lifeblood of the Navy”.  Included in the comments were the Top Secret procedures for making that Lifeblood.  (That should be good for an extra hit or two from the NSA.)

While most readers know that “back in the day”, I was in the Air Force as a Fighter Pilot, some may not have read these riveting posts on my first tour as a Joint Staff Officer.

One of the benefits of that job, other than, you know, being based at Camp Smith Hawaii, was spending time aboard the flagships of the USN’s 3^rd Fleet and 7^th Fleet, USS Coronado and USS Blue Ridge respectively. 

 

USS Coronado AGF-11 (decommissioned in 2006 and sunk in the Marianas during an exercise in 2012)
Public Domain

USS Blue Ridge LCC-19
Public Domain

 A small result of that time was getting to sample some of that “Lifeblood of the Navy”.

I also got to spend a good bit of time with 3 MEF on Okinawa. (I also spent time with I Corps at Ft Lewis WA, but that’s a different story).  All these deployments involved exercises in which contingency planning was the objective.  Coming up with an operations plan on short notice with a tight deadline necessitated some very long days.  Long days meant Coffee. 

I think I started drinking coffee in pilot training, but I was never more than a cup or two at a time person at that point.  Strapped in to an ejection seat and pulling G’s is not a fun thing with a full bladder, and the restroom facilities are sadly lacking in fighters.  (Never used a piddle pack! Not even on the Trans-Pacific drags.)

So….Where was I?  Oh, yeah.  Coffee and “Lifeblood of the Navy”.

So…There I was*

Camp Smedley Butler, Okinawa Japan.  Deployed to 3 MEF for a Joint Task Force training exercise.  The Joint Staff (in the Pentagon, believe me nothing good comes out of that building) has decided to test USCINCPAC’s ability to stand up a Joint Task Force, develop an Operations Plan and have forces ready to deploy on very short notice.  We get the Warning Order and, within 3 hours, my team is airborne on a C-141 bound for Okinawa. That's at least a 10 hour flight (more if it’s winter) and we couldn't afford to waste 10 hours of planning time.  This was back in the early 90s before airborne WiFi was commonplace.  We had a specially modified hatch panel that had a satellite antenna on it and so used that time to begin building the Plan, coordinating both with Camp Smith and Camp Butler.  Very exciting stuff at the time.  (Yeah, I know, it takes very little to get me excited nowadays.)

In any case (which, again, is Texan for “Anyhoo”), we arrive on Okinawa and continue to build the Operations Plan, sending drafts back through Camp Smith to the Pentagon.  We’ve been at it for about 36 hours and it’s me, another Lt Col (USMC) and a USMC Warrant Officer.  

My counterpart Lt Col referred to the Warrant Officer as “Gunner” with a high measure of respect in the tone of his voice.  I elected to follow his lead.  

We’re putting out the latest version of the Plan and it’s oh-dark-thirty.  The Gunner comes in and says he’s going to turn in and asks if we need anything before he does.  I ask him for a cup of coffee figuring he’d tell somebody to make a pot.  He walks off and shortly thereafter brings back a couple of cups. 

He’d made them himself. 

I didn’t sleep for at least 12 more hours. (At which point, the Joint Staff called EndEx as they couldn’t keep up with us.)

Navy Coffee was good, but I thought it was kinda weak thereafter.

We’ve had a Keurig in the house for a while, and my brew of choice was always Jet Fuel  for a couple of reasons, but the primary reason was it is as close to the Gunner’s coffee as packaged coffee could get.  Lately however, even that seemed to be getting weak and disappointing.

On our recent vacation, in the B & B we rented in Sydney, the kitchen came with a DeLonghi Espresso machine.  Now, I like Espresso, but I want my coffee in something other than shot glasses.  This machine had a setting that allowed you to make the Espresso as large as you wanted.  Suffice it to say, I was adequately caffeinated while in Sydney.

