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  1. #1
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    Default Here's Where I Took My AF Tech School... So Sad...

    ... in the winter of 1979-80, Chanute AFB, Rantoul, ILL. White Hall... what it looked like right before they tore it down... makes me feel 100 years old...

    https://vimeo.com/94426681?ref=fb-share&1
    Last edited by High_Plains_Drifter; 03-02-2018 at 04:23 PM.

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    Dad was at Chanute when I was a very wee lad.
    I have lost my mind. If found, please give it a snack and return it?

    "I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same of others"...John Wayne in "The Shootist"

    A Deplorable!

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    My father retired at Chanute.

    If you look at Homestead AFB housing (or where it WAS) you can still see the shadows on the ground where our houses used to be.
    Last edited by Gunny; 03-02-2018 at 05:11 PM.
    “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Edumnd Burke

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gunny View Post
    My father retired at Chanute.

    If you look at Homestead AFB housing (or where it WAS) you can still see the shadows on the ground where our houses used to be.
    Dad was at Homestead too, before I was born.

    We joked at Mom's funeral that Dad told the tale of her shooting an alligator in the back yard...
    Then calling for help! Dead gator!
    I have lost my mind. If found, please give it a snack and return it?

    "I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same of others"...John Wayne in "The Shootist"

    A Deplorable!

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  9. #5
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    ....Love the pic`s It is sad memories ...But I Love old abandoned places and checking them out..
    Last edited by LongTermGuy; 03-02-2018 at 05:22 PM.



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    Wow... other Chanute stories, cool.

    Yeah I volunteered to wax and buff the barracks floors each day after everyone else left to go MARCH to school, in the COLD, and SNOW. Meanwhile, I got a system down where I could buff the floors spit shined in nothing flat, so afterwards I could go over to the TDY barracks and have a nice breakfast, and then RIDE to school in a buddy's truck that I had met, a nice WARM truck. I had a lot of people ask me if I wanted to let them do the floor buffing each morning to which I always replied, NOT A CHANCE. I got a "STRAGGLE PASS" too that dismissed me from marching.

    They tell you NEVER VOLUNTEER FOR ANYTHING, but, sometimes it works out to your advantage.

    Chanute was just a short bus ride up to my home in WI, and the bus would pick you up and drop you off right on base. I got to go home for Christmas and New Years. I was glad to leave Chanute though when tech school was over. Went home for about a week then off to Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, NV. Ya, and I had orders for Shaw AFB right up until about 2 weeks before graduation, then they changed them to Nellis. We had a "base trading" day for people that have the same job... I didn't even go... and I still had people asking to trade me for Nellis. NOT A CHANCE again...
    Last edited by High_Plains_Drifter; 03-02-2018 at 06:39 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by High_Plains_Drifter View Post
    Wow... other Chanute stories, cool.

    Yeah I volunteered to wax and buff the barracks floors each day after everyone else left to go MARCH to school, in the COLD, and SNOW. Meanwhile, I got a system down where I could buff the floors spit shined in nothing flat, so afterwards I could go over to the TDY barracks and have a nice breakfast, and then RIDE to school in a buddy's truck that I had met, a nice WARM truck. I had a lot of people ask me if I wanted to let them do the floor buffing each morning to which I always replied, NOT A CHANCE. I got a "STRAGGLE PASS" too that dismissed me from marching.

    They tell you NEVER VOLUNTEER FOR ANYTHING, but, sometimes it works out to your advantage.

    Chanute was just a short bus ride up to my home in WI, and the bus would pick you up and drop you off right on base. I got to go home for Christmas and New Years. I was glad to leave Chanute though when tech school was over. Went home for about a week then off to Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, NV. Ya, and I had orders for Shaw AFB right up until about 2 weeks before graduation, then they changed them to Nellis. We had a "base trading" day for people that have the same job... I didn't even go... and I still had people asking to trade me for Nellis. NOT A CHANCE again...
    I was out of the house and ESPECIALLY my dad's house by the time he went to Chanute. I went back to Miami when he went to Keflavik. No F-ing way was I going there even if they'd let me. I think it was a unaccompanied post.

