Okinawa
Part Two
October 1965
Alone Again, Naturally
After checking in and presenting my orders inside the terminal, I left the Naha Airport in a blue Air Force bus reminiscent of my old Lackland Air Force Base days. The passengers on my flight had been a mix of service members from all the armed forces, since Okinawa was home to bases from all the branches; but by far the Air Force had the most representation, as there were two bases: Kadena Air Force Base, and Naha Air Base.
I’d been instructed to look for the blue bus with “NAHA” on the destination window, otherwise I’d end up at the wrong base. It was a short ride to the barracks, long bunker-like buildings—each three stories tall. They were situated in groups of four, arranged in a giant diamond shape.
When I’d checked in at the terminal I’d been given a barracks number of 1203, located in what was referred to as the “Northwest Quad”. After a few minutes, and having driven off the airport, I heard the driver yell out the name of my assigned quad, and I, along with three other airmen, got off the bus.
The four barracks buildings were located atop a large hill, and to reach them we had to climb the equivalent of about four stories of concrete stairs. By the time I’d reached the top, dragging my duffle bag and dressed out in my wool uniform and overcoat, I was completely exhausted.
My instructions had been to locate the administrative office, on the first floor and in the center of the barracks building, and check in for my room assignment. When I finally found the right room, I thought I was about to faint.
After checking in with the orderly I was assigned a room, thankfully on the first floor, and told that my roommate’s name was Nathaniel Dorman. He’d arrived on Okinawa a couple of weeks before, the orderly advised me so, “unless you get yourself hitched up to some little gook bitch, you will be roomies for a while.”
“I’m married.” I informed him.
“What the fuck does that have to do with anything?” he asked sagely, giving me a quick once-over.
I didn’t seem to have an answer to that so I just kept my mouth shut.
Although the barracks buildings were huge, the rooms were not that large. Measuring about ten feet deep and twelve feet wide, by the time you figured in the two beds on each side and the writing-table at the end, there was just enough room for each of us to get out of bed and not run into each other.
As usual, there was a large latrine at the main center on each floor. The bonus was that the entire barracks building was kept clean by a team of Okinawan men and women, who seemed to be on cleaning duty twenty-four hours a day. It didn’t seem to matter what time of day or night I emerged from my room, or walked in from working any of my shifts, the cleaning crew was working. The floors, made from some type of polished concrete were always gleaming, and the bathroom (latrine) was always spic-and-span.
There were four large rooms on either side of the latrines where the cleaning crews stored and washed out the various mops, and in the center of each was a very large deep sink. In due time, I would become very familiar with this particular type of plumbing fixture. More on that later.
Each floor had around twenty, or so, rooms on each side of the latrine, and I was surprised to find out that the barracks rooms were shared by Army and Air Force personnel alike. In fact, a couple of the rooms actually had one Air Force and one Army soldier as roommates.
When I got to my room I found it was empty, but I saw that one of the beds was neatly made up while the other was pretty messed up. I assumed the made-up one was mine so I claimed it as my own.
There was a built-in closet with locking doors on either side of the entrance door with enough room and drawers for more clothes than I owned; so after emptying my duffle bag into it there was still plenty of room for more clothing.
After changing out of my sweaty uniform, I decided that what I needed was a nice relaxing shower. As I got down to my shorts I realized that there were no bath towels in the room. I thought maybe there might be a pile of clean ones in, or near, the shower room in the latrine, and as I started to turn the doorknob, I heard a loud knock on the door.
Standing behind the door as much as I could I slowly pulled open the door and saw a very short, very old Asian woman standing in the hallway with a stack of towels in her arms. She was wearing some type of yellow bandana around her head, and had on a greatly oversized khaki shirt (sleeves rolled up) and a pair of equally large khaki pants, also rolled up to mid ankle. And on her knobby little feet she was wearing a pair of straw-looking flip-flops.
Her face looked like it’d been through at least a couple of world wars, and when she smiled the teeth that weren’t missing were pure gold.
“Hey!” She yelled, “You new GI boy—this room?”
“Uh, I’m…yeah! I’m the new guy.”
“So…this you towels…is four…you use this week and next week I come bring four more! Wakari-masu? (do you understand?)”
I thought I understood what she was trying to tell me, so I smiled and said, “Thank you.”
With fresh towel in hand, I proceeded to take a very refreshing shower. When I returned to my room, I saw that my new roommate was in. Apparently, he’d just come off duty and was still in uniform.
“Hi,” I said, holding my towel up around my waist. “My name’s Frank. I hear you’re Nathaniel”.
“Call me Nat.” he said, walking over to shake my hand.
