Hop to Yokota – An Ode to Military Humor

I had finally relinquished my position as the Commander of the 305^th Supply and Services Company.  I had passed the guidon to the new company commander in a change of command ceremony, but I was not yet ready to assume my new role on the staff of the Eighth Army G4.  I needed to cool my jets for a few days and catch up on some much needed rest and relaxation.  My family also needed a break.  As luck would have it, my first Sergeant At 305^th Supply and Services Company was also planning to cool his jets and catch up on some rest and relaxation.  You know what they say.  What’s that?  You don’t know what they say?  Oh, excuse me.  They say that brilliant minds think alike.  So, my First Sergeant and I put our heads together sort of like in a Vulcan mind meld if you will.  Well, it wasn’t exactly a Vulcan mind meld.  Cuz we didn’t do the “Spock put the hands on the temporal lobe” thingy and all of that jazz.  But you get the idea.  We were scheming and screaming.  Well, maybe not screaming.  But we were definitely scheming to come up with ideas for a much-needed joint vacation.  My First Sergeant suggested that we all catch a Space-A (space available) hop aboard an Air Force cargo plane out of Osan Air Force Base to fly to Guam.  He mentioned that he was planning on flying back to Guam to visit his family and relatives for vacation and relaxation, anyway.  I thought that was a great idea.  I had never been to Guam before.  I had a vague idea where Guam was.  I knew it was an island out in the Pacific Ocean somewhere, but that was about it.  Like I said, I had a vague idea where it was at.  I called my wife and ran the idea past her.  She thought it was a great idea.  She asked me how much it would cost to fly to Guam.  I told her that the cost was ten dollars per person in each direction.  In other words, it would cost us forty dollars to fly to Guam and forty dollars to fly back.  I told her that we could rent a car after we got to Guam.  I also mentioned that we could stay at Anderson Air Force Base at the officer guest quarters.  She thought it was a great idea, so we decided to travel to Guam with my First Sergeant.  We made plans to leave for Osan Air Force Base early the next morning.  Once I finalized my plans with my First Sergeant, I went home to pack.  My wife had already gone out shopping to buy some vacation clothes and swimming suits to pack for the vacation since Guam was a tropical island much like Hawaii.  The next morning, my family and I caught the blue train to Pyeongtaek.  When we arrived at the train station in Pyeongtaek, we caught a taxi to the passenger terminal at Osan Air Force Base.  We registered for a Space-A hop to Anderson Air Force Base in Guam.  After going through the standard red tape associated with registration such as showing our passports and our military IDs and my leave paperwork with all of my dependents names documented on the leave orders, we were placed on standby for a flight to Anderson Air Force Base.  About four hours later, I heard my name called over the loudspeaker.  I thought, “damn, that didn’t take long.”  Man was I ever wrong.  The reason they called my name was that they were informing me that they had no flights going directly to Anderson Air Force Base.  I thought to myself, I thought, “shit, it took you that long to figure out that you didn’t have any direct flights to Anderson Air Force Base?  What in the hell kind of Mickey Mouse operation are you running?”  Well, that’s what I thought.  But, of course, I didn’t say a damn thing other than to ask a question.  I asked, “Well, how can I get to Anderson Air Force Base?”  The Air Force clerk answered, “Well, we have a hop leaving for Yokota Air Force Base, Japan, in an hour.  You could catch that.  Once you land at Yokota, you would need to immediately register for a continuation hop to Anderson Air Force Base.  The only downside is that you might have to wait for a while before you catch that flight.”  “Is it going to cost me more money to catch the second flight to Anderson Air Force Base from Yokota?”  “No, Sir.  As long as you immediately register for a continuation hop in the same direction, you don’t have to pay any extra money.”  “Great.  Sign my whole family up for that flight.  I’ll go tell my First Sergeant to come over and sign up for that flight, as well.”  An hour later, we were aboard a C141 passenger plane bound for Yokota Air Force Base, Japan.  The flight didn’t take very long.  When we arrived at Yokota, we immediately registered for a continuation hop to Anderson Air Force Base, Guam.  Then, we were placed on standby for a flight to Anderson Air Force Base.  The clerk at flight operations informed us that the next flight to Anderson Air Force Base would be leaving in about eight hours.  As a result, we had eight hours to kill.  Since we were registered for a continuation flight aboard Space-A, we couldn’t leave the immediate terminal area.  However, that wasn’t a huge problem because the terminal area had all kinds of fast food restaurants and places to eat and all kinds of duty-free shops to spend megabucks, if you had the money.  Naturally, my wife headed straight toward the fine china (tableware) shop.  The duty-free china shop had virtually every brand of Japanese china manufactured.  Of course, they had Noritake.  But they also had names that I never even heard of such as Touan: Kyo and Kiyomizu Ware, Dainichi, ORI-ZARA, UTSUA, Nousaku, OTANIYAKI tamura 1784, Okura Touen, and Koransha.  And of course, my wife wanted at least one set of every brand that they had.  Hell,  I couldn’t even afford one set, much less one set of every brand that they had.  Besides, to me, they were just dishes.  And as far as I was concerned, we already had dishes that worked just fine, thank you very much.  But my wife still spent one helluva long time staring at them damn dishes.  From there, we had to go to the jewelry shop.  I told my wife that we had better take the kids to eat before we caught the next plane.  I told her that we could always return to the jewelry shop if we had time.  By the time we finished eating, flight operations was paging me to return to the flight terminal to catch our flight.  Our Space-A flight from Yokota Air Force Base to Anderson Air Force Base is a whole other story.  But our Space-A hop to Yokota Air Force Base and our layover went down without any exercises in futility.

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