Chapter 9. THE Farewell

Straw Hat Ornament in Peruvian Jungle - photo by JoAnn Sturman

by S.R. Oberst

The next week after being passed over for major, Charlie was back at work as if nothing had changed. He tried to get back to being the obnoxious, bullying operations officer, but the effect of THE Passover was that Charlie had lost his fear factor for some of the pilots. I myself sensed this weakness, but I remained wary. Besides I was in the process of upgrading to Instructor Pilot and had all I could handle with training flights and preparation.

At the beginning of the stories about Charlie the Un-Leader, I wrote that “Un-leaders” are people in your life who provided you with negative examples that helped make you the person you are today. I would be remiss if I did not add my opinion that another part of Un-Leader education is learning how to deal with these people. Charlie, like a wounded grizzly bear, was still someone to be dealt with and not ignored.

As soon as Charlie knew he had been passed over for major he initiated a furious letter writing campaign, no doubt impugning the character of the promotion board or complaining of some injustice. Through the grapevine we heard that Charlie sent letters to Congressmen, Senators, Generals, the Board President, Captain Kirk, Captain Kangaroo, Billy Graham and THE Forum (see Chapter 6). Charlie was trying to position himself to be selected to major the second time around, although the odds of this in the Air Force were slim to none. When the next board convened, Charlie would be 6 months short of 18 years of service, which meant he could be removed from the service by a RIF (reduction in force) and not be allowed to serve the minimum 20 years required to earn retirement.

That first morning back, somebody had posted a note on the flight operations counter stating that “Captain SK Reamer, Chief of Squadron Flight Evaluations, was selected for promotion to major.” When he saw it, Charlie angrily tore the note up and stomped away. To add insult to injury, later that week it was announced that effective October 1 another major selectee, Captain Denny Olafson, would report to our unit to take over as Operations Officer. So for about six weeks the pilots had to deal with an angry, wounded version of our soon to be former Un-Leader.

Charlie quickly got everyone’s attention by assigning tedious, but trivial tasks to anyone who crossed him. He started conducting unannounced emergency preparedness and chemical warfare drills that deprived everyone, who was not out flying, of any free time to do other duties. He also began randomly mixing up the flying schedule, so that you could not plan your personal calendar more than a day ahead. Those six weeks were ugly and everyone eagerly awaited the arrival of the new Ops Officer.

Captain Denny Olafson would not pin on his major’s oak leafs for another 8 months. It was likely that once he did, he would take over as the Detachment Commander, assuming he did not have any major screw-ups as the Ops Officer. The fact that Charlie knew this made me think that it would be a rough transition from the old to the new.

On the day Denny arrived, Charlie put on his best “Eddie Haskell” impression and gave the appearance of being a nice guy ready to help Denny transition seamlessly into his new job. Charlie fooled some of the other pilots but not Bruce. His comment to me would prove prophetic, “I don’t trust that SOB any farther than I can throw him. He’s up to something and I doubt it is something nice.”

Over the next few weeks it was apparent that Charlie was setting Denny up for failure. Actually, this should have come as no surprise to anyone, given Charlie’s track record. I partially blamed the Commander, LtCol Brad McMellow, for not preventing this from happening. Part of the problem, however, was Olafson’s lack of experience.

Denny had spent four years flying HH-43s, with a one year tour in Thailand and three years in Florida. He spent the next 6 years in a desk job. He was a nice guy and smart but had no leadership experience. And, as time would show, he was also not a natural leader. Also, Denny assumed all fellow officers were trustworthy. Certainly he was no match for Charlie.

Un-Leadership Insight
Since this is the last chapter, allow me to share my thoughts about leaders. Leadership is not a black and white virtue. Not being an un-leader does not mean you are a leader. There are lots of people in the middle who are neither. Some of these people can improve their leadership skills, but a true leader, one who consistently demonstrates leadership traits, is rare. Leaders are people who make good stuff happen that probably would not have happened without that leader’s influence. Note: I use the qualifier of “good” stuff, because people whose leadership results in bad stuff are usually Un-Leaders.

Denny’s first several weeks on the job must have been horrible for him. The Unit Operations Officer had to attend a number of meetings and serve on a number of base committees. Charlie’s approach to the transition was to provide Denny with partial truths, innuendo, misleading facts and/or incomplete information. One can only imagine how un-helpful the Un-Leader was, but none of the pilots had a clue as to how the transition was going because Denny pretty much kept his own counsel.