Coming back to the real world was tough, and the Keurig didn’t help.  However there was a posting on Instapundit about DeLonghi Machines being offered on Amazon at a special price.

 

Santa brought me one for Christmas!  Put whole coffee beans and water in the machine, push one button and Espresso comes out.  Life is good!

Unfortunately, the DeLongi met its maker at some point between then and now, which is a good thing. My Cardiologist has given me a strict order. One cup of caffeinated coffee per day, the decaf afterwards.  Took me a while to get over the shakes. Anyhow…some caffeine is better than none at all! ;-)

*SJC

Updated from 2014: Guns, Eagle Style

 

A while back (Ok, quite a while back, like 12 years or so), Murphy’s Law was pining away about how he was going to spend his lottery winnings and buy an F-86.  A worthwhile expenditure to be sure, but MSgt B joined the discussion with a comment about knowing a guy on Okinawa that had one that he used to tow targets for the F-15s. 

 

This would be that Tow Plane
Photo copied from Here

 

And that comment fired the synapses that bring forth this story.

So, There I was……*  I’m at Kadena having been checked out in an F-15 in the short course  at Luke AFB, 3 months and probably about 50 hours. Soloing in a jet on your first ride is thought provoking that’s for sure.  At least they save the AB takeoff until a little bit later.  Release brakes and punch it is eye opening.  Even on a hot Arizona afternoon, by the  time you’ve checked the engines, (Why?  I’m mean really, it’s quite obvious to the most casual observer they are functioning beautifully), anyhow, by the time you check the engines, you’re at rotate speed.  A small touch of the stick and you’re airborne, you keep pulling on the stick to keep the airspeed under control (yeah right) and avoid over speeding the gear.  Slap them up, and you’re still pulling back on the pole waiting for the gear light to go out.  You’re now about 45 degrees nose high and tower tells you to contact departure.  (Phoenix is a busy place airspace wise).  You’re still pulling as you contact departure and they tell you to level at 18000’.  You think, piece of cake, until you look at the altimeter.  A quick increase of the g, and your vertical climb turns into an immelman and you’re level, inverted but level, at 18000’.  You’re first cognitive thought is “Gawd, what an airplane!”

 

 

Source

It's somewhat like this!

So, anyhow, I’m now at Kadena, been there a couple of months, deployed to Kwanju for Team Spirit, so kind of settling in.  My flight commander, in a rare turn of events, happened to be one of my students at Holloman.  He’d been an F-4 WSO and been selected for Pilot Training.  Got an F-15 as his assignment, gone through Holloman and had been at Kadena for about 2 and a half years. Pretty good guy and a decent stick. Let’s call him Jeff.  The schedule has been posted and I’ve got the first go flying on Jeff’s wing for a Dart ride.

Juvat, what is a Dart ride?  Words do not convey what a Dart Ride is.  Take all the awesomeness of flying the F-15, break out your awesomizer ray gun (you have one of those don’t you?) and run it completely out of awesomizer stuff, and you might have a description of a Dart Ride.  Ok, I might have gotten a little carried away on that.

A Dart Ride is an opportunity to take a pair of F-15 Eagles and shoot the  M-61 Vulcan 20mm 6 barrel cannon at an airborne target!  6000 rounds a minute.  A 100 rounds a second. 954 rounds on board, well, fully loaded. We get 200.

I’ve fired on the Dart before and frankly had a problem.  Coming from an Air to Ground background, I’d learned to strafe and shooting the gun in a strafe mission is different than shooting the gun on an Air to Air mission.  In a strafe mission, killing the bad guy is a good thing, but there are usually a lot of them, so keeping their heads down and disrupting their plan is also important.  So, in a strafing pass, you usually try to fire as few rounds as possible.  20 rounds or so is desirable, all on target of course.  Not so in air to air.

