Mighty quiet. Time for another Sondy Tale.
RAUCOUS BAND
By Wilton Strickland
From 4 Feb 1978 to 8 Feb 1979, I was Director of Engineering, in charge of
construction and maintenance of all physical facilities at Sondrestrom Air
Base, Greenland. For two to three weeks during the holiday season in Dec
and Jan, I was also acting Base Commander while our regular Base Commander
was away on leave.
One day during this period, one of the Danish civilian contractor Civil
Engineers who lived on the lower floor of the building in which I also lived
came to my office with a plea for help. He told me that he and others
living on his floor had had very little sleep for several nights because of
the fighting and very loud and raucous behavior of the members of a
USO-sponsored band on a two-to-three-week gig at out Officer and NCO Clubs.
He said the band would come in around midnight or after and continue to play
loud music interspersed by loud shouting, screaming by the band's female
singer and (possibly drunken) fighting amongst themselves for the rest of
the night - just extremely disruptive to normal sleep for anybody trying to
work during normal duty hours every day. Construction of the building was
such that, in my room on the second floor, I could not hear the sounds from
the first floor.
Later that afternoon, I found the band leader in his room and asked him to
please calm it down late at night in the building; that others on the floor
have to get up early every day and go to work; that we appreciate the work
they're doing to entertain us at the clubs, but that we can not accept such
disruptive behavior in our living area every night. Evidently, though, the
band leader did not understand my warning; next day, I got the same type of
report of the band's disruptive behavior on the very night after I had
warned them.
Again, I confronted the band leader in his room and asked him to assemble
the rest of the band (5 or 6) to hear my second warning. I tried to make
myself abundantly clear, "If I hear one more report of your band's loud,
raucous behavior in the dormitory, including loud music, fighting, screaming
and, in general, drunken brawl-type behavior, which shows no respect or
concern for your neighbors, late at night and into early morning, I'll put
you and the entire band on the next Air Force airplane headed south to
McGuire AFB, NJ. Reports I've had from some of your neighbors even indicate
that there may be some physical assaults occurring between members of the
band. A C-141 will be headed from here to McGuire early tomorrow afternoon.
Don't make me have to put you on it!" The leader replied, "Yes, Sir, I
understand. We'll take care of the situation. Please, don't send us home;
we're supposed to have a 3-week gig at Thule after we finish here. Please,
don't send us home." I insisted, "You heard me; it's up to you; I can not -
I will not - condone such disruptive behavior keeping the peace-loving
members of our work force up all night."
The next day, I pointedly asked several occupants of the first floor about
the band's behavior the night before. "Quiet as a mouse," a couple of 'em
said. "What did you say? Whatever it was, thanks." Thankfully, also, I
never heard another word about the band. 'Still don't know if I could have
legally and properly put 'em on the plane, but my threat worked, anyway. 'Just
glad I didn't have to try to put 'em on the plane.
Wilton
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