In early November I flew a late operational training mission with Denny. It was a real mission taking stuff to missile sites, but I was along in the left seat to train Denny on the proper navigation and approach techniques. Based on previous instructional flights with Denny, I assessed him as an okay pilot who needed more stick time. His autorotations were good, but the other emergency procedures were still a challenge. However, his biggest difficulty in transitioning from the Pedro (HH-43) to a Huey was doing basic approaches and landings. He tended to end his landing approaches too high and too fast. So, not surprisingly, he had difficult landing within the narrow confines of a missile site landing zone. After numerous practice approaches, he began to get it down. By the time we returned to the unit for the debriefing, we were the last pilots left in the operations building. After debriefing Denny how to use various cues during an approach in order to gauge closure rate and altitude, I prepared to head home. However, to my surprise, Denny wanted to talk. He opened up about how badly the transition was going and how many times Charlie had made a fool of him. “He even refers to me as a desk jockey,” Denny said.

“Well,” I joked, “that’s not as bad as “dummy.” (Charlie’s standard name for all lieutenants) “Seriously though,” I said, “what you need is the support of your pilots. Until you got here we had been battling Charlie for two years. You say the word and we will re-engage the enemy.”

Denny was clearly startled, but he said “the word.”

“Okay”, I said, “but don’t be surprised by what happens, and don’t talk to us about it. That way you can do a credible job of feigning ignorance when the ‘Charlie’ hits the fan.”

The next evening at the O’Club our group drew up the battle plan. As a friend of the Midnight Skulker of Air Force Academy lore, I am certain he would have been proud of the sheer daring and cleverness of our planned attacks. Each attack was carefully orchestrated so that the same person never did two consecutive missions, making it difficult for Charlie to deduce who the guilty party was based on flying schedules, shifts or whatever.

We started with simple stuff. Thanks to the invention of superglue, we were able to hit Charlie with a rapid series of pranks. The next Monday the attacks began. Charlie came in that morning to find his favorite coffee cup superglued to his desk. Later he would discover that his desk drawer had been superglued shut. That night Charlie would discover that superglue in a car door lock rendered the key useless. Another day Charlie went to put his coat on and discovered the sleeves had been sown shut. Of course he was so mad he did not notice the black shoe polish on his ear that had been carefully smeared on his phone receiver.

At first he suspected Denny was trying to get even but quickly eliminated him because it would have been physically impossible for Denny to have been in two places at one time. And so the war continued. Charlie was becoming more and more flustered and was working hard to catch us. So much so that hassling Denny had to take a back seat. Our antics became more clever, and we used lookouts while one of us perpetrated another dastardly attack. One favorite was letting the air out of the back passenger side tire on his 1974 Cadillac El Dorado – not just in the parking lot at work, but in the middle of the night when the car was parked in front of his personal residence. Did you know that the lead of a #2 pencil does a great job all by itself and minimizes loiter time? Tom even got his tire in the Kmart parking lot one weekend. I could go on, but you get the idea. Soon though the war would take a decidedly different turn.

Ever since he had faked the knee injury to avoid running the annual 1.5 mile fitness run (see Chapter 7), Charlie had been DNIF (duty not involving flying). Now, nearly 5 months later, this clever strategy was backfiring. Because he was not flying, Charlie was about to lose his flight pay. Seemingly always able to extricate himself from any problem, Charlie convinced the Flight Surgeon to take him off DNIF status, but give him a medical waiver for the fitness run. However, what Charlie apparently overlooked was the fact that he was back to being a copilot in training. Guess which lucky instructor pilot got the task of running Charlie’s aircraft commander upgrade training program?

The training flights with Charlie over the next few weeks were un-fun. As detailed in earlier stories, the Un-Leader was a crappy pilot - made more dangerous by the fact that in his mind, he was a wonderful pilot. Not surprisingly, the flights were grueling for me. On the bright side I got a lot of practice taking the controls during emergency procedures when Charlie crossed the line from safe to unsafe, which he frequently did. I tried my best to explain proper techniques, but Charlie’s standard response to my instruction was, “You dummy, I’ve been flying since before you could ride a bike. Who are you to tell me how to fly?”

