When I reported in to the band squadron, the head drummer auditioned me.

I failed the audition.

I didn't know the drum rudiments and I couldn't sight-read very well.

"How did you pass an audition at Lackland AFB?" he asked.

I told him I wanted desperately to be in the band, and if he'd give me a practice pad, a set of drumsticks, and a drum rudiments book, I would practice until I could pass and audition again. All I needed was a little practice.

I hadn't practiced after the drummer at Lackland passed me.

He gave me a practice pad, a set of drumsticks, and a drum rudiments book.

He told me to stand roll call in the orderly room every morning. When we were dismissed, I was to return to the barracks and practice. My assignment every day until I passed the audition was Individual Practice. He'd be back in touch.

I didn't practice. I didn't want anyone to see how bad I was.

The band played Retreat every Friday and a parade once a month. The whole base fell out for the parade.

During the week, a trumpet player played Retreat.

Unless you were a trumpet player, you worked one day a week. Friday. Plus one Saturday a month.

There would be a rehearsal for Retreat and then Retreat.

The Friday before a parade, in addition to rehearsing for Retreat, the whole band would rehearse for the parade. This usually meant playing "Washington Post March" and the "Air Force Hymn." (Off we go, into the wild blue yonder.)

The rest of the week was Individual Practice for everyone who wasn't in a dance band.

There were two dance bands, a small one and a large one. They played old Glenn Miller arrangements. They played dances at the NCO Club and the Officer's Club every weekend, alternating clubs on Friday and Saturday nights.

As these gigs were after duty hours, they got paid extra, out of non-appropriated funds, to play the dances.

Nobody minded playing in the dance bands for extra money.

One Friday afternoon I was in the band barracks when the band was out playing Retreat.

The commanding officer came through.

I knew who he was, from standing roll call in the mornings. But we hadn't been introduced.

He stopped in front of my bunk.

"What are you doing in the band barracks?" he asked.

"I'm in the band," I said.

"Why aren't you out playing Retreat?" he asked.

"I haven't been issued any music," I said.

"Report to the orderly room Monday morning," he said.

"Yes, sir," I said.

Monday morning, the commanding officer had the head drummer audition me.

I hadn't been practicing.

I failed.

The commanding officer order me to report to Base Personnel to be reclassified.

"You have been misclassified," he said. "If you can't pass the audition, you are a three-level, not a five-level."

It might have been a one-level, not a three-level. I don't remember.

I was a one-level. You had to be a three-level to be in the band. Unless it was a five-level.

I was weighed in the balance and found wanting.

At Base Personnel, the personnel specialist, a sergeant, asked me what I wanted to do.

I said I wanted to go to tech school.

He laughed.

"You're an asset, son," he said. "We don't relinquish assets, we retain them, and train them here, on the job. What job do you want to be trained for, here?"

I asked what he had.

"Air policeman, supply man, roads and grounds," he said. "Dispatcher at B-25 Operations."

"Dispatcher at B-25 Operations," I said.

Instead of learning Russian or Chinese, and being an intelligence analyst, I was going to be a dispatcher at B-25 Operations, in Bumfuck, Egypt, Texas.

I was interviewed by the NCOIC and the OIC of B-25 Operations.

They hired me.

The NCOIC of B-25 Operations had asked his old NCO buddy at Base Personnel to be on the lookout for a likely lad for him and his buddy had found me.

It was a match made in heaven.

Of course, I had some shaping up to do. My military bearing had gotten sloppy in the band squadron.

The NCOIC of B-25 Operations would fix that.

He would instruct me personally.

The first thing he told me was, "You work for me. If anybody tries to chew your ass, do not be disrespectful, but ask them to call me, so I can chew your ass. That way, I will know every move you make, and can monitor your progress."

"Yes, sir," I said.

"Do not call me sir," he said. "I am Sergeant Brown. When I was Captain Brown, and flew P-38s, in the Pacific, during World War II, you would have called me sir. Now you call me Sergeant Brown."

"Yes, Sergeant Brown," I said.

"I didn't have to do the social life, you see," he said. "All I had to do was fly P-38s in combat. Now," he said, "I no longer get to fly P-38s in combat. But I don't have to do the social life."

I got it.

Sergeant Brown was editorializing about (1) the social life of officers, and (2) the missions pilots in a Navigator Training Squadron flew. Compared to dogfights in a P-38.

Officers didn't fuck with Sergeant Brown.

I don't listen to the criticism of anyone who hasn't written as well as I have, for as long, with as little in the way of results.

I am Sergeant Brown.

"If you live in shit long enough, it don't stink," he said.

Meaning, "Set your own standard and hold to it, no matter what those around you are doing."

I thought, The social lives of officers.

Sergeant Brown just wanted to fly P-38s in combat.