Daddy was retired Navy. We've lived, except for a couple of years here and there, in this town since I was three. The Navy Base is small - an exchange but no commissary, a dispensary but no hospital. So our grocery store and our family doctor was "the other base". Tyndall AFB. That was even what we put down on that form we filled out every year in school. You know, name, address, emergency contact, FAMILY DOCTOR. Tyndall AFB Hospital.

At that time Tyndall was an "open base". No fences, no guards at the gate. If you wanted on the flight line (the secure side), you needed a base sticker to get past the guard, but to get to the exchange or the hospital or housing, you just drove there. Anyone could. So we had no sticker. No need.

Nowadays there is a Federal Magistrate on base, so if you go blasting through and an APe pulls you over, you pay the fine to the Federal judge, just like any other small town speed trap. But back then there was no magistrate. The Air Police had no authority over civilians. And folks knew it, so they'd blast through that 45 zone at 60 or more. When the speeders got TOO out of hand, Tyndall would call in the Road Patrol. You'd come down off the bridge and around the curve, and there'd be six or eight Highway Patrol cars lined up, just ready to start chasing.

So we come blasting around the curve one day, and Mama says, "Damn". I say, "What?" She says, "Didn't you see that blue car in the school parking lot? Radar gun."

Sure enough, about a quarter mile down there's two more blue cars, and a guy standing at the side of the road waving us over. He walks up to the window. "May I see your ID Card, please?"

Mama hands it to him, and he writes out the ticket, then walks up to the front of the car and looks at the bumper, then at the windshield, then back at the bumper, then walks back. "Ma'am, where's your base sticker?"

"My husband's retired."

Poor APe. He couldn't write us. We weren't active. But he HAD written us. So now he would have to explain WHY he wrote the ticket but had not issued it. More paperwork. Oh well.

Many years later. Daddy had a heart attack. Again. They sent him to Keesler AFB (Mississippi) for the bypass. Mama, of course, went with him, and that weekend me and my brother drive over to see how he's doing. We take my brother's car - a 4-door Pontiac sedan of a strange shade of blue. Too light to be Navy, but certainly too dark to be "light blue". We're going to stay at the guest house. That's allowed, because Daddy's in the hospital. And, since Daddy was career Navy, we've ALWAYS had short hair.

So we get to the guest house to sign in. The "desk clerk" looks at our haircuts and says, "What's your name and rank?"

My brother says, "We're civilians".

You can't stay here. You have to be military.

"Sure we can. We're visiting our father, who's in the hospital."

Oh. Well, yeah, in that case you can stay here. What's your father's rank?

"He's retired."

What WAS his rank?

"ADCS."

What?

"Senior Chief Aviation Machinist Mate."

What?

"E8?"

Okay, I know what that is.

Later the four of us - me, my brother, his wife, and Mama - go out to take a little look at Biloxi, and get something to eat. When we come back, it's after dark, so the gates are closed. As we slow at the gate, my brother lowers the rear window, so Mama can show her ID card and we can get on base, but seeing that "darkish blue" 4-door sedan drive up, the APe at the gate assumed it was an O-ficial Air Force car, and raised the barricade. He was quite confused when we stopped anyhow so Mama could show her card.

Several years later. I have a job that requires me to go to the "secure side" of Tyndall - the flight line. I stop at the gate and tell the guy I need to go to Hangar Three. He drops the barricade and waves me through, then suddenly is hollering, "WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!!!". He had seen, through the side window of the camper shell on my pickup, a two-rifle case lying in the bed of the truck.

"Are there any guns in that gun case?!?"

"No."

"Okay, go on in."

The security at some places.

__________________
I always take precautions

I was thinking that you were going to say having a bit of fun on the Air Focesexpense meant they y'all snuck on the base and tied pink ribbons onto the tail sections of all their airplanes.

Isn't that normal?

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James L. "Jim" Rhiner

My dad was career Navy as well. CPO. E-7 . He informed me once "Son, you kids don't know how to drag race. You haven't drag raced until you line up 5 wide on the old airport runway. Everyone was using AV gas as well. Now, THAT was fun. Yeah, until the MP's came around about an hour later wanting to know who owned the black car parked out back. Yes, I was escorted back to the gate and my sticker scraped. I had to sell the car about a week later because I had to walk in from the gate. Moral of the story is this. Sometimes when you win, you still lose!"
I will admit that I laughed when he told me this story. I know where he did this but I am not going to tell. Needless to say this happened a long time ago.

I was /am a civilian but worked security for my company on several bases at times. I got shook down big time twice. Aint sure I can give the details even after many years, but I was impressed. On another incident in the middle of nowhere I was guarding something in plain cloths and was braced by a couple of military type. Along come John. He was a old gezzer that was also contract security for some other outfit. He was dressed like a old SW cowboy lawman. He came into the act after the others, drove up and demanded who I was. I told him my name and probley badged him. I then asked him his name. I`m God he said. I pulled out a tablet and pen and asked him, "How do ya spell God?" He backed off.