In Dan Hampton’s book “Lords of the Sky: Fighter Pilots and Air Combat, from the Red Baron to the F-16” (Available on Amazon, a great book, you should read it)  his description of the various aircraft includes a description of the firing rate, number of guns and weight of the round and adds a number that tells you the total amount of metal the aircraft throws at the opponent. That took me a while to learn.  Strafe, you squeezed the trigger and released, then the gun fired.  Here, you needed to squeeze until you heard the gun and then release.  You really wanted about a hundred rounds each time.  Bullet density is going to kill the target.

Jeff and I have the first flight of the day, we’ll actually take off before sunrise, so our brief starts about 0400.  We’re about ready to step to the jets, and I copy down our tail numbers.  I notice that the tail number assigned to me is the jet with my name painted on the side.  (“My jet” is not acceptable vernacular around here and calling it "The Crew Chief’s Jet" while technically true does not convey the meaning I desire.)  It is a great jet, Radar works well, it flies well, straight and true which is not always the case.  The crew chief and assistant crew chief are good at what they do and I have a good relationship with them.  Things are just falling into place.

 

This one had my name on the canopy rail and ZZ on the tail at one time! AKA "My Jet!"

 

It’s starting to get light as we start the jets and it looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, light winds, and good visibility.  We’re in the arming area, with the gun safety pin and warning  flag showing, telling the arming crew that we’re going shooting. On more normal missions, the safety pin is inserted inside the gun door, so doesn't interfere with flight.  Guns hot, master arm switch triple checked off,  we take the runway.
 

Departure from Kadena was easy.  Take off, put the gear up, turn toward your assigned airspace and once over water, cleared all altitudes.  We’re taking off about 10 minutes ahead of our target as we have to perform the safety check and make sure there are no surface vessels in the area.  Typically, we would climb to a medium high altitude ~25000’ or so, but not today. 

Today, as soon as we get feet wet, Jeff sends me out to tactical spread formation, about 9000’ line abreast and with an altitude split of a couple thousand feet.  I move out and start to climb a bit, but he’s pushing over and levels off at about 500’.  In a low level situation, the wingman does not take an altitude separation so as to not highlight the formation, so I level off with Jeff on the Horizon.  I notice that Jeff has not pulled the power back either, we’re still in military power, so the ocean is passing by at a great rate.

We’re approaching the eastern edge of the operating area, the sun is beginning its climb and we hear the target check in on the frequency.  Today, we’re not using any GCI, to help us with the intercept, we’ll be relying on our own  radar to handle that.  Jeff has briefed that first radar contact will run the intercept and first visual gets first shot.  Not all flight leads are that lenient. 

The target calls that he’s in the area and we are cleared to turn hot.  Still headed east, I notice Jeff’s burner’s light.  This is not hard, as it is still dark enough to see the bright white streak coming out of the back of his jet.  I light mine and am instantly through the Mach.  I watch Jeff begin to pull and I match him in a gigantic accelerating immelman, rolling out headed west at 38000’.  I glance at the radar and have a contact about 70 miles on the nose, check the squawk and it’s our target.  I get to run the intercept.

He’s at 20k and as we get to about 40 mile range, I get the "Reno" (I've got a target formation breakout on my radar) on the actual thing we’re going to shoot, the dart about 1500’ in trail of the F-86.  That’s a great advantage, since when we get to lockon range, I can lockon to the actual target and the target box on my Heads Up Display will appear over it instead of the F-86.

Source

 

 

We’re still in the high 30’s when we get to lockon range.  I lock and my jet’s systems are spot on.  I catch a flash of sunlight off the dart and can make out the F-86 also.  I call visual, Jeff and the target call No Joy.  I talk Jeff’s eyes on the target and am starting my vertical conversion and tell the target to start the turn and look up.  I pop a flare.  (We can’t shoot unless he sees us)  All have a tally and we’re cleared hot.  

 
Master arm hot.  Finger off the trigger (Rule 3 applies).  I’m now almost vertical in my dive and he’s slightly off the right side of my nose.  He’s got two choices, turn into me, which would put him on Jeff’s nose or turn away from me, putting him on my nose.  At this point it really doesn’t matter, I am pulling lead by rolling the jet and he can’t deny me turning room as I’m well above him.  He turns away from me, I make a small roll to establish lead and begin the pull out of the dive as I close the range.

