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Chanute is or was a training base, where you got the technical training after basic. I spent part of the early Spring there for mechanics school.
It was grey, cold, often wet, and almost totally depressing, The instructors were civilians and seemed to be smart enough and versed in their subjects. But as for the military part of it, they really had some slow and low types. We weren't given most of the time to study, wasted a lot of it on shining shoes, I think, and other nonsense. Everyone knows, don't they, that the VC and NVA were such good fighters mainly because their shoes were so shiny.
I survived because I told myself that is was not forever and that the normal world was still out there where men's hair looked better than their shoes, and your roommate was the opposite sex and had actually read a book in the last year.
When I had a little time off on a weekend, there was not time to go home, so I went down to the next town which was Champaign Urbana, Illinois and the home of the U of Ill and at least for a few hours I could be around a college atmosphere again. Man, it was hard to leave there in the evening and go back to the middle ages.
The military part and the technical training part were separate and really pretty much at odds. I heard a rumor that if you had an A average in your academic subjects, you got sent home 2 weeks early. I didn't know if it was true, and I certainly could not ask the cretins who were mainly there to make life miserable for us, but I took a shot. I had about a B- average at that point, and if I started to ace every phase, I might raise it to an A. I was partly sick, had fever and headaches every day, but I found a way to skip some of the military bull and study more, as well as bypass the normal cafeteria and get some better food. I started to make 100 % on the written, then was able to get to classes a few minutes early and get some of the practical time in. I never got caught, thank God,and I got my A average. I went home 2 weeks early. When I got to my Doctor in Austin, he took a blood test, and before the lab result was even back he said he was sure that I had mono. The blood test came back in 48 hours and he said that this was the worst case of mono that he had ever seen, despite it being somewhat common among students. I was partly sick for the next 6 months, used to fall asleep at my job on the AF weekends required. Of course I got not much sympathy there either, but slowly got my strentght back.
It is a shame that the whole AF and military thing was set up mainly to harass young men, not to inspire them; and that the strong motivation that resulted in me working so hard in the end was just to get out of there as soon as possible, to a normal life.
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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK
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