23 Feb 2019 - Lackland Air Force Base Visit and Preparing to Depart Fort Sam Houston

23 Feb 2019
Overcast this morning but a bit warmer and no precip.  It warmed as the day went on and finally the sun broken through in the afternoon.

This morning we drove to Lackland Air Force Base where it all starts for our enlisted Airmen.  This is the one and only location for Air Force Basic Training since 4 Feb 1946. 

My Air Force career started when I enlisted on 18 December 1972, but things got real when I arrived at Lackland very late at night on 8 Jun 1973, not long after I had graduated from high school.  We flew to San Antonio and then waited in the airport in a 'special area' they had set up for the new arriving recruits.  After what seemed to be an eternity we boarded a bus and headed for Lackland Air Force Base.  My first recollection of Lackland was this:

The next recollection I had of Lackland was this:

This was the Reception Center.  The bus from the airport pulled into this horseshoe shaped driveway.  The Training Instructors (TI's) were screaming at us and we hustled off the bus and 'formed up' here. We were 'Rainbows' because we all had different colored clothing on - we had not yet been issued our uniforms.  The rest of that night was a blur, but I remember there was not much sleep!  From there on out it was history.  Six weeks later we graduated from Basic Training and we were Airmen!  Today Air Force Basic Training is an eight week intense program.

This old Reception Center has been replaced with a new modern facility.

It is always great to visit Lackland and see the trainees working so hard to become Airmen.  As this was Saturday morning, they were all out in formation doing 'PT' (physical training).  Loud and proud they were!  Hopefully this movie clip will load:

Our primary mission today was to seek out the brick that Jennifer and James bought me on the occasion of my military retirement.  We received an email that the brick had been moved from the headquarters building to an area near the Medal of Honor Memorial, which is near the south end of the parade field.  This is where the graduation ceremonies are held.  Every Airman that graduates Basic Training proudly marches past the reviewing stand here.

We parked behind the reviewing stand and walked over to the Medal of Honor Memorial. 

It is a beautiful memorials that shows the Medals of Honor that have been awarded to Airmen in each of the wars.  The last Medal of Honor awarded was to CMSgt Richard L. Etchberger for heroism during Vietnam.  CMSgt Etchberger was a communications specialist - a 'comm guy'!

There were quite a few bricks in the walkway but there were also pallets of bricks behind the memorial.  I checked out the pallets of bricks and they were engraved with names, so we started to get nervous that my brick was somewhere in the pile!

So Doreen started at one end of the walkway and I started at the other, and soon I found my brick and right next to it was Jennifer's husband's father's brick.  

It is nice that our bricks are very near this great memorial.

Doreen marking the row that our bricks are located.  The Medal of Honor Memorial is in the background.

While on Lackland besides finding the old Reception Center, we visited the Base Exchange and did some shopping.  We also found the Military Clothing Sales building and stopped in there.  This building is a bit nostalgic for me because not long after arriving at Lackland they marched us up to this building and we had to go in and buy our supplies like towels, soap, flashlight, etc.  I remember it like yesterday! 

We also drove by the house Jennifer and James lived in just ya few years ago.

Tomorrow we move on to San Angelo TX and will be camping at the KOA campground there.  San Angelo is the home of Goodfellow Air Force Base and they do have a campground, but there were no vacancies when we planning the trip.  We have also heard some not-so-good reviews of the FamCamp there, so we opted to stay with the KOA.  It will be about a five hour drive tomorrow with stops.

Next report from San Angelo TX.