The pipper is settling down and the range is closing rapidly, I’m in gun range ~2500’, but pause.  I’d been making that mistake before, and didn't intend to make it again.  1500’, one last check of master arm.  It’s hot, finger on the trigger. 1200’ Squeeze and hold.  The pipper is dead steady as I hear the Gun fire.  Release the trigger and pull on the stick, still have a lot of overtake, so immediately roll to keep the target it sight.  Look back high to find Jeff and prepare to reattack when out of the corner of my eye, I see an amazing array of flashes.  The target had disintegrated and all the tinfoil parts were fluttering in the sunlight like little mirrors as they made their way to the ocean. 

Tow pilot calls “knock it off”, and we clear out of the way.  Without the aerodynamics of the dart to stabilize the cable, he needs to jettison it quickly before it has a chance to do anything bad.  He lets it go, and we head home.  Jeff does a quick battle damage check of me,  nothing, and because it’s required, I do one on him.  Not surprisingly, he’s fine. 

I, however, am higher than a kite.  I’m ready to take on anybody and everybody.  We pitch out, land, dearm and debrief the jets with maintenance.  Pull the VCR Tape and invite the crew chief and assistant to the flight debrief to watch some “really cool S**t!”.  Walking back to the Squadron, Jeff tells me I owe him a beer since he didn't get to shoot, but , he says, “I just wanted to do that once with someone who didn't start in an Eagle, someone who might recognize just how much better this jet is than anything flying.  Guess I did!”

*What's the difference between a fairy tale and a war story, a fairy tale begins "once upon a time.  A war story begins "so, there I was".

Somebody around here's got a birthday!

 

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday dear Sarge, 

Happy Birthday to you!

From your staff at The Chant

Updated from 2014: Customs, Courtesies and Beanies

 Happy Birthday, you old (well...you know what).  Hope you have a great day and many more.

In any case sorry, another rerun. I've got a lot of things going on over the next couple of weeks, so I'm searching my archives for stories from quite a while ago that only the true, and long timer Sarge fans will have read.

So,  There I was……* Flying the F-15 at Kadena and a pinned on Major and Flight Commander.  I’ve spent the last 3 weeks deployed to Kwang Ju AB ROK to provide Air Defense for the Seoul Olympics.  I was in charge of 6 pilots, a flight surgeon and a maintenance detachment. Our mission was to ensure if the Kim family wanted to provide an airshow on international television, that there would be an F-15 in close formation and another one in trail with locked on missiles.  A future post will provide more details about that deployment. 

Not exactly  the formation we'd have flown.  the farside guy would have been directly astern, just outside min range for each missile. The near side guy would have been close enough that it would be difficult to get a TV shot without him in it
Source:Commons.Wikipedia.org

 

This post will be about a comment I’d made on one of Sarge’s posts from long ago which went “the only thing more dangerous than a 19 year old with a gun is a 19 year old with a gun, a badge and a beanie.”  There was good discussion on that post about peace officers vs police and good police officers vs “badge heavy” members of the police.  As Sarge says, go read it, I’ll wait. This post describes the incident where I came to realize the truth in my "gun, badge, beanie" statement.

It’s Sunday morning, 4 of the 5 Eagles had redeployed the day before, but one had a problem on start and had taken the rest of the day to fix.  We had gotten it fixed, but it was too late to deploy so we spent an additional day.  I stayed behind and will be flying the jet back.  It’s a beautiful day and I’m making good time.  Got the radar run out to max range, and as far as I can tell, I’m the only person airborne in the whole world at this time.  Ahhhh!  I’ve been handed off to Fukuoka control and diplomatically made contact.  After a Time, I’ve been handed off to Kadena’s Approach Control.  I can see the island and the runway from a long way away, so am intending to do an overhead and land.  I’m about 15 minutes out, so contact the tower and let them know I’m coming in and would they contact maintenance and customs to let them know, please?

