Page 6 - Aerotech News and Review 12-4-15

Combat Dining Out opportunity to honor traditions
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Special to Aerotech News
A few years before 9/11 I was re-
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Army Air Forces in England during
World War II and found online an al-
bum of Glenn Miller and his Army
Air Force Band.
,W KDG DOO WKH KLWV DQG MR\ RQ LW ister with intent.
“Moonlight Serenade,” the “St. Lou-
is Blues March,” and of course, “The
American Patrol.”
In the same days of early online
catalog sales in the 1990s, I found
another offering, “Popular Music of
the Third Reich.” Because it was ap-
propriate to my research, I ordered
that one too.
The contrast in pop music of its day
was stark and unnerving. There were
some marching tunes on the Nazi al-
bum, like for “The Condor Legion,”
named for the Luftwaffe volunteers
that bombed Guernica to the stones,
giving Picasso one of his greatest
works depicting human misery under
bombardment.
There were also some Glen Miller-
Tommy Dorsey-style imitation Big
Band offerings. They had lyrics in
English to broadcast as propaganda
for Joseph Goebbels from a group
6 Aerotech News and Review
called “Charlie’s Dance Band.”
The lyrics lampooned Winston
Churchill as a drunkard and President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a tool
of “the international Wall Street and
Jewish cabal.”
In other words, all the Nazi pop
music was vile, racist, nasty and sin-
“Combat Dining Out.”
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in the Big Band Sound, my musing
prompted a kind of personal social
theory, that one of the reasons for the
victory of the Allies over the Axis was
its appreciation of creativity that was
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in the end, contribute to a spirit that
would vanquish tyranny.
“Moonlight Serenade,” and the
spirit of love and hope that pervaded
the Big Band sound so overwhelmed
the nastiness of the Nazi’s “Charlie’s
Dance Band” that the Glen Miller mu-
sic is alive today, with the other rot of
the Third Reich consigned to history’s
rubbish.
It feels no less so today, as the
world shudders at what happened
in Paris, and Brussels shut down
its streets in the face of the terrorist
threat, and the survivors of Beirut and
Mali try to consider life’s next offer-
ing.
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So, the occasion for “Combat Din-
ing Out at Edwards Air Force Base”
offered fresh opportunity to revisit
that personal social theory.
On Saturday night, the senior Non-
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the California air base where stealth
and other technologies are tested —
hosted the 25th annual celebration of
The evening is a kind of overture
with bits and pieces of Harvard’s
Hasty Pudding Club mixed in with
traditions of the British military mess
dining rituals, mashed up with pure
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“We have to have fun,” said one of
the base chaplains. “Our young air-
men are working 60-hour weeks, and
this is a remote base that can be lonely
for young people away from home for
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Noted by all the leaders in atten-
dance was that Security Police from
Edwards are among some of the most
continuously deployed troops in the
Air Force contingent serving over-
seas.
About 300 airmen, and their
spouses, crowded into a massive
hangar with Old Glory draped from
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Photographs by Dennis Anderson
There was a table set for the base gear, and hundreds were armed with
commander, and his chief NCO, and squirt guns and water balloons, super
their wives, reminiscent of the table in soakers and pails of water.
some iconic Arthurian court.
As it turned out, the mess tradition
Plastic drinking mugs were set out of “Combat Dining Out at Edwards”
by the hundreds at long tables, with KDVWKHPLVVLRQREMHFWLYHRIVKDULQJ
one side of the hangar set out for the a meal, sharing ceremonial toasts,
“Blue Team,” and the other for the and unleashing the biggest squirt
“Red Team.” gun battle on the West Coast, with a
ritual ending, the lifting of glasses of
My Army veteran pal, Danny Ba- “Grog” with all mugs slammed on the
]]HOOZKRLVH[HFXWLYHRI¿FHUIRUWKH table as salute to everyone in service
West Coast Chapter of the Brother- everywhere.
hood of Tankers, brought me along
to the revels at the invitation of Air In a military that has operated in
Force Tech Sgt. Michael Burd, who the “Post Tailhook” environment for
leads the Air Force Sergeants Asso- more than 20 years, and works to re-
ciation at Edwards. cover reputational damage from mili-
tary sexual trauma and sexism, “Com-
“I had no idea what to expect,” said bat Dining” is all gender, all ages, and
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Edwards Civilian-Military Support the rails.
Group. “Now, I can hardly wait for
next year.” “Combat Dining Out” is a morale
event in a military that is working
We sat across the table from ser- purposefully to integrate males and
YLFHPHQDQGZRPHQZKRZHUHRXW¿W- females in the ranks together. The
ted for the evening as Forrest Gump, room was simply awash in men and
Lt. Dan and, and Forrest’s best buddy ZRPHQDLUPHQRI¿FHUVDQGHQOLVWHG
of Vietnam, Bubba. The guy decked DOOHQMR\LQJDIHZKRXUVRIIXQZLWK
out as Bubba could recite every a dozen or so “Rules of Engagement”
EUDQGRIVKULPSHYHU¿VKHGIURPWKH for the evening.
cinematic bay for the “Bubba Gump
Shrimp Company.” For example,
Rule 1: Guests must be in combat
They sat a few seats down from attire, any combat uniform, or its
an airman dressed as Boba Fett, the HTXLYDOHQWLQFOXGLQJQLQMDJHDU
helmeted robotic mercenary of Star Note: Best t-shirt in the room,
:DUVDQGDFURVVIURPDKLSSLH¿HG “Stay Calm and Return Fire.”
airmen dressed in a bozo wig with Rule 5: Only thing to be thrown in
ZLWKÀRZHUVLQKLVKDLUIURPWKH6XP- the mess is water. Absolutely no food
mer of Love in San Francisco. throwing!
Rule 8: No cursing! Participants
Weaving throughout the company will keep all toasts and comments
of airmen and their family — it was within the limits of good taste and
family friendly with children at table
²WKHUHZHUHQLQMDZDUULRUVDQGDLU- See COMBAT, Page 8
men wearing a mix of Middle East
shemagh scarves, special operations
December 4,2015