Upon my entering the Air Force in 1966, the dormitory was also called the barracks. At Basic Training at Lackland AFB we lived in open bay barracks with a central latrine. When I was stationed at Mactan Air Base, outside Cebu City, GIs actually lived in tents that morphed into “M*A*S*H hootches” or tents with wooden floors, screen wire for walls, and canvas roofs. Eventually the tents became more permanent with tin roofs and finally the GIs moved into open bay dorms with about 30 men per side of the structure. The Wallace dorms were some of the nicer dorms I lived in during my first four years in the Air Force. For one thing, the dorms were air conditioned!

When our helicopter arrived at Wallace, around July the 7th of 1969, we saw the huge three-story dorm that housed most of the troops at Wallace, with senior NCOs residing on the first floor. The First Sergeant at Det 2 14th Comm was SMSgt “Mac” McClaran and he was an interesting fellow. The story was that he had made MSgt three times! Once in WWII, again when he was recalled for Korea,
and then finally in the 1960s after he re-entered the AF for the third and last time. Sgt Mac was a good guy, had been around the block a number of times, and he walked Reed and me down to the foundation of the Det 2 building that was located on the right as you made the hard turn going toward the main gate. He explained that this was our work site and that the building and equipment would
be ready about the time our tours were ending! Whoa! What were we to do the next 13 months? We ended up working with the civilian tech reps in the Raytheon Vans across the street from Det 2 who we were replacing.

Sgt. Mac assigned Reed and me to the second floor of the dorm and I believe that most rooms housed three roommates at the time. Within a few weeks Reed and I took in Pat Brown, who worked in Det 2 Supply. Our dorm room’s windows faced the street side of the building and it was located four rooms from the door that led down the metal stairs to the barbershop and snack bar. Reed, Pat, and I had
a great time—card games, jokes, and more than a few trips to the WASCOM, Poro Point, and Baguio. Like all roommates, we had our disagreements, but they were infrequent and often rather silly responses to perceived hurts and insults. I would say that we were, like many WAS roomies, close and supportive of one another. If you had asked any of us during our Wallace tour, I doubt if we
would have wagered money that one, rather than three of us, would retire from the military!

Our room was well equipped for the time. We each bought a component stereo that consisted of a reel-to-reel tape recorder, amp, turntable, and HUGE speakers. Sansui® began offering huge speakers that had large woofers that could blow the windows out and that were encased in decorative wood panels. I also purchased a medium sized refrigerator that cost me $59 and we kept it stocked with beer and soft drinks. The trouble was, some guys would stop by, pay for whatever was in
the refrigerator, and clean us out! That was a bummer to return from work and not have a soda or beer you wanted. This necessitated us walking to the first floor bar and buying a case of mainly Coke® and Lemo-Lime® sodas and/or a case of San Miguel®. Pat also built a table for us to use for card games that also came in handy for letter writing.

The Senior NCO dorm opened across the street from the 848th HQ and mailroom in late ’69 and I believe that all E-6s and above moved there. I visited the dorm a few times to see some of my senior NCOs but most of my dorm time was spent in the three story building where the E-5s and below lived. It was great to have our own lounge on the first floor that was manned by one of Curley the Barber’s
sons who we nicknamed “Smiley” (he seldom smiled). Our Det 2 gang use to spend considerable time in the lounge shooting pool and drinking San Miguel® beer. I remember a snoopy sign on the wall that said: “Another Beautiful Day in the PI!” Does anyone recall a picture of the housing area downtown known as AQ3? In the picture a GI was saying goodbye to his girlfriend out front of the building and
another GI with a duffle bag was knocking at the side door?

The officer quarters were located to the left of the dining hall and as an enlisted troop I only went over there a couple of times to Lt. Brace’s quarters to check out some reel-to-reel tapes to copy on our new Akai® tape decks. Lt. Brace, who I believe hailed from Buffalo, NY, worked in 848th Operations and one of his additional duties was to monitor the tapes owned by the site and allow
them to be checked out for a day or so at the time. If any of the former officers at Wallace can provide stories about the structure and activities in their quarters I am sure that would be of interest to the readers of the blog. Does anyone know about the Commander’s quarters—were the commander’s quarters larger, well furnished, etc.?

Much of my time was spent in the dorm and there were irritants. After 40 years to ponder the situation, I wonder if I didn’t complain about the dorm to vent my frustration about being away from home or being bored? Most of my complaining centered around noise as people came in from the club or went off to work. Living in such close proximity, it was impossible not to make noise. Sometime
during the tour the base water supply ran low and water was rationed! I am sure it happened several other times before Wallace AS was closed in 1991? Rationing took the form of only being available from 6-8 a.m. and 5-7 p.m. (my times may be slightly off, but water was turned on only for two short periods a day)! It is amazing how little water is necessary if you really need to wash. Guys
learned how to jump in after the water was turned off, turn on the water and barely get wet, turn off the lever, soap up, then use what was left in the water lines to wash off the soap. Not ideal, but effective at least.