In order for Charlie to upgrade back to aircraft commander, an instructor pilot had to indicate he was ready and recommend an evaluation flight. As the training flights continued, I felt like Charlie would never be ready. Then one day Dave Evalman, our Chief of Flight Evaluations, told me to have Charlie fly with Tom Triffick. “Why?” I said.

“Because Tom gets out of the Air Force in two months, and I get out in three months.” he replied. “Tom will recommend Charlie for an evaluation, and I will administer it.” And so, Dave was setting up Charlie one more time (see Chapter 2), but unlike the last time, Dave himself would be the evaluator.

Tom told me later that Charlie’s training ride had been perfectly awful, but he said with a wink, “Good enough for a check ride.”

Charlie’s check ride with Dave lasted nearly three hours. When it was over, Charlie had failed nearly every possible flight maneuver, instrument procedure, rescue operation, and emergency procedure. Further, Dave wrote that Charlie was a dangerous pilot unable to even perform as a copilot and in his opinion any further training would be a waste of time. He recommended that Charlie be evaluated by the Squadron Chief of Flight Evaluations, Major (select) SK Reamer, at the earliest opportunity. To our surprise, LtCol McMellow, our commander, forwarded the recommendation to the Squadron Commander.

Charlie was so enraged at Dave during the debriefing he started shouting incoherently until he was out of breath. He headed out the door, only to discover that his car keys were locked inside the car (all’s fair in love and war). In the following days the attacks on Charlie continued unabated. Denny now had a firm grip on the Operations Officer job. Ultimately, Charlie tended to sit in his office all day writing letters, making phone calls, and probably looking over his shoulder for the next attack. As it turned out, he would never fly for our unit again.

Three weeks later word came down that Charlie had orders. Somehow he had gotten an assignment with an Air Force Reserve HH-3 rescue unit in another state. A party had already been planned for Tom and Dave, so Charlie was added to THE Farewell event.

At the party Denny served as the master of ceremony. Pilot after pilot came up to give testament to what great pilots and friends Tom and Dave had been. Of course, no one came forward to praise Charlie. After everyone had their say, Denny took the mike and gave this little speech:

“We cannot end THE Farewell without saying goodbye to Captain Charlie Crown, or “Chuck” as he is known to his friends (none of us had ever heard anyone call Charlie Chuck). Charlie has been an endless source of entertainment for me since my arrival a few months ago. I want to thank him for helping me to recognize what true leadership is all about. So, goodbye Charlie and good luck to your new unit.”

When Charlie arrived at work on his last day, we had removed all of the furniture from his office and placed all of his belongings in cardboard boxes in the middle of the empty room. At the top of his voice Charlie yelled, “Someday I’ll get everyone of you bastards!” Carefully checking his phone for shoe polish, Charlie called the Commander to complain. Charlie ranted at McMellow for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile we swapped his size 7 ¾ flight cap on the coat rack for a size 6. Then suddenly he hung up the phone and started moving the boxes to the trunk of his car. We all went outside to watch Charlie leave (perhaps to make sure he was really leaving). Charlie, wearing the undersized flight cap, got into the car, started it and put it into drive. Strangely the wheels spun, but the car did not move. As a final show of their affection, the maintenance crew had put Charlie’s car on jacks so that it was about ½ inch above the ground. We all waved, turned around and went back to work.

Epilogue

So, Charlie was gone and of course the unit was never the same again. The unit pilots actually missed the fun of the recent attacks and the various shenanigans we had pulled. Several months later we rejoiced when Charlie got passed over for major the second time, but it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as THE Passover the first time. We heard that Charlie somehow managed to get a job as an Air Reserve Technician, allowing him to accrue enough active duty time to make the 18 year sanctuary and ensuring he was allowed to stay in the Air Force 20 years and retire. Anyone who ever served with him likely felt that every penny sent to Charlie in a retirement check, was a waste of taxpayer money.

I would never see Charlie again, but I got a surprise phone call from him years later on the day after I was promoted to Colonel. “Congratulations.” he said, “I guess some of me rubbed off on you.” Still surprised by the phone call, all I could say was, “Thanks, Charlie.”

Looking back, I hope nothing rubbed off, but I realize now, all of those Un-Leadership examples Charlie gave me have influenced my interactions with people ever since. Besides, think of all the uses I discovered for superglue.