All My Exes Live in Texas by Ricky

        After graduating college in May of 1978, I was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the US Air Force (Security Police) and stationed at Malmstrom AFB, in Great Falls, Montana.  During that summer, I attended Camp Bullis near San Antonio, Texas for training in security police officer duties, policies, procedures, and combat field skills.  The first four weeks were devoted to classroom activities and physical fitness.  The next six weeks were taught under field conditions to hone the skills we read about in the classroom.

        One of those skills was map reading and orienteering (not to be confused with sexual orientationeering).  The highlight of that portion of our training involved day and night navigation using a map and compass to follow printed directions from one point to another.  The first set of instructions was given us at our starting point.  We had to follow that instruction to find the next leg of our course and so forth for a total of ten legs.  The destination of each leg was a “soup can” mounted on top of a 3-foot post.  There were 75 such posts scattered around the 3 square miles of our training area so it was vital that we used the map and compass accurately or we would not arrive at the correct final destination.

        I had done this type of compass course in the Boy Scouts so I was not intimidated by the task and found it to be rather fun.  We had to follow the course in teams of three.  I don’t know what the others did, but my team drew our course out on the map and marked the desired destination with an “X” and then walked the route.  As we completed each leg, we drew out the next leg and added another “X”.  No one was shooting at us since this was training and not combat, so we had an easy time following the course as drawn on the map except for the oppressive heat.  Due to the rolling hills, gullies, and scattered light and dense vegetation, we would take a compass sighting and send two of us ahead a convenient number of yards to establish a straight line.

        The legs were of varying lengths with some as long as a mile from one point to another.  A one-degree error over a mile distance could cause one to miss the destination by several yards.  The target posts with the “soup cans” containing our next set of co-ordinates were not all easily seen.  Many were placed such that one could not see it until you passed it and looked back.  Several were deliberately placed inside thickets of scrub brush that had grown several feet high.  And there was the constant watchfulness for Texas sized spiders, scorpions, tarantulas, and snakes all while counting our steps and detouring around thickets too wide to push through.  As I said, the day light course was easy, but the night course was a different matter.

        The night course was the same event obviously without the benefit of sunlight and in our case, without moonlight either.  With only flashlights, it was difficult to send two teammates ahead to establish a straight line for walking.  We still had to deal with the local “critters” and also the smelly night prowling ones too.  After completing the first leg with all its difficulties, I decided to cheat a little.  Well, it wasn’t really cheating because we were doing a compass course and orienteering after all, and in a combat situation, it’s the result that counts not the method.  And besides, I really did not want to be walking around Texas all night dodging spiders, snakes, and skunks looking for some elusive “soup can” on a post.

        Therefore, I had my team switch to nighttime orienteering using a method not taught in our classroom experience, but taught in my Boy Scout troop night games—celestial navigation using the stars as a guide.  After we took our compass heading and placed the “X” on the map, we picked out a star on the horizon that was in-line with the desired course and just walked towards that star counting our steps.  Once we switched to that method, the course went very fast indeed.  In fact, my team was the first one done not only for the night course, but also for the daylight course.

        I imagine that all my “Xs” on those maps are still somewhere in Texas, most likely in a landfill somewhere on Camp Bullis or possibly their ashes from an incinerator are blowing around Texas on the wind.

        My only other “exes” are in Texas for sure.  My ex-president, LBJ, is buried there and the “ex-decider” is apparently on his ranch attempting to create excellent works of art and beauty.

© 13 January 2014

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach.  Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack. I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.   

I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.