Blue Two

In 1983 the Air Force instituted the Blue Two program, named for the two-stripe maintainer, designed to give certain government contractors, particularly designers, an opportunity to gain some first-hand experience with supporting and maintaining weapon systems and equipment in the field. In September of 1986 Lockheed-Georgia was looking for a designer (read guinea pig) to participate in this seemingly worthwhile venture. I must've looked like I didn't have anything more pressing to do and was soon on Delta, bound for Oklahoma City and Tinker AFB.

At Tinker, I found myself milling about smartly with a couple dozen other contractors waiting to see what the Air Force had in store for us. We received a perfunctory brief describing a two-day field exercise, a debrief when we returned to Tinker, then two days at McClellan AFB in Sacramento followed by another debrief. Then it was off to the Air Force equivalent of a quartermaster for a gear issue. My first thought was, "What kind of gear are we going to need that we didn't bring with us?" Ah! Nuclear Biological Chemical (NBC) Warfare "moon suits". Think rubber suits, impermeable, Oklahoma, summer, walking sauna. Some boondoggles really aren't.

The officer on the left is working out the alignment for the antenna we are to erect based on our GPS coordinates. What size "moon suit"do you think I'd wear?

Have you ever passed one of those military convoys on the interstate, stretched out for 2 miles and cruising along at 40 miles an hour? That was us, headed for a pasture outside of Muskogee. I really should've walked out when they were assigning contractors to different units in the exercise and they asked me, "You're from Lockheed; what do you guys make for us?" When I told them, "Airplanes," they were stumped. You see, this Air Force exercise didn't really have anything to do with flying machines. But I was up for an adventure and they let me tag along with a communications outfit.


They should have had about two more guys my size for this antenna set up. But we did get it set up and established communications with our counterpart in Ardmore. (Note my helmet; I may not be in uniform, but this is a military exercise, Bubba.)

Let's see - 160 miles at 40 miles an hour - after four hours or so we parked out in the middle of nowhere (Muskogee) and started to set up our bivouac. It was hot. I helped my new communications buddies set up their satellite antenna (it was real hot) and run COMM checks with a similar unit that was in another field outside Ardmore, OK (it was probably hot there too). About half way through the COMM checks a siren sounded, indicating we were under a chemical attack and everyone raced to don their NBC gear. Did I mention how hot it was? I pulled my rubber coveralls, gloves, boots, and hood out of my bag - and couldn't believe my good fortune.


It's amazing how cool 100° is when you're wearing regular clothes and everyone else around you is wearing rubberized "moon suits."

All the gear I'd been issued was SMALL, with the exception of the hood. I figured I had two choices: I could steal a larger suit from somebody my size, in effect leaving them to die a horrible death, or I could gracefully accept the inevitability of my own demise and succumb to the chemical attack. Sydney Carton had nothing on me - I accepted my fate and hung a sign around my neck indicating that I was a fatality.

It didn't take any time at all for a very young, officious captain to accost me, with accusations that I wasn't "taking this seriously" and explaining that engineers needed to understand how hard it was to work in "these stupid suits." He was less than pleased when I told him that indeed I was taking it seriously and was upset that I had been "fatally neutralized" through the negligence of his quartermaster. I then stalked off mumbling under my breath and he couldn't tell whether I was really mad or pulling his chain.

I spent the rest of the time in the Muskogee pasture hanging out in the mobile air traffic control tower which I knew would be air-conditioned, if only to keep the radios cool enough to operate. Did I mention how cool air traffic control is? Serendipitous, no?

*****

The debrief back at Tinker turned out to be a critique of the exercise. My contribution was to suggest that in future they pick their contractors more carefully to make sure they have some professional interest in the type of unit they're teamed with. I remember going to McClellan for the next couple of days, but don't remember a thing we did there. And, by the way, the pictures are Official Air Force Photos provided me at the end of the visit.