Nate was about three inches over six feet, short reddish-blond hair, and a face full of freckles. He was thin, but not skinny, and looked like he could be a starting guard for any professional basketball team. Hailing from Philadelphia, he’d been in the Air Force for two and a half years, and Okinawa was his second assignment.
“Where you from?” he asked as I turned my back to slip into my white boxer shorts.
“Houston.”
“Ah, another Texan.”
“Oh? Are there a bunch of Texans here?”
“No, but my roomie at my last base was from Texas. Guess I’m just destined to have you guys as roommates.”
“Sounds like it.”
“How long you been on base?”
“Just got here.”
“Oh, great! When do you report to the ADC (Air Defense Center)?”
“Well, the orderly that checked me in said that I would be off duty until Monday. So, I guess I’ll just hang out until then.”
“So why’re you putting on a uniform? You’re off for the next four or five days. Get some civvies on and I’ll introduce you to the guys.”
***
So off I went to meet the characters with which I would be spending the next eighteen months. I followed Nat out of our room and down the hallway past the latrine. Just past the showers, there was a large door to the right of the hallway that opened onto a large recreation area. There were several pool tables, Ping-Pong tables, large couches and overstuffed chairs all upholstered in leather, but what blew my mind was a small, but well stocked, snack bar.
Standing behind the counter was a very small and petite Asian girl. I would later come to learn that an Okinawan company contracted by the Armed Services managed the snack bar. They sold all sorts of toiletries, soft drinks, popcorn, and hot dogs to the inhabitants of our building. Open from seven in the morning until seven in the evening, it was staffed in two shifts—one, by a thin dark-skinned boy with a wild crop of black hair and crooked teeth, and the other by this girl. Although very cute, she was anything but friendly. She always seemed very bothered when someone walked up to the counter to order something, and she would always be very careful not to let her hand touch yours or her eyes meet yours, when returning change—preferring to slam the coins down loudly on the counter and rudely yell out their total.
Nat walked over to one of the pool tables and called out someone’s name. He ushered me over to a card table and within a few seconds, several young men appeared, pulled out chairs and sat down. He went from person to person, introducing them by their names and service designation, followed by their hometowns.
I would soon become part of this very close-knit group and would come to learn almost everything about each of them:
Frank Ramírez (Ramie), Air Force. Puerto Rican and from Brooklyn, he was a dark-skinned budding lothario who had trouble keeping his ample stable of Okinawan girlfriends straight. They were mostly bar girls who usually gave their ‘not too intimate’ favors to whomever had the most money when Frank wasn’t looking—but that didn’t seem to dissuade his ardor in any way. He loved them all. His trademark was that he didn’t own any civilian clothes that weren’t black. Shirts, pants, shoes, socks, and T-shirts—all black.
Ronnie Strayer (Roomie), Army. A professional hairdresser from Los Angeles, California, he was so openly gay that at first I found it hard to believe that no one had ever reported him to the base commander. But as soon as I got to know him, I grew to understand what his appeal was. He was just hard not to like! Friendly, hilariously funny, caring, compassionate, and most of all never denying to anyone who he was. But, the secret of his success was simple: he kept his intimate relationships out of the barracks and strictly off base—usually picking up or liaising with Asian guys in one of the many bars in Okinawa.
Henry Peterson (Hank or Peewee), Army, was barely the minimum height and weight to be accepted for military service. From Phoenix, he loved to drink and sing—and did more of the latter when he over imbibed the former. When sober, he was a “nervous nelly”, often refusing to accompany the group to places he’d not previously visited, worrying that something or someone might cause him to pull and use the six-inch switch blade he religiously carried in his boot.
Finally, Steven Driscoll (Smoky), Air Force. From Minnesota, he wore black horn-rimmed glasses with lenses so thick they magnified his clear blue eyes to almost monstrous proportions. Frightfully skinny, with ears that stuck out like catchers’ mitts, he wore his hair in a tight flattop and chain smoked constantly. Fearless, easy to anger and quick to use his fists, he was handy to have by one’s side when drunkenly wandering the dangerous Okinawan bars in the wee morning hours.
Although there were easily more than a hundred residents in our three-level barracks building, this peculiar group of individuals was destined to become my closest friends and confidants, but mainly each of them ended up being my personal protectors during my many stressful months on Okinawa.
Naminoue
After I was introduced to the group, it was Smoky who suggested, “We should take Frank to Naminoue (Na-me-new-ee) and pop his cherry.” Not too sure what he meant, I laughed nervously and nodded first in the affirmative then in the negative.
Everyone thought that going to Naminoue was a great idea and soon we all departed the rec room and headed to our respective rooms to get ready. Since I was already in civilian clothes I sat on my bed while Nat changed.
“So, what’s a Naminoue?” I asked curiously.
“Oh, it’s a small town a couple of miles outside the gate. Lots of bars, restaurants, and…you know…entertainment. You’ll like it.”
I wasn’t sure I was up to this as I was beginning to feel really tired. Since I’d never been out of the U.S., or crossed so many time zones all at once, I had no idea I was coming down with a giant case of jet lag.
“I’m not really hungry right now…” I managed to say. “And maybe I should get some rest before I go anywhere.”
“Rest my ass!” Nat said. “Son, you need to work that jet lag off! Worse thing you can do now is go hit the rack. Shit, you’ll sleep for a fucking month, then wake up at two in the morning feeling worse than you did when you went to sleep.”
“Really?”
“Yup! We’ve all been through it. See, right now it’s about three yesterday morning stateside so your body is ready to shut down. Now’s the time to teach it what time it really is!”
Now I was confused. “OK, I guess you’re right. So, how do we get to this place?”
“Easy! We’ll take a base cab to the gate and then find us a “sukoshi” cab. (Small…skó-shee)
“A what?”
“Sukoshi cab! See, the base cabs are like old American cars…Fords, Chevys, and what-not. But they’re expensive. To drive them on the base, the gook drivers have to have all kinds of fucking insurance and stuff. However, off the base, the sukoshi cabs are what the locals take. They’re little bitty cars, Toyotas and Datsuns (now known as Nissans) mostly, and you can get to wherever you want to go on the island for less than a buck—where on the base it’s just a dollar to get to the gate.”
“Oh, OK. Well, I guess if we don’t stay out too late it’ll be OK. I have to get back to the room to write my wife a letter telling her I made it OK.”
“Wife? Yeah…whatever.”
***
About twenty minutes later our group headed out of the barracks and on our way down the hill to wave down one of the base cabs.
Since the cab was a full-sized car we were all able to pile in—albeit a little too snugly, but once we walked through the base gate and I got a view of what the sukoshi cabs looked like, I doubted that even three of us could get in comfortably. Turned out we needed two cabs altogether.
As we pulled away from the base, I noticed a stark change in the geography of the land, the architecture of the buildings, and a definite change in the air. The smell that had hit my nostrils when I disembarked from my flight several hours hence once again rode in on the breeze that came blasting through the open windows of the tiny four-door Datsun automobile. The driver, reed-thin and dark-skinned, and wearing a beat-up Yankees ball cap, drove the little car like it was some giant Sherman tank—oblivious to the armies of smoke-belching buses, humongous dump trucks, and the occasional Army transport truck. Using his horn, rather than his brakes to out-maneuver the crisscrossing traffic at impossibly congested intersections, we bounced and rolled along streets no wider than a normal sidewalk—sometimes coming so close to other vehicles that I felt I could literally reach out and touch them.
“Phew!” I exclaimed, after sucking in a generous whiff of the air.
“Yeah, you’ll get used to it.” Nat said. “It’s the ‘benjo ditches” you’re smelling.”
“Benjo ditches?”
At this, the taxi driver twisted his head back to where I was in the rear seat. “Ah—hai! Benjo!! Stinko…neh?” He said, displaying a grand but toothless smile. “Ha ha! You no like, neh? Takusan stinko!!”
I wondered just how long he was going to keep his eyes off the road.
“What the hell’s a benjo ditch?” I asked no one in particular.
Smoky, who’d had a cigarette glued to his lips since we’d left the barracks, finally answered me. “See those little troughs along the side of the road? They look like little gutters. See them?”
I looked out and did see them. “Yeah. I see them.”
“Well,” Smoky said, the cigarette bouncing up and down in his mouth as he spoke, scattering ash to the wind, “the gooks have these little gutter things go right up to their outhouses where they shit and piss. Then it runs out and along these benjos down to their fields to fertilize their crops. Cool, huh? I wouldn’t recommend you eat any of their fresh fruits or vegetables though. Not sure how well they wash them off.”
“Yuck!” I responded, making a mental note of this very pertinent information. “How come they don’t have sewers and running water?”
“Oh, some of them do…mostly the richer folks and the hotels and bars.” Peewee answered. “But there’s a lot of the poorer people that still live in hooches and have outhouses.”
I saw the taxi ahead of us with the rest of the group slow down and pull to the side of the road. We came to a screeching halt and we piled out of our taxi.
After settling up, the cabs took off and I found myself in front of what looked like a restaurant, but all the writing on the glass windows was in Japanese. But what really caught my attention was that instead of having a copy of the menu prominently displayed, there seemed to be actual dishes of food placed and displayed behind the large window. Underneath each plate was a small cardboard sign describing the dish in both English and Japanese, and displaying the price.
I found out later that these were not actual plates and bowls of food, but very well done plastic copies. They looked entirely realistic; so much that if one had been placed in front of me at the table I know I would’ve tried to take a bite.
The restaurant was busy, but a short Asian man soon put a couple of tables together and seated us. He didn’t seem to have a very good command of the English language, and none of us, especially me, could communicate in Japanese. So, after a lot of pointing and head bobbing by all concerned he seemed to be satisfied and shuffled off in the direction of the kitchen.
“What did we order?” I asked.
“Oh, the normal stuff we usually get here.” Nat said. “Steamed rice, some egg rolls, teriyaki beef, and some tempura. Is that OK?”
Except for the rice, I had no clue what he’d just said. “Uh, I don’t know what any of that is, but I don’t like rice.”
“What? What kind of Mexican are you that you don’t like rice?” Ramie said loudly.
“I don’t know. I’ve hated rice all my life. When my mother made it I refused to eat it.”
“Christ! Anyway, look, the way the gooks make this rice you may like it. You gotta try it anyway.”
“I doubt it.”
“How about saki? You like that?”
“What’s saki?” That set everyone at our table to laughing loudly.
“Holy shit, Frank. Don’t you know anything, do you?” Smoky said, lighting a new cigarette off his old one.
Before I could answer, the waiter showed back up carrying a medium-sized aluminum pot. He set it in the center of the table and removed its lid unveiling a steaming mountain of white rice. Another waiter followed soon after, walking behind our chairs and setting small bowls down in front of each of us. He made a second round, this time leaving a couple of long white plastic looking sticks. I stared at the sticks and wondered what they were for.
Peewee piped up, “Hey Frank, do you know what those are for?”
“No.” I picked pair of sticks up and looked at them closely. There seemed to be what I assumed was Japanese writing on them.
“Those are chopsticks! Know how to use them?” Peewee asked.
“No.”
“You use them to eat your food.”
I looked up at the steaming white rice and wondered how I was supposed to pick that up and eat it. “Uh, you think I could ask the waiter for a fork?” I asked innocently and the table erupted with loud laughter.
“Hey waiter-san!” Ramie called out. “My friend wants a fork to eat his food!”
The waiter turned and joined in on the laughter. “We no have fork here. Only chopstick! You eat,” making a scooping motion with two fingers towards his open mouth, “very good!”
I stared at the two sticks as my friends used theirs to shovel rice from the pot into their bowls. When it came my turn, I mimicked them as well as I could. Nate tried to explain how to hold the two sticks in one hand without dropping them, then pushing them under a lump of sticky rice and depositing the white mass in his mouth.
While fumbling with the sticks I looked over to the next table where a pair of Okinawan men were sitting quietly consuming their rice. I noticed they were holding the small bowls in their left hand, palm up, three fingers cradling the bottom, with the thumb tightly clamped to the top edge. With each shoveling motion of the sticks, held in the right hand, they moved the bowl close to their mouths and, more or less, shoved a lump of rice in.
I noted how they positioned the sticks in their hands: again, palm up, one stick placed on the third finger and the other on the middle finger, with the thumb gently resting over the two sticks and the index finger serving as a stabilizer. The sticks were manipulated by simply moving the middle and index finger slightly, and towards the third finger. This caused the stick’s tip to move toward the tip of the other stick, which remained motionless. I also noticed that the hand gripped the sticks near the top, whereas my friends’ hands were very close to the chopsticks’ business end. This seemed to provide more leverage and greater arc of movement for the one stick that moved.
I picked up the chopsticks and mirrored the Okinawan men’s technique. Almost miraculously, I found that I could not only hold and maneuver the chopsticks, but with my first effort at eating the white rice, I achieved instant success.
Ramie was the first to notice. “Will you look at that rookie fucker? He’s a fucking natural!”
All heads turned toward me.
I continued to move the bowl up and down with my left hand, each time scooping and depositing a load of rice into my mouth. Because I’d been too busy trying to correctly manage my chopsticks, I hadn’t bothered to notice that for one who’d hated rice all his life I was quickly emptying the bowl—and loving it!
Within a few minutes, the rest of the food came and I found that I absolutely loved every dish. I found that I didn’t care too much for the warm saki, but I quickly developed a taste for the green tea that the waiter had brought as a complement to the meal.
