MILTON B. JONES Major, USAF (Retired)

USAF OCS Class 57C, OC LT, 2nd Squadron Flight Lieutenant

I was born in Fresno, California in 1932. I joined the Air Force within ninety days of being rejected by the Naval Reserve, for service during the Korean conflict. I was rejected for medical reasons - I was an asthmatic. I had been a member of the USNR from January 1950 to January 1952, and was a Sonar man Striker. I was a punk kid living with friends and occasionally relatives in Oakland, California. Fortunately, I realized that my chances of becoming anybody were not going to happen in that environment. After being rejected by the USNR, I moved to Sacramento and got a job as a B-29 turret mechanic at McClellan Field. While at McClellan, I decided that the Air Force would be one helluva lot better than living in a board and room on 9th and R in Sacramento.

Upon graduating from the Sheppard Field basic training program, I was assigned to the Flight Attendant Training School at Kelly Field, Texas. Upon graduating, I was given my choice of assignments and selected C-54's at Hickham Field, Hawaii. Within nine months, it became obvious that my asthma wouldn't allow me to continue to fly on a regular basis, especially during the high flight pressures that we would encounter during the Korean conflict.

I was then assigned to the 1500th Air Traffic Squadron as a booking clerk and continued in that capacity until July 1955. Upon returning to the mainland, I was sent to McChord AFB in Washington as an Air Traffic Specialist with the 317th Fighter Interceptor Squadron. My primary job was as a Form 5 clerk. I was promoted to the job of supervising the Alert Hanger Air Traffic techs in 1956. I then applied for OCS, and was accepted for the 57C class.

Upon graduating (surviving) from "Tiger Two", I was assigned as a weapons controller to the 727th AC&W Squadron at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina from December 1958 to February 1961. After a training period, my primary job was as a duty weapons controller and training officer for newly assigned fighter pilots. Later in my assignment, I was the primary controller in a new analog computer intercept system until my assignment to Korea in March 1961 as a part of "Quickstrike 61". This was as a result of another job I had acquired while with the "7 Deuce,” that of a MSQ-1A missile/bomber controller. My experience with the Matador and Mace "funny" missiles allowed me to qualify for the Missile School at Orlando, Florida.

While in Korea I was assigned to the 58th Tactical Control Group (Missile) at Osan Air Base. I was shortly transferred to the "garden spot of the Orient", Peng Yong Do, commonly called the "Berlin of the Orient,” PYDo, Fort Chinchon Ni, and other odd names. It is located on the 38th parallel, about three miles west of Wali Do, a North Korean island, and the North Korean mainland.

In April 1962, I was sent to Requa, California as the Operations Officer of the 777th Radar Squadron. At this location, I had seventeen additional duties, which included Radar Ops and ECCMO.

In September 1963, I was transferred to the 827th AC&W Squadron, at Keno AFS, Oregon. I was selected as the training officer after renewing my skills as a weapons controller. As the training officer, I performed the normal duties of training assigned personnel and also acted as the manual backup commander of the 25th Air Division during air defense exercises. I was then sent to the Interceptor Weapons School in Panama City, Florida.

In January 1965, I was assigned as the Manual Weapons Controller on the 25th Air Division Standardization and Evaluation Staff. In July 1965, I was sent TDY to the new Control Group in Saigon located at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Vietnam, as a senior controller and later moved on to the group operations staff. In January 1966, I returned to the 25th Air Division, which was in the process of closing down and I was subsequently assigned to the 51st Fighter Interceptor Wing in Naha, Okinawa in March of that year.

While there, I was the Military Exercise Officer on the Wing Operations Staff. My job was to design air defense exercises involving available Army, Navy and the Air Force units. In addition, I was required to go aboard and brief the aircrews on each aircraft carrier entering the West Pacific which had reason to penetrate our ADIZ. This briefing would include recovery facilities at each of our fields, practice bombing procedures, attack routes for exercise penetration of the Okinawan ADIZ and normal ADIZ penetration procedures. I also received a free ride to North Korean waters on he U.S.S. Enterprise during the "Pueblo" incident.

In September 1968, I was assigned to the 727th AC&W Squadron at Bergstrom AFB, Texas as the Squadron Training Officer/Exercise Battle Commander. In about May 1969, I took command of the 81st Tactical Control Flight. In November 1969, the flight command requirements were lowered to the rank of captain and I was reassigned as the Chief of the 602nd Tactical Control Group, Tac Evaluation Team. We were responsible for evaluations of seven Air Force radar sites and fourteen National Guard sites each year.

I retired in February 1972 and started working for Equifax Services as an Insurance Claim Investigator. After seven years there, I started a private investigation firm with another person and although he is no longer with the firm, my wife and I still continue to operate it with outside contract help.

OCS - What do I remember? We were told that we were the last class to be trained under the "Tiger" program. Our first class was not as interested in training us as much as driving us out of the program with mental and physical harassment. I might add, with great success. 57C "Tiger Two" started with twenty plus OC's and graduated around 14, I think. This included the wing commander, along with other exemplary OC's who held staff jobs.

We had to have members of other flights transferred in to give us enough people to "train" second class. Shortly after the summer break we were all called together in an informal meeting with the Commander of Officer Training and were advised that USAF needed X number of officers per year from OCS, and that no more washouts would be permitted in our class. That broke out little black hearts. He also mentioned that a "brain trust" assembled by the USAF would be assessing OCS training techniques and make recommendations for improvements to insure a higher retention rate.

Their recommendations were stringent and any variation from their recommendations would go hard on the perpetrator. I won't go deeply into some of the B.S. we were exposed to as second class, but I will mention that when we became first class we were not allowed to harass second class in any manner. We couldn't make them double time, with their toes touching the base board, while facing upturned venetian blinds, saluting each time our left foot hit the floor. We couldn't talk to them while they were eating, keeping them from eating more than miniscule helpings of meat, milk and vegetables. (Glenn E. Johnson went in to have his uniforms tailored after some weeks of the "First Class Diet" and was told he could have new uniforms made or he would end up having only one pocket in the rear of his pants.) We couldn't go into their rooms at night and interrogate them for hours, most often during their study time. We couldn't lock them out of their rooms while they were in the shower causing them to run up and down the hall screaming, "Keeper of the Keys, Keeper of the Keys!” on waxed floors, in their wet wooden shower clogs and bathrobe, until some first classman finally unlocked their room and allowed them to study.

I, along with others, got two "Class Twos,” as an upper classman, for just telling a second classman, who was proceeding too rapidly from the milk cooler to his table, to slow down and for my daring to speak to a second classman while he was eating his meal.

It was hard on our class to have to restrain all of the anger and frustration generated by, and left over by, the "Tiger" program. It was also very hard for second class to have to tolerate some frustrated upper classperson whispering unpleasant nothings in their ears and not being able to respond in some manner (i.e. by having brushed their teeth with Tide or by shouting "Yes Sir" until the windows quaked -- or both).

All in all, it was a worthwhile program that taught a bunch of "wanna bees" how to grow up and accomplish difficult jobs in an exemplary manner. I love the feeling of camaraderie developed between those of us who successfully completed the program. I will never regret the experience, even though they only gave me little old gold bars on my shoulders, at graduation, instead of the "chickens" that I felt I had earned by getting that far.

My wife, Sharon, and I have a son and a daughter, both of whom made us very proud of their accomplishments. Each of our children have equally outstanding spouses. In addition, we have one very energetic two-year-old granddaughter and a grandson on the way in August of this year.

Milton B. Jones