But if I had known that day in January 1943, when I enlisted in the Army Air Corp to be a Meteorologist and gain a commission as such (and maybe have my life work after the war); if I had known that I would go from San Antonio to Biloxi, Miss. to be in a holding pool and sweep sand off the streets and bury stumps and win marching pennants every Saturday and be sent to Minneapolis for two semesters of math and science (pre-meteorology) at the U. of Minn.; and all of us to find out after six months that the Air Corps had too many in weather training - and be told we could go to any officer training school in the AC instead. All of us were sent to Jefferson Barracks in St Louis for a real cold month of Basic Training. And then on to Nashville, to Montgomery, AL for pre-flight. I asked for Navigator school and was aimed that way. Then we went to Gunnery School at Ft. Meyers, FL.  That was fun! Then to a holding pool at Valdosta, GA. It got arranged for me to be sent to Ellington Field TX. I was home for Navigation school, Summer Session, Houston, Tx.

It was good except the air was bumpy around Houston in the summertime - a bucket on every trip. Graduation in the fall and fancy uniform and all. I applied for Radar, Bombardier School in Victorville,  CA.  It was a long way to LA from Victorville so I bought a Model A,  that ran swell on cleaning fluid solvent when hot. Oh well, never had to walk. Upon my graduation in Jan 1945, I was qualified on the APQ-13 radar set used for navigation and bombing, a Navigator - Bombardier.  A few more stops to join the crew, learn to fly with them at Alamogordo, NM, then off the Herington to be issued a B-29 and a clandestine meeting with a boot legger to get four cases of booze.  These we hid in the padding all over our airplane.

It was cloudy on our night takeoff from California so Stackhouse wouldn't fly under to Golden Gate Bridge. We had to give up our new shiny B-29 to another experienced crew and never did get back our bottles of booze. But Boy, we 'got' those brown brothers up in Japanese, didn't we? Twenty-one times we gave it to 'em with no injuries or serious hits.  Just that the Wright engines tended to catch on fire a lot.

I almost got home before my 21st birthday in early Nov. and on to the Colorado School of Mines and Geology Engineering Degree.  But as I said, if I had known that back in January 43, I wouldn't have changed a thing.