The bathrooms, during 1969-70, were huge rooms with 6-8 toilets, a number of urinals, 8-10 sinks, and 4-6 showers. This meant you could usually find an opening when preparing for work or a social event. However, you might have to shower and then shave, but the facility was large enough to service demand. As might be expected a few guys were slobs, but in general the houseboys took care
of keeping things clean. Hopefully someone can help me out: were there two latrines per floor or one?

One thing I immediately missed when I returned to the states was my houseboy. During my tour I think the charge was $3-4 a month and the houseboy cleaned everywhere, changed our sheets twice a week, polished our shoes, and picked-up and delivered our laundry. The houseboy took care of all the work outside of duty and gave us plenty of time to read, play cards, write letters home, go to
nightly movies, explore downtown, and relax. In this respect my tour at WAS was the most carefree time of my life!

Speaking of movies, during my tour, we were sent 5 movies per week. As best I remember, the movies repeated themselves on Monday-Tuesday and Friday-Saturday, with single showings the other nights of the week. SSgt John (JC) Carroll, who was married to a Cebuana and had also pulled a tour at Mactan AB, ran the movies during my tour. I believe Sgt. Grawley in 848th Ops ran the movies prior to JC taking over. On the way to the movies you could pick up a soda and popcorn at the snack bar next door. I believe the movies were about 25 cents during my time at Wallace and we normally signed an AF form to account for the money. Most of the movies drew a large number of GIs, contractors, and assorted local guests.

At I stated in my first recollection, several of the Det 2 and more than a few 848th troops spent their entire tour in the dorm or at work. One of our Staff Sergeants, named Harry Rivers, told me he went to town once to purchase something for his wife. MSgt Bill Hancock, the Det 2 NCO who lived on $1 a day, also spent most of his tour on base. There was also a group who lived downtown, which will be discussed in a future entry. It seemed that most of the GIs divided their time between work, the dorms, the WASCOM, the beach, downtown, and Baguio.

One day in early 1970 I was napping on top of my bed after a mid-shift working in the Raytheon Vans. Suddenly, I felt movement and looked up to see the light fixture swinging. It dawned on me that we were experiencing an earthquake tremor. Several of us who were in the dorm ran down the stairs and waited outside for a few minutes. Fortunately, the earthquake was not a significant event at Poro Point, but there was more severe damage in other parts of Luzon.

My friends and co-workers Gerry Bargo and Tim Phillips resided next door and they decided that in the spirit of the times, they would paint their room black and install red lights. Perhaps they were influenced by the “psychodelic” music and pictures portrayed in the movies and magazines of the time. After a few months, they decided black was a bit depressing and the walls suddenly became an
off white!

I would like to relate one final story that hopefully will bring back memories. One of our buddies, who will go unnamed, was dating a local girl and they had broken up. We spent Friday afternoon at happy hour at the WASCOM where everyone had too much to drink. We helped our friend, who appeared to be the drunkest, to his room and into bed two rooms down the hallway from us. Later that night
we peeked in, without turning on the light, and he appeared to be sleeping. The next morning about 9 a.m., one of our group members came to our room and said he was worried that the guy had not moved and did not appear to be breathing. Four of us went to investigate the situation and listened close to his head. Sure enough, he was not breathing! We slowly pulled back the covers and—oh, my
God—he was not there! He had stuffed the bed with clothes and other items to make it appear he was in bed. We were a bit perplexed and decided to go to the WASCOM for breakfast (or perhaps a bloody mary at sick call?). Guess who was sitting in the WASCOM with his honey? Yes, and we were all informed they were getting married!

For those of us who completed one or more tours at Wallace AS, we invested a significant amount of time sleeping, scheming, recreating, and surviving in the dorm. I didn’t especially like sharing a room with two other guys, but feel that Reed and Pat were super roommates. That said, I hope that many of you will contribute your own experiences and bring us up to speed on the new NCO dorm and
Bachelor Officer Quarters at Wallace. What did you like or dislike about dorm life. Certainly most married troops missed their wives and families, but what else? What interesting events happened in the dorms that you can describe for the enjoyment of the readers? How did the dorm situation change once women were stationed at Wallace? What was the strangest room you remember at WAS? I look
forward to your entries!

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Remodeled 3rd floor dayroom

posted 7-27-09

Jerry L. Smith - Webmaster

I guess i'll be the first repondent on this new blog. Once again Earl has done a beautiful job in helping make the "Blue Book" the best one ever. While I found the barracks life very comfortable and not so distracting with noise as Earl experienced, I also found it to be very boring in 1966 and 67 and I therefore avoided it as much as possible. I had no problem crashing and getting a wonderful night's sleep and then waking up to look out across beautiful San Fernando Bay and harbor. So basically I slept there, the 3 S's, dressed and on my way out with the day or night whichever the case.

I remodeled the 3rd floor dayroom, putting in real wood panel and a beautiful wooden bar. Since I was NCOIC of CE, getting the material was not a problem. LTC Clarke commander at the time approved the project and I was on my way to Clark AFB in a 1-1/2 ton stake bed truck with one of the old filipino scouts working as driver and mechanic from the motor pool. He made for great conversation with all his old war stories. I have a high definition 8X10 picