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After a long bus ride from an airport to our destination and it was off to bed at around midnight. Then, at around 4 a.m., the next sound we heard was loud shouting from a skinny and nutty guy for us to get our asses out of that rack and onto the floor! It was 54 years ago today when 120 of us recruits woke up to the first day in the U.S. Air Force basic training at Lackland AFB, Texas. It did not take us long to learn that this guy was serious and meant business, he still wore his Army fatigues and brown boots. 
I still remember it as clearly as if it were this morning. After two, 4-year tours in the Air Force the lure for higher pay and prestige as an engineer was too much, so I opted to get out; but still wonder if I should have stuck it out for the full 20 years. Military life is not for everyone but some of us fit right in. Oh BTW, I had been in Judo for 8 years before that and one of our TI’s was a Judo Nidan; he liked us Judo guys.
Oh well, life is short and here we are years later in retirement wishing for a rerun. 
A Cheyenne Judo friend once said to me: “Politicians are everywhere. Given manure and warm rain, they come up like toadstools all around us. But great champions and coaches are mighty hard to find, and a man who has been both is worth a little study.”
I still remember it as clearly as if it were this morning. After two, 4-year tours in the Air Force the lure for higher pay and prestige as an engineer was too much, so I opted to get out; but still wonder if I should have stuck it out for the full 20 years. Military life is not for everyone but some of us fit right in. Oh BTW, I had been in Judo for 8 years before that and one of our TI’s was a Judo Nidan; he liked us Judo guys.
Oh well, life is short and here we are years later in retirement wishing for a rerun. A Cheyenne Judo friend once said to me: “Politicians are everywhere. Given manure and warm rain, they come up like toadstools all around us. But great champions and coaches are mighty hard to find, and a man who has been both is worth a little study.”