 

A 67FS Eagle at Red Flag Alaska (Aim-9 on Left Outboard, AMRAAM on left inboard and an ACMI pod on right outboard)
Source: en.wikipedia.org

Pitch out and land, go through dearm and back in to the shelter.  Crew chief marshals me in, and gives me the shutdown signal.  I cut the throttle and when the last engine winds down, turn everything off and climb down the ladder handing my A-3 bag down to the crew chief.  We discuss what had happened to the jet and what it’s status was for the flight down, and he starts to do whatever it is that crew chiefs do to get the airplane ready for what’s next.  I glance at my watch, it’s been about 10 minutes since shutdown.  No Customs.  Not unusual, though, they sometimes get busy with inbound MAC flights.  I hadn’t seen anything on Radar, or heard any radio, but…

The crew chief finishes putting the jet to bed, and the line chief comes by in the bread van to pick him up.  Offers me a lift, but I tell him I can’t, customs hasn’t come by.  Would he mind giving them a call when he gets in to the maintenance shack, please?  No problem.  Now been 30 minutes since shut down. 

I sit down on my A-3 bag and cool my heels for a bit, when I see a car drive up in the squadron parking lot and my wife and 4 year old son get out.  They walk up to the red line and ask what’s happening.  I respond with BTHOM, I’m waiting on customs.  It was not unheard of that customs would not show up.  It had happened a time or two.  I decide I’ll give them another 15 minutes to make it an even hour.

 

Where it all went down, at the cross intersection in front of the shelter.
Source: Google Maps

I ask her how everything’s going, she says little Juvat is running a fever, ear infection or something.  As the clock is ticking, one of Kadena’s famous torrential downbursts is headed our way, I tell the wife to get back in the car and then sprint back and climb under the jet.  It provides some protection, but I get wet. 

Well, it’s now an hour.  I grab my bag and walk off to the Squadron.  As I exit the flight line, a little blue truck comes speeding up and slams to a stop right in front of me and out jumps this spiffy A1C.  All shiny boots and beret creased to adhere to the side of his head.  He asks me where I think I’m going and why did I leave the secure area before being cleared by customs AKA himself?  How was he supposed to make sure I hadn’t brought back drugs or any other contraband?  He was afraid he was going to have to detain me. (In Well Seasoned Fool’s vernacular, he’s “badge heavy”.)

I think I smiled before responding.

I stated that if he detained me, that would raise questions about where customs had been for the last hour and ten minutes. Since he had stated that making sure Pilots didn’t bring back drugs or other contraband was their mission, didn’t that absence represent dereliction of duty on his part. Clearly had I wanted to smuggle drugs, his not being present to intercept them meant he had failed in his duty.  I then responded, if he wanted, he could inspect my A-3 bag, otherwise, I was proceeding to the squadron.

Walk in to the Squadron, hang up my flight gear and notice the Boss is in.  Knock on his door and ask if I can have a moment of his time.  I explain what had happened.  He tells me to go home and not worry about it.  Well…

I get home, and as we walk in, the phone is ringing.  It’s Sgt Schmuckatelli, the NCOIC of the customs detachment.  He requests that I report to the detachment for customs evasion. I call the Boss who’s now at home.  He tells me to come over while he makes some calls.  We share a back yard, it’s not far.  

His wife lets me in as he’s on the phone.  His side of the conversation goes like this “Bob, how long should my guys have to wait before customs shows up at the jet…..Yeah, I know they shouldn’t, but suppose a MAC flight had just landed?....10 minutes… would 15 minutes be out of line?.....How about 30 minutes?...It would?….How about 45?.....One of my guys just waited over an hour……”

The conversation devolved from there….

He hangs up and says “Listen Up…Report to the Customs Det.  Do NOT sign any papers.  Do not give them your ID or anything of yours.  Do not make any statements.  Do not answer any questions.  Do you have any questions about the directives I've given you?”

No sir!

I show up at the detachment, and the NCOIC says “Give me your ID!”  I look at him quizzically.  He says “What?”  I respond, “Last I checked, I’m an officer and you’re not.  I haven’t been charged with anything, so protocol would say you should amend that last statement to be “May I have your ID, please sir?” 

Well, if you’re going down, go down fighting.

He says, “May I have your ID, please…sir?”

I respond “Unfortunately, Sergeant, my Commander has expressly ordered me not to give you my ID or any other items.”

“Well, we’ll need you to sign this statement.”

“Unfortunately, Sergeant, my Commander has expressly ordered me not to sign any papers whatsoever.”

“We need to ask you some questions!”

“Unfortunately, Sergeant, my Commander has expressly ordered me not to answer any questions.”

“Would you please wait here while I get this straightened out, then?”

“Of Course”

I’m sitting there cooling my heels when I notice a gym bag by the desk with my favorite A1C’s name on it.  It’s open with some Gym clothes spread out, drying off.  Hmmm.  I also notice the Sunday Stars and Stripes beside it.  I grab it and start reading the comics.  

Finish them and begin the NY Times crossword puzzle.  In ink.  In walks the Airman.  He says, “What are you doing?”  “The crossword puzzle, how was your run this morning?”  His eyes flash to the bag and gym clothes.  Mumbles something under his breath and walks out.

 Shortly thereafter, the NCOIC comes in and says I can go, but “don’t do this again.”  I briefly consider asking what “this” was, but decide discretion is the better part of valor and wish them a good day.

It got very stupid from there.  A few weeks later, we deploy to the PI.  On RTB, I fly via MAC and go through customs at the terminal.  They squeezed the toothpaste out of the tube.  The next deployment, I fly back, they open up all the panels on my jet.  The following deployment, having had about all the fun I can stand and since I’m MAC’ing back, I pack all my laundry in to a box and mail it back to Kadena.  At the time, overseas APO to APO mail didn’t cost anything.  In fact, I recognized the box on a pallet in the back of the same 141 I was riding home.  I get off the jet at the terminal, and walk right up to the processing line.  An Airman says, “Sir, you can’t go through yet, the bags haven’t been unloaded.”  I respond, “I don’t have any bags.”  “How long were you gone?”  “2 weeks”  “Where’s your laundry?”  “In the mail”  “How are we supposed to inspect that?”  “Not my problem!”  and walked out the door.

I’m not the only guy getting the treatment, and the rumblings are starting to get loud.

 Again, we deploy to Cope Thunder.  Towards the end of the deployment, there’s a bit of a security hubbub.  Seems one of the classified avionics boxes is missing from the nose of one of the jets.  Nobody can seem to find it.  We redeploy the next day and my wingman is the one star Air Division commander.  No big deal, within the structure of a Major to Brigadier General relationship, he’s a pretty nice guy.  A good stick, he just wants to fly wing today. 

 

This is obviously not 24 Eagles, nor would they use this formation on Initial, Just thought it was a cool picture.
Source:Commons.Wikipedia.org

We bring the entire squadron down initial pitch out and land.  Dearm and instead of heading to the shelters, we’re directed to park in front of the tower.  

Hmmm.  

Lot’s of vehicles in the area.  We get the jets all shut down, unload our bags and are looking for the bread vans to take us to the squadron.  Instead we get told to form up with our bags, we’re going to get searched for the  missing equipment.  I’m standing next to the General, and look over at him, he gives me the stay quiet sign.  I nod.  

The Airman works his way down the line.  Opens my bag, he doesn't see the 4’ X 2’ X 1’ 125 lb box in amongst my dirty laundry and proceeds to start patting me down.  Strangely enough,  he doesn't find it on my person either. 

