Downtown Burque, early 1960's. 2nd and Central.
I'm pretty sher that I spent the night before I shipped out to Lackland for Basic, in September, 1964, at the expense of the USAF, at the Kings Hotel, on Central. It's (was) on the north side of the street, under the green sign, bracketed by bars. I was 18, and so the bars might as well have been on the moon.
I don't think I slept much. There was an AF van at the curb in the morning which took me and a handful of others to the airport--the airfield, to be more precise, because they took us to Kirtland, and a military flight. A C-54, mebbe?
My first really vivid recollection of military life is of the short, squat (as it turned out, remarkably fit for his girth) Tech Sergeant assigned to my Basic "flight" (training company) yanking the sun glasses off my face and smashing them beneath the heel of his immaculately, gleamingly spit-shined combat boot and smilingly telling me I wouldn't be need in them for a while.
Day One, Strike One.
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