    We were forever going to Monterey, CA and San Angelo, TX. My dad was a linguist so he kept getting orders back to DLI. Then he had a course in Crystal City, in Arlington, VA,Why we lived in DC beats the Hell out of me.

    When I get unlazy and want to focus, there are pics of Iraklion Air Station on the net of how it looked when we were there, and the graffiti'd up ghost town it is now. That was kind of sad. The pics focus more on the AF there, naturally. Not Dependents so I recognized very little except the main gate and the NCO club. There were no pics of housing.

    Speaking of, the housing we lived in on the Presidio of Monterey in 66 and 72 got bulldozed flat too. NOTHING on Lackland is what it was when I was a kid except the commissary and BX. Why that, who knows

    Oddly, I only lived on base as a Marine when I was a boot living in the barracks. Once I got married I never did. The ex and I were both active duty and we made out better living off base. So we thought anyway. Closest I came was I had gotten assigned a house in Wire Mountain (SNCO housing) on Camp Pendleton but decided to retire the next month so had to turn it down and pull my name.
    “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Edumnd Burke

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    Quote Originally Posted by Elessar View Post
    Dad was at Homestead too, before I was born.We joked at Mom's funeral that Dad told the tale of her shooting an alligator in the back yard...Then calling for help! Dead gator!
    everglades.....

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    Quote Originally Posted by Black Diamond View Post
    everglades.....
    Right across US1 back then
    “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Edumnd Burke

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    Quote Originally Posted by Black Diamond View Post
    everglades.....
    Oh yeah .... South Fl is criss-crossed with canals to drain the land. There are canals on the base. One big one goes to Phantom Lake, southern part of base, where the AF training area was. It was like going back in time going down that canal to the lake. It was SWAMP.

    Gators freely use those canals to get around, and if they decide to get out in your yard, hope you got a tree fort
    “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Edumnd Burke

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    @High_Plains_Drifter

    Then:

    Attached Images Attached Images
    “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Edumnd Burke

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    Attached Images Attached Images
    “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Edumnd Burke

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    That ain't me in the "now" pic. That's the AF dude that went back to Iraklion and got someone to take the pic.
    “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Edumnd Burke

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    you are not alone in those feelings. I'm younger than you - however i feel such a sense of loss when places that shaped my history seemingly go extinct. As long as those places exist, its as if I exist. At least a little bit.
    “… the greatest detractor from high performance is fear: fear that you are not prepared, fear that you are in over your head, fear that you are not worthy, and ultimately, fear of failure. If you can eliminate that fear—not through arrogance or just wishing difficulties away, but through hard work and preparation—you will put yourself in an incredibly powerful position to take on the challenges you face" - Pete Carroll.

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    Quote Originally Posted by darin View Post
    you are not alone in those feelings. I'm younger than you - however i feel such a sense of loss when places that shaped my history seemingly go extinct. As long as those places exist, its as if I exist. At least a little bit.
    The more I got to looking around, the stranger it got for me. I just didn't feel like digging around trying to post all the pics. One thing I found was a website for military brats. THAT was strange.

    I was a military brat, and it IS a different life than most of you know. Even different than being IN the military. The only people I know that I have known all my life is my family. I have no childhood friends. I've "known" people on this board longer than I have anyone in real life. People come and they go or you come and go as a service brat. There one day, gone the next.

    I can point to the house on Iraklion where our housing was on an areal map. It's one of the few still standing, and of all the ones, that would have been close to the last I would have picked. I remember a couple of kids' names from there, a face or two, and then we were gone. Never saw them again. On the lists of names I looked at, I saw none I recognized because the memories are from the active duty/parents, not the kids'.

    Just one of those "Wonder whatever became of ....?" moments.

    I also didn't realize at the time almost all of the commands we were at were Joint Services commands. My father was basically a Cold War eavesdropper. He was a linguist. To this day if you get too close to where he worked on what was then Kelly now part of Lackland AFB the guards carry loaded weapons. It does explain we spent half the time living on Army and Navy bases. He never said what he did. I figured it out after I was an adult based on where we were and who he was assigned to.

    If you drive off of Lackland AFB and go east on Military Drive toward "town" (SA), you'll drive right over top of where the house was on E. Kelly AFB where we lived when I was born.
    “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Edumnd Burke

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