By the time it came to ask for the check I had mastered chopsticks and formed a lasting fondness for the piping hot olive-green beverage the Okinawans called, ‘ocha’. (Green tea). Before we left the restaurant on my first day on Okinawa, I had already learned and memorized several words: Hai (yes), neh (that’s right, or isn’t that so), domo (short for domo arigato—thank you), and mata neh? (see you later).
***
Predictably, our next stop was at one of the many bars in Naminoue. They seemed to be everywhere—literally side-by-side for blocks on end. Glitzy multi-colored neon signs announced their just as glitzy names: “Bar Tahiti”, “Shanghai Club”, “New York, New York”, and “The Hula-Hula Club” were just a few.
Outside of each bar there were always at least two or three Asian girls—and they were dressed to kill. Hair all done up in the latest styles, make-up immaculately applied, and extremely long eyelashes that seemed to flutter in the benjo-scented breeze.
As we walked along the narrow street the girls tried to outshout each other, inviting us to come in and join them in a couple of drinks. Listening to their pleas, I thought that they were very friendly and apparently hungry for our company.
“Hey,” I called to the group, “Why don’t we go into that bar?” I said anxiously, motioning to the very active group of extremely attractive females literally jumping up and down to gain our attention.
“Cool it, DeLeón, they’re not after your pecker! They want your money, son!” Smoky sagely said.
“Are they prostitutes?” I asked.
“Uh, no Frank. They’re just bar girls. Let’s keep walking—I know where to go.”
We finally got to a bar that was just a degree less glitzy than the rest, but still pretty lit up. There were only three girls standing outside, and their pitches and pleas seemed a little less enthusiastic.
“See?” Smoky said. “They recognize us and know we’re not pushovers. Well, at least not all of us. I ain’t too sure about you Frank.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean!” I said, in a haughty and mocking voice.
As we walked in the door the ambiance changed from benjo to stale beer and old vomit. Raimi led the way and we settled into a semi-circular booth. It was dark, but the bar area was brightly lit with flashing neon signs announcing “Schlitz”, Pabst Blue Ribbon”, and “Ashahi” beer. There was an area at the center that looked like it could be used as a dance floor, and in one corner was a brightly-lit juke box that was screeching out one of the Beach Boys’ latest hits.
The three girls walked with us only partially into the bar saying things like, “You want drink, G.I.?”, “You want buy me drink, please? Me so horny.” That last question and declaration led me to wonder what one had to do with the other.
Smoky all but waved them off and we ignored them until we found our booth. Eventually the girls drifted off and went back outside.
In a few seconds an older Okinawan woman appeared and began wiping down our table with a raggedy dishcloth. “What you G.I.s want to drink?” Smoky started off by ordering a Pabst, Peewee wanted a Schlitz, Raimi ordered a whiskey water, Roomie wanted a Mai-Tai, Nat asked for a scotch, and after some thought I ordered a hot pot of ocha.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?!” Smoky yelled at me. “Jesus, you’re an embarrassment. Ocha? Seriously?”
“Well…” I stuttered. “I liked it at the restaurant. Besides, I don’t want to get drunk and I don’t have a lot of money left after I paid for my meal at the restaurant.”
“FUCK!” Smoky said loudly, smashing his smoldering cigarette into the flimsy looking metal ashtray at the table. “Order some fucking booze for Christ’s sake, will you? This is a fucking bar!!”
“OK, okay!” I said. “Don’t blow a gasket.” I looked up at the amused bar woman. “Okay, I’ll have a scotch and water.”
“Scotchee wata! OK G.I. You joto funny, neh? (joe-toe: plenty, or a lot).
“Yes…I am…funny.” I looked around the table and everyone was staring at me like I had a case of leprosy. “Hey, I was kidding, OK? Jesus!” I lied.
While we were waiting for our drinks a couple of girls materialized from somewhere out of the darkness and raided our booth. They were yelling, “oh, handsome G.I.…you so fine…I think I love you already.” They literally climbed over Smoky and Ramie and ended up sitting on either side of me.
“Now see what you did?” Peewee asked. “They’re quick to spot the new-new…and you’re it!”
They looked good, smelled good, but most of all they felt good. Each one conspicuously put her hand firmly on each of my thighs…just inches away from my crotch.
“Oh, you so handsome! Where you from? New York? Hollywood? You movie star?”
“Uh no.” Each time they spoke, their fingers seemed to crawl within millimeters of my privates. “I’m from Houston.”
“Oh shit, Frankie…” Roomie lisped, “You screwed the pooch now.”
“Oh!! Whoston is my very most ichi-ban place!” (itchy-ban: number one). The girl on my left schmoozed into my ear—making sure her nose rubbed my lobe generously. “Now, you buy me drink? Yes?”
“Uh, how much is your drink?”
OK! That’s fucking it!!” Smoky literally exploded. “You—naisan! (sister-girl). Get the fuck away from us right now! No, he no buy you drink. He not horny. He just arrive Okinawa…you wakarimasu?!” (waka-ree-más: understand).
The girls’ hands suddenly left my thighs, and they all but flew over the table and out of the booth.
“OK, dumb shit! Here’s the scam: when you buy them a drink the bar gives them a chit. At the end of the night they turn in the chits they earned and the bar owner pays them a certain amount of money for each chit. Usually a quarter. When you buy a drink for yourself it costs about a buck. Each of their drinks will cost you four bucks! You’ll be out of money in no time and once that happens they’ll suddenly lose interest in your dick and leave! WAKARIMASU??!!”
“Oh.”
“Oh Frankie,” Roomie cooed, “you are so deliciously dumb. But, loveable.”
“Stuff it Roomie!” Nat said. “He’ll learn.”
We spent the rest of the night bouncing from bar to bar—the scam always the same and the girls’ dialogue identical. I wondered why they kept doing this over and over when the chance of someone falling for it was so slim.
“Oh, they make plenty.” Peewee said. “Mostly sailors just coming off a long cruise and shipping out the next day or so, or new arrivals who venture down here by themselves.”
“Yeah,” Roomie said. “Lucky you! You have us to watch out for you!”
As the hours slid by I found myself falling asleep, almost as soon as we climbed onto a bar stool or slid into a booth. I had never felt so tired in all my life.
The next thing I remember is waking up in my room, jolted awake by Nate’s booming snores. I was stripped down to my shorts, and the clothes that I had worn the night before were hung neatly next to my closet. I felt drugged but not as tired as before, and when I looked at the clock I saw that it was four-thirty in the afternoon. I later found out that we had gotten back in at two-thirty in the morning and I had collapsed on my bunk. The guys undressed me and made sure I was tucked in.
I rolled over and slept until noon the next day. Oh, and I was dead broke.
The Windfall and High Hopes
Although I had spent all my remaining travel money during my ill-fated trip into Naminoue, I wasn’t worried. I didn’t need to buy anything over the weekend since my meals were free at the chow hall, and I still had several clean uniforms to wear. Further, when I checked in at the airport on my arrival, the sergeant there informed me that temporary subsistence funds would be issued on the following Monday to hold me over until my paycheck caught up.
I spent the next few days hanging out with my new friends and shooting pool in the rec room. As promised, I penned a letter to Sharon filling her in on my new assignment and my experience with Japanese food and Japanese utensils, but wisely leaving out the part about my trip to Naminoue.
While I was writing, I was overtaken with a great sense of sorrow and regret, and wondered if we would ever be able to patch things up once she and the boys arrived on Okinawa. I vowed to her that from this moment on I would do everything I could to make up for my past behavior if she could find it in her heart to forgive me and let bygones be bygones. I posted the letter hoping that her answer back would be positive. The last thing I wanted to do was to spend my time so far away wondering if we still had a future together.
On Monday, after an early breakfast at the chow hall I walked the half-mile to my new assignment: The Naha Air Base Defense Center. It was a large building located adjacent to the air base’s busy airport, but before I could enter my work area, I had to get fingerprinted and photographed. My prints would go to the FBI in Washington, D.C., and the photographs were cataloged and filed away in my security file. One copy of my picture was glued onto an ID card that I was required to wear whenever I was on duty.
After being escorted into the Control Room, I was introduced to my crew chief, Technical Sergeant John Resor. A Mormon from Utah, he was freckled-faced, tall and thin, and spoke with a very quiet voice. My crew members told me that although he never raised his voice when something displeased him, they warned against crossing him too often.
An airman first class who had worked for Sergeant Resor for over a year told me, “He may not say anything to you when you fuck up, but you may suddenly find yourself working a few extra evening and midnight shifts, or being relieved less often for breaks. Oh, and don’t cuss in front of him…he doesn’t like it.”
None of the friends who I’d had met at my barracks, except for Nat, worked in the Control Room—although they shared my same job description and were assigned to the same building. Smoky worked in the Crypto Room; Roomie was assigned to Communications; and Ramie and Peewee were Runners (delivered confidential messages).
My job was similar to the one I’d had in Alaska, except I was now required to wear dress tans during the day shifts; fatigues were allowed during the evening shifts. I was assigned to work on a dais overlooking a large electronic board that depicted live aircraft in and around the island of Okinawa. Instead of having plotters behind the board drawing the route and heading of aircraft, all the information was displayed electronically. I sat next to several high-ranking officers whose responsibility it was to authorize our interceptor jets to fire on unknown, rogue, or hostile targets. My responsibility was to assign each radar target a classification based on flight plan information that had been provided by flight dispatchers on the island and from any aircraft carriers in the immediate area.
On that first day, when my lunch hour came up Sergeant Resor told me to eat my box lunch in the break room, and instead of reporting back to my duty station to go to the finance office. There I would be given a small amount of money for subsistence, and told the amount and when to expect my first paycheck.
I hurried and finished my lunch and headed out to the finance office. My subsistence was given to me in cash, but to my surprise, my paycheck was also handed to me in a sealed white envelope. After signing several forms authorizing and directing most my monthly pay to go to Sharon and the boys, and opening an Air Force Credit Union account, I was informed that I would be receiving a total of ninety dollars a month.
The clerk tapped on the sealed envelope and said, “This is your first check for the month of November, and it’s for ninety dollars. After deductions and the allotment to your wife, this is what you can expect every month. All your following checks will be deposited in your Air Force Credit Union account between the first and third of each month. You can take this check directly to the Credit Union now, show them the paperwork proving you have opened an account with them, and they’ll cash and deposit the check. At that point, you can withdraw whatever amount you want to take with you. Understand?”
I assured him I did.
Elated that I got subsistence along with my paycheck, I asked for and quickly got directions to the Credit Union. After discovering that it was a few miles away, I flagged down a base taxi. After all, I thought, I can afford a cab ride now that I have some extra spending money.
Settling down in the back seat of the fairly new Datsun sedan, I ripped open the envelope containing my check. I look at the numbers several times but still could not understand what I was seeing.
Instead of the check being issued for ninety dollars, it read: “Pay to the Order of, A2C Frank DeLeón, the amount of…$900.00!
I couldn’t believe my eyes! I kept looking at the numbers repeatedly to make sure my imagination wasn’t playing tricks with my eyes—but no matter how much I looked at it, the numbers never changed. The check had definitely been processed for nine hundred, instead of ninety dollars!
I was blown away!!
All too soon, I arrived at the Credit Union but was still in a state of shock. What should I do? My first instinct was to tell the cab driver to reverse course and take me back to the Finance Center where I would tell the clerk that someone had made a very big mistake. On the other hand, a voice deep inside kept telling me there had to be a better way. After all, for the last couple of years all I had been experiencing was a load of bad luck, so maybe this was fate’s way of balancing the scales.
I walked away from the cab and found a bench just outside of the Credit Union’s main entrance and sat down, trying to analyze the situation.
By now, I had pretty much decided that I wasn’t going to return the money. I also realized that eventually someone would find the error and come looking for me. Therefore, the tricky part was how to keep the money and not be punished for not notifying the Air Force of the error.
Within a few minutes, I had formulated a plan.
I strode into the credit union confidently and waited my turn at the cashier’s window.
“Good afternoon, sir. What can I do for you?” the attractive young Asian cashier said pleasantly.
“Yes ma’am. Here’s my signed form for opening up a savings account here, and a payroll check to cash.”
She perused the form carefully and briefly glanced at the check. “Excuse me for just a few moments please,” she said, and slid off her high chair. She looked at me momentarily as she walked away, disappearing behind a set of glass doors.
I grew a little nervous. What if she’s checking with the Finance Center because the check is so large? What if she’s calling the Air Police so they can come and arrest me for theft? What if…what if? My mouth was getting a little dry.
After what seemed hours, the glass doors flew open and the cashier stepped through…still looking down at the check. She slid onto her chair, put a small stack of papers on the counter and laid the check on top.
“Sorry about that. For a check that large I had to get the assistant manager to sign off on it,” she said. “How much of this check do you want to deposit? Some, or all of it?”
“Uh…well…what I’d like to do is…well…maybe deposit part of it and then buy a money order with what’s left. Can I do that?”
“Of course. How much do you want the money order for?”
“Nine hundred dollars, please.”
“Excuse me. Nine hundred dollars?”
“Yes, please,” I said, trying not to have my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth.
“Well sir, I’m sorry but you can’t do that. That’s the entire amount of the check.”
“Oh? Why not? The…the check is good. I mean…it’s all my money…you know…”
“No, I don’t mean to suggest that it isn’t. It’s just that for you to open and maintain an account you must keep some of the money in the account. See what I mean? If you cash out and take all the money, you’ll have nothing to put into your new savings account.”