 

This is from an F-15 E, but the layout is similar to the C model.  The circle is a bit larger than 4' in diameter,  The missing box is from the bay behind it.  It is NOT going to be found in a flight suit pocket.
Source: en.wikipedia.org

The General is standing right next to me, his bag on the other side, so the Airman begins patting him down.  As he progresses up his leg, side, under side of his arm, top side of his arm to his shoulder where he notices a star and goes white as a sheet.  “Sir, you don’t have to be here.” 

“On the contrary, Son, there is nowhere on earth more important for me to be than right here, right now.”

“Would you do me the courtesy of passing a message to your Commander, your OIC, NCOIC, and the OSI Detachment Chief, inviting them to my office tomorrow morning at 0700, please?”

We never had a problem with Customs after that.

* War Stories begin this way, and while these events all happened, minor details may have been lost to memory.

**BTW to the US Postal Service.  Important note:  re: your current commercial. This is not Your Season! 
It belongs to a child born 2000+ years ago, who proclaimed "Love the Lord, Your God, with your whole heart, your whole mind and your whole soul, and love your neighbor as yourself."  It's a hard discipline, but would more people adhere to it (it's the second part that negates the first), the world would be a better place.

Again, this post including the postscripts was from 12 years ago, one hopes the Postal Service got it's act together.  But....I'm not going to hold my breath. 

Updated from 2014: Le Carte es Merde

 

So, there I was....* Retired from the Air Force almost 22 years now. My first non-Air Force job was working in a school district providing IT support after teaching computer science for a couple years. Stayed there for about 20 years (qualified for a second retirement paycheck). Now am retired retired.  During the teaching years we also owned and profitably sold two wine related retail businesses which introduced me to some fine friends, two of whom owned one of the finest wineries in Texas.  In fact their 2006 Syrah was rated as one of 12 Excellent wines in the United States. We enjoy wine, so having friends in the industry has its perks. Unfortunately, since this is a rerun from 12 years ago, some things have changed, Gary, the winemaker in the pictures passed away a year or so ago.  Good Friend and we miss him.
 

Several years ago, the four of us decided fly to France and vacation with two other friends stationed nearby.  For various reasons, November had worked for our busy schedules.  Their harvest was over and the hectic activities in the crush have slowed down.  School had started and we'd gone through a couple of grading cycles so except for the occasional paper jam, most of the teacher technological panic attacks have slowed way down. So, November it is.

Destination--France.  Unlike Sarge, I've never been assigned to Europe and but thanks to a few TDYs, have been able to visit a bit.  Enough to want to go back. Paris, the City of Lights will be our base camp with day trips to various areas of interest around the country.

Vacation has arrived and we have arrived at CDG (AKA Charles de Gaulle Airport), transitioned to the train, then to the subway and have arrived at our hotel near the Ecole Militaire.  Check in was mercifully quick and we head to the elevator to go to our rooms.  The elevator was quaint.  You had a choice.  Either you, or your bags, could use the elevator, not both.  I go up.  Mrs. Juvat loads bags from below, then joins me.  "You Americans! This is not a bug, but a feature!"

Knowing that jet lag is minimized by staying awake until bed time in the new time zone, we go walking about.  

 

Given that this was the view from our hotel room, we decide on where we are going.

We spend the next couple of days exploring Paris with all the usual suspects.

We saw some pretty ladies.

Go to Church.

Drink some wine.

For some reason, this resonates with my twisted sense of humor.

Spend a lot of time consulting maps.

Even ask for directions.  This fellow was helpful.

We did not get lost. I've never been "lost", that position where you don't know where you are, nor how to get where your going, or even how to figure out where you were.  Nope never!

A low level fly by of a ROKAF runway was simply a matter of practicing airfield attack tactics.  Their calls on Guard questioning my identity simply confirm the effectiveness of my tactics.

Gratuitous Airplane Shot
Source RCGroups.com

 

I digress.  We have successfully navigated a very large city.  It is time to expand our horizons.  We decide to visit Reims.  As I said earlier, having wine makers as friends has it's perks.  We are going to get a private tour of Veuve Clicqout

 

Not usually a fan of Champagne, but this was excellent.

