Nope, not a Sondy Tale, but BUFF (B-52) Stuff: If ya've seen this before,
please pardon the redundancy.
FROZEN FANNY
By Wilton Strickland
During the winter of 1973-74, while I was on a B-52H combat crew at
Kincheloe AFB, MI, the crew co-pilot, Frank Baehre, and I attended a dinner
party with our wives at the Officers Club one evening while on alert with
nuclear weapons and ready to launch at a moment's notice to strike targets
in the Soviet Union. Because I was going to be inside the club building for
three or four hours, I had removed my thermal underwear, and was wearing
only my cotton under shorts, T-shirt, Nomex flight suit, and street shoes
and socks. While traveling from the alert facility to the club and back, I
also wore a flight parka with a hood (waist-length heavy coat) and gloves.
As usual, we had additional cold weather clothing on the aircraft we could
don if we were suddenly called upon to fly during this time. On this
particular day, as on many days in the Michigan Upper Peninsula, it had
snowed hard all day.
Arriving back at the alert facility after the party, we got our crew-cab
truck stuck in deep snow near our parking space, and as we tried to free the
vehicle, one of the snow chains came off a rear wheel. Using snow shovels,
Frank and I worked for several minutes to remove snow from beneath the
vehicle and reinstall the chain. After we had finally parked the vehicle in
the appropriate space, we went inside the building, where a movie was
playing in the briefing room. I stepped inside the briefing room, stood and
watched the screen for a couple of minutes, then took a seat on the front
row to watch the rest of the movie. As I sat down, though, I suddenly felt
significant pain in the buttocks area - I had frozen my buttocks! While I
shoveled snow and reinstalled the chain, my thin flight suit and under
shorts were pulled tightly across my buttocks, which were elevated to the
full fury of the blizzard as I bent to the task. The skin on my buttocks
came off like sunburn, and the area itched slightly for years. So, you see,
I literally froze my fanny off for Uncle Sam, and no, I did not claim a
Purple Heart for it. Oh, by the way, I never stood around scratching the
itch, either - I quietly and simply endured it.
Wilton
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