“Oh. How much do I have to keep in?”
“Well, for your account to remain open you must have at least five dollars in there.”
“Oh, but I wanted to get a money order for the entire nine hundred dollars.”
“Well, you can still do that, but it will have to be only for eight-hundred and ninety-five dollars because you have to deposit at least five dollars into your savings account.”
My mind was racing, but suddenly I saw the solution. “Can I give you five dollars’ cash to deposit into the savings account, and then have you make out a money order for nine hundred dollars?”
“Of course.”
I dug out a wrinkled five-dollar bill from the several bills the finance officer had given me as temporary subsistence. “Here you go.”
“Perfect! I’ll make you out a receipt for the five dollars, and then deposit it in your new savings account. Lastly, I’ll go and make out a money order for the nine hundred dollars. To whom should I make that out?”
“My wife. Sharon L. DeLeón, please.”
***
With the money order in my hand, I flagged down another base cab and asked the driver to take me back to the Air Defense Center. I spent the rest of the afternoon nervously staring at the large entrance doors just waiting for them to be thrown open by an angry squad of Air Policemen racing to put me into handcuffs and drag me off to some dark Okinawan jail.
Mercifully, my shift ended uneventfully.
As I was completing the relief briefing for my evening shift replacement, Sergeant Resor came up behind me.
“Did you get all your finances taken care of?” he asked softly.
“Yes, I think so.”
“Will the subsistence be enough to get you through until you get your first paycheck?”
“Uh…well…yes.”
“You don’t sound too sure.”
“Oh no! I mean, yes! I mean, I’m sure.”
He looked at me a bit strangely, but apparently satisfied, he turned and walked off.
I couldn’t wait to get back to the barracks to put the money order into an envelope and send it to Sharon.
A couple of hours later after deciding to skip chow, I sat down at the little desk between the beds in my room and started writing a letter to Sharon:
____
Hi My Love,
Hoping this letter finds you and the boys in good health. I am doing well, and am trying to get used to being in a foreign country. I can’t wait for you to join me here so we can restart our life together again. I’ll write more about that in my next letter. But now I have some really good news.
No doubt by now you found the money order that I have included in this letter. Yes, you’re seeing the amount correctly—it’s for $900! So let me tell you what happened and what I think we can do with this money.
I am sure that the Air Force Finance Office here on Okinawa meant to cut this check for $90, but somehow someone mistakenly added an extra zero. It was, and is a mistake. At first, I thought that I should return it and have them reissue it for the correct amount. Ninety dollars is what I will be getting every month after deductions and your monthly housing allotment. But then I came across a better idea that I believe will end up helping us save some money in the long run.
There’s no doubt that the Air Force will soon realize their mistake and call me in to return the money. When that happens, I plan to tell them that I’ve already sent the money home. At that point, they’ll probably just tell me that I will not be receiving a monthly paycheck until the $900 is paid back—that will amount to ten months of not getting paid. And that will be fine with me, if you agree with my plan.
So, what I’m asking you to do is to open a savings account in Reno and deposit this check. Beginning the first of next month I would like for you to begin withdrawing $25 dollars and having the bank convert that into a money order. Then send it to me.
See, I did some figuring and I found that I don’t need $90 a month to live on over here. I eat free, the laundry for my uniforms is really cheap, and stuff like soap, blades, and deodorant can be bought at the Base Exchange for almost nothing. I would just end up spending the $90 every month anyway, so why not sacrifice a little and end up saving $65 every month. Imagine! At the end of the ten months, we’ll have $650 in the bank!
Tell me what you think of this idea. I feel that it was a stroke of good luck for us to get this money, as it will force us to start and build a nice little nest egg. I’m just hoping I don’t get arrested and charged with theft.
OK, I think that’s all for now. Please give my boys a big hug and tell them Daddy loves them and misses them very much. Also, remember that I love you very much too and miss you terribly.
Love you,
Frank
P.S. I plan to start the paperwork in a couple of months to get our names on the housing list. Very excited!
____
I re-read the letter several times, and when I was satisfied that it said what I wanted it to say, I put it in an envelope with the money order folded neatly inside the letter. I was very nervous, since I was only assuming what the Air Force’s reaction would be when they discovered the payment error. I was counting on being able to talk my way out of going to jail—or worse.
The next day, during my lunch break, I made a trip to the base post office and posted the letter certified mail. That way, I was sure that it would get to Sharon promptly and safely.
I went back to work feeling confident that my plan would end up working out for both of us. I would have never guessed that what I believed was a well thought-out plan would ultimately end up failing due to one very small and completely unexpected detail.
To be continued…
