Oh my, showing my age

Jim, remember Johnson AS? Went to Camp Drake and interviewed for Army Petty Officer and later turned it down when it was offered.

gwcowgill said:

Jim, remember Johnson AS? Went to Camp Drake and interviewed for Army Petty Officer and later turned it down when it was offered.

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I do.  I was only there a couple of times, the last to turn down a warrant officer's position.  I had taken the testing and interviews before I left Ft. Bliss.  I met a young lady while home on leave on my way to Japan and changed my mind about an Army career.  Not too popular after that.  I really liked our Commander there, a full Bird!  Nice guy and use to come out occasionally for our night missions.  Interesting to talk to while nothing much was going on. 

I tracked a U2 one day as somehow we didn't get the word to have the systems off.  Interesting  debriefing or was that an interrogation.  Not a fun day!

I did a lot of assisting in radar bomb scoring for the AF and Navy while there as the fire control system I was responsible for had some unique plotting capabilities and the scoring teams liked it.  I didn't mind the late night duty and enjoyed seeing what the big boys could do and it gave me a lot of practice in countermeasures too.  It was interesting too as a lot of senior officers from my AAA brigade, AF and a few Navy came to observe.  They always brought refreshments so that was a bonus.  They really had no idea of the capabilities of the system and were amazed at what could be done if needed to counter air attacks.  I had taught the system while at Ft Bliss and also had a lot of extra experience as the AF ran a lot of counter measure testing against our system during those systems development.  They were always amazed that I could track through the countermeasure stuff.  Since most of the AF and Navy officers were pilots, it was interesting at their reactions.

Other than being restricted by response time, 20 minutes max from base except on a few occasions, I enjoyed my stay in Japan.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! 

You know you are old when you used to ride your bike to school and school was a couple of miles away.
My kids wanted me to drive them to the indoor YMCA swimming pool because it is cold out.... 600 feet away from our front door! (I told them to get real.)

Here are several ways to tell you are getting old....

1.  You light the candles on your birthday cake and a bunch of campers show up with a bag of marshmallows

2.  At buffets, You complain if they don't have Tapioca.

3.  You think of a "Quickie" as napping at a traffic light.

4.  You think of an RV as one sweet ride.

5.  Your Sex Drive suddenly shifts into PARK.

6.  You drink Prune juice.. on purpose.

  A bunch more available on request.

Happy New Year.

Stella, I am still laughing about the one with your kids. Sounds like something our grand daughters would try and they would get the same answer.

RoyM said:

Stella, I am still laughing about the one with your kids. Sounds like something our grand daughters would try and they would get the same answer.

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You have to remember that what we called a privilege, when we were kids, is now considered "child abuse".  In some cases, the "good old days" really were the good old days.  Just an old "great grandfathers" opinion. 

carson said:

Here are several ways to tell you are getting old....

1.  You light the candles on your birthday cake and a bunch of campers show up with a bag of marshmallows

2.  At buffets, You complain if they don't have Tapioca.

3.  You think of a "Quickie" as napping at a traffic light.

4.  You think of an RV as one sweet ride.

5.  Your Sex Drive suddenly shifts into PARK.

6.  You drink Prune juice.. on purpose.

  A bunch more available on request.

Happy New Year.

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Very good ones Carson..

My sex drive is not in Park.  But, my driveshaft is broken.

Grew up on Long Island, going to Mitchell Field and watched the planes land and takeoff.  Remembers when Rosevelt Field was a airport before a mall. Going to the train station to pick up my Aunt (a nun) LIRR used coal.

Wow what technology over those few short years.  Props to jets to rockets to duds. That is just in Washington.

Seriously what is next?

gwcowgill said:

Jim, remember Johnson AS? Went to Camp Drake and interviewed for Army Petty Officer and later turned it down when it was offered.

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Army Petty Officer...???  Hmmmmm......  Now, that's a new one I haven't heard of.

Lots of comments about steering wheel spinners in this thread.  I got a story on one of those things.  I had one on a 53 Pontiac, probably not of real high quality, but am positive it looked really "cool" 8)  So, picture this..... I'm a Junior in high school, a car full of kids, making a right hand turn on pavement at a fairly high rate of speed, hanging onto the spinner with both hands since the old Pontiac was pretty heavy.  About 2/3rds through the turn, that spinner had a catastrophic failure (it exploded).  With the windows down, there were parts that were never found.  The steering wheel became a blur as it recovered from the torque I was applying, and made several cycles back and forth before I got the car stopped.  Thank goodness I didn't get a thumb in the spokes as it spun from one side to another, or it would be a lot harder to type this experience.  I was trying to stop the wheel as it spun back and forth, but couldn't get hold of anything until nearly stopped.  Thankfully, there was no other traffic at the time as I wound up with the front wheels in the ditch on the wrong side of the road.  That was my last steering wheel spinner.

DailyDriver said:

Army Petty Officer...???  Hmmmmm......  Now, that's a new one I haven't heard of.

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I assumed he meant a NCO position!

Petty Officer is Navy. I went to Army Warrant Officer School and it was the best decision I ever made. I love my job !!!!!

ChiefM said:

Petty Officer is Navy. I went to Army Warrant Officer School and it was the best decision I ever made. I love my job !!!!!

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That is a great rank and I'm sure I would have liked it but the choice was the Army or the lady and I never regretted the decision.    Unfortunately I had to find another one late in life but was lucky there too.

DailyDriver, how many of you needed a change of laundry after that one? ;D I got a smack on the wrist from one of those suicide knobs, I was driving a grain truck across a field and caught a rut. Dang that HURT!!!

I don't think we had brains enough to be scared.  I do remember being real glad there was no other vehicle in my way because when that thing let go I had NO control, and it happened too fast to do much about it.

Jim,

You are correct, it was warrant officer. Fingers typing and the brain was not engaged/ 

In some ways I regret not going and accepting the warrant.  But that was not to be.  I had a lot of fun at work with inertial Navigation, airplanes, missiles and space shuttle avionics so not going on with AAA missiles was not too bad.   

Back in the day, I thought a Warrant Officer was the best rank in the Army.  Possibly it still is!

Jim,

At the time I was Intel, more specifically a Photo Interpreter. They found out I had a civilian pilots license and wanted me to go to helo schoo; which I was not enthused about. I later became an Air Traffic Controller which I was happy doing.

Heck,I still have a slide rule.