RUMINATION

Blog number 285 **** 23 February 2009

When I was in the Air Force, safety was of paramount importance. We had flight safety lectures once a week, squadron safety lectures once a month and base safety lectures once a year. Every Air Force magazine has articles on how to be safe. We even had an Air Force safety magazine that came out I think, once a month.

Smoking in bed was punishable by court martial because of the possibility of burning down a barracks, killing men. Venereal disease was punishable by court martial when I first went in, in 1949, as was sun burn severe enough to be hospitalized. We could not wear jewelry working around electricity. It was forbidden. Be safe Be safe Be safe.

I was so safety oriented by Air Force safety propaganda that I had a fear of drowning while scuba diving - not from the drowning itself, but from drowning because I didn't have a diving buddy - which I never had. I could imagine being ostracized, condemned, ridiculed, chewed out, all because I had broken an important safety rule and gotten myself killed. Shame shame shame.

With this personal background, it was with some uneasiness that I learned by watching a documentary that those men trying to make safe a live bomb during the war were not all volunteers, but had been assigned that job upon graduation form basic training.

"Congradulations, Private Loser. Your orders are for the First Bomb Disposal Squad now being formed at Swampville, La."

What brought this to my mind was reading today about WW I infantry attacks consisting of four waves. The first three waves were expected to be cut down by machine guns or mortars while the last wave was supposed to make it to the enemy, thanks to the sacrifice of the first waves.

Were safety lectures given to the men before they went over the top, do you suppose?

Nah.