I wonder if they'd miss just one.

 

Successfully returned to our hotel, we plan the next day trip,  I'd always heard about the beaches in France, so we decide to visit one.

This beach is named for a town in Nebraska. Big Red One visited here. Quite a few decided to stay.

Returned from that trip, sobered, but emboldened of our navigational abilities, we decide we want to sample wine from the Loire Valley. We take a train to the town of Tours because that's what we want to do.( I know, "try the veal, I'll be here all week.")

Rent a car and drive to Chinon,  a French Castle astride the Vienne River near Anjou.

With drawbridges on either end, the castle has instant moat protection from an attack.  It was interesting, the gardens are beautiful, but it's time to find wine!  The castle gift shop has a map purporting to have all the local wineries on it.  I purchase it and we hop in the car and are off. The ladies are in the back seat and as good back seaters they have assumed the navigational responsibilities.  We get back on the road and they tell me to start looking for a major highway which we will cross.  We find it and do.  A defined starting point.  They tell me to drive for about 10km when we will come to a village.  We do.  "Take a right, 10 km to next village".  "Take a left".  "We should be coming into village named  xxx".  I can't find anything that says what village we're in at all.  Continue on in this manner for a while and finally come into a village on a river.  It's about lunch time, and we spy an Auberge.

We decide we'll stop and get lunch and ask directions while we're there.

We walk in the front door and are greeted, in French, by the Maitre D', the waiter, the proprietor, cook and busboy. He was a busy man.

He speaks no English.  There are several, male patrons in the Auberge, one of whom comes up to us and says "I speak English!". Great,  I ask him if the restaurant is open and could we get lunch.  He says "I speak English! Your wife is sexy!"  Well, I think so, but....Those phrases seems to be his version of my fluency in 22 languages (the ability to order a beer and find a restroom, neither of which I particularly need at this time).

I pantomime an eating gesture and the Maitre D', the waiter, the proprietor, cook and busboy takes us to a table.  A couple of minutes later, he brings out a terrine of something and cuts off a slice, placing it on my plate.  Points at it and pantomimes eating.  Now, I've eaten balut and lived to tell about it, I'm not intimidated.  I cut a piece of what is probably the innards of some long dead animal and commence to chow down.  The bar erupts in cheers and clapping.  Having passed whatever test was presented to us, we are now old friends,  Wine is poured, food is served and lunch goes on for quite a while.  At some time, I approach my new friend, (the all in one Maitre D'...) with my map and explain our situation.  With the wine consumed at lunch, my friend's English and my French are improving rapidly, or maybe it was the pointing at the map and scrunching my shoulders while lifting my hands.  In any case, We've communicated and he starts unfolding the map from where I had opened it to our supposed location. And unfolds, and unfolds, and unfolds.  Evidently, we are about 30 miles from where we thought we were.

I point to where we think we are, and he shakes his head and points at the location on the map.  I look at him quizzically and he responds "Le Carte es Merde!" (Google translate does a reasonable job on the statement.) 

I point to one of the bottles of wine we'd consumed and then pointed at the map with my patented "Where the hell are we?" gesture, and he points out where the winery is and the route necessary to arrive there.  We pay our bill, thank him profusely and get back in the car. Crank it up and promptly turn the wrong way.

I don't get very far when I realize my error and turn around.  Drive past the Auberge and the clientele is outside, bent over in laughter!

My friend the English speaker on the right

We manage to find the winery and taste some very fine Vouvray.

I am certain that should we find our way back to that Auberge, they will still be talking about the Americans that came to visit.

 

We had a great time, visited quite a few places I wanted to visit, drank some excellent wine and made a few friends.  In other words, an excellent vacation.  I highly recommend it.

 

Peace out, y'all! 

 

*Standard Fighter Pilot beginning to a story which may or may not be completely true!