Flight from Hell Revisited – An Ode to Military Humor

My recent adventures have been about a vacation that my family and I took to the island of Guam immediately after I had relinquished my position as the Commander of the 305th Supply and Services Company.  My family and I decided to spend some time cooling our jets while catching up on some much needed rest and relaxation.  Of course, you may already know that.  You may even know how we traveled to Guam using the low-budget method of transportation known as Space-A (space available) transportation.  Naturally, it had its own little quirks that we had to deal with such as not being able to catch a direct flight to Guam.  Then, there was the minor little issue with the cargo plane seats on the flight from hell.  Or how about our temperamental car rental that seemed to decide when and where it needed to take a break.  Or about the wild pigs and the coconut crabs, and our fruit picking exercises.  Most recently, I talked about a couple of our tourist trips around the island.  Including some island luaus or traditional island picnics where my family and I ate free food pretty much the whole time that we were on Guam, courtesy of my First Sergeant from the 305th Supply and Services Company and his relatives that lived on Guam.   The last few memories about my paradise vacation in Guam have gone and past, the random water buffalo sighting and reflections, waterfall diving, and our swim with the fishes now behind us.  But sadly, all good things must come to an end.  And it’s the same with my stories about the adventures my family and I shared on the island of Guam.  What remained was our return trip from Guam to Korea.  I know.  You may have forgotten that all of this originated with a flight from hell that started in Korea (technically Japan).  Well, since that’s where we came from, that’s where we had to go back to.  And yes, we used the same method of transportation.  Just to refresh your memory, that method of transportation was a low-budget form of transportation known as a Space-A (space available) by hopping aboard an Air Force cargo plane.  Now, back when I caught this Space-A hop, flights were only ten dollars ($10) per person per flight in one direction to any destination.  In theory, it’s a great deal.  But like I said, that is pure theory.  In actual practice, you get what you pay for.  Sometimes you get the proverbial “cargo plane” that has been gutted so that it can haul cargo and has the canvas web side facing jump seats used by paratroopers.  Oh yeah.  Those are a ‘blast’ to ride in.  Especially for long distances.  As I sat in the Military Airlift Command (MAC) terminal at Anderson Air Force Base on Guam, I was dreading the flight back to Korea.  I was thinking about potential flight from hell scenarios.  Now granted, some of these scenarios weren’t even possible in my situation.  But my anxiety got the better of me.  All sorts of bad images popped into my head.  I thought of three possible scenarios.  Perhaps you’ve been on one or more of these types of flights from hell.  The first flight from hell scenario was a transoceanic nonstop flight from Guam to Korea, where every seat on the plane was full.  And when I say that the plane was full, it was crammed full like sardines in a can.  Just imagine that the seats are lined up in rows of three.  And you got men, women and children (lots and lots of children) up to your ears on that plane.  So what do you do?  You place your wife and your two children together in one row, and you become the sacrificial lamb.  What happens to the sacrificial lamb in every story?  You guessed it.  It gets crucified for the good of the order (usually dinner).  Okay, I wasn’t exactly crucified, but you get the idea.  So, in that scenario, I got stuck, sandwiched between two dudes that stood six foot eight and weighed 320 pounds.  They could’ve been amateur sumo wrestlers for all I know.  My point is, I was the cream filling in a cookie, and I was getting crushed during the whole flight.  That was flight from hell scenario number one.  Flight from hell scenario number two was a transoceanic or a transcontinental nonstop flight where not every seat on the plane was full.  But there were still lots and lots of children up to your ears on the plane.  Most of those children were babies and young toddlers that had never been on a plane before.  And most of the parents of those babies and young toddlers did not know how to deal with those babies and young toddlers.  Yikes.  And this was before the days of really good noise canceling headphones.  As soon as the plane started roaring down the runway for takeoff, every damn one of those kids would start screaming their heads off in a cacophony of noise.  And that noise was nonstop for the entire flight.  You couldn’t even hide from the noise by sitting in one of the toilets.  Oh hell no.  People wouldn’t let you.  Cuz they were looking for their minute of reprieve.  And they would incessantly bang on the door until you got out of the toilet.  Dammit.  Flight from hell scenario number three wasn’t even plausible in my situation.  But by the time that I got around to thinking of it, I had already worked myself into a tizzy fit.  Flight from hell scenario number three is a more classic scenario.  This is the one where you’re traveling for work and you are traveling with some of your colleagues.  Since you are traveling with some of your colleagues, the senior colleague was responsible for booking all of the arrangements.  Now, this is also the type of colleague that absolutely refuses to get up early in order to catch the nonstop direct flight from point A to point B.  Instead, that sorry sonofabitch books all of you on a proverbial flight from hell puddle hopper.  This is the type of flight that takes off at point A and flies for fifteen minutes, and then lands at point B (not your destination), then takes off and flies for thirty minutes and lands at point C (still not your destination), and then flies for another thirty minutes and lands at point D (again, still not your destination), and then takes off to fly to your final destination, which is forty-five minutes away.  The whole damn flight takes all damn day, while the direct flight would have only taken two hours.  And the colleague who booked the flight is the one pitching the loudest about how bad the flight was.  That is flight from hell scenario number three.  But on our return flight to Korea, we didn’t have any of those potential scenarios.  Our Space-A MAC flight was a charter plane that flew from Anderson Air Force Base, Guam to Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, where it stopped briefly to take on passengers and fuel.  Then, it flew onto Osan Air Force Base, Korea.  None of my flight from hell scenarios materialized during the flight.  The flight was actually very pleasant and we experienced no exercises in futility, besides being tortured by my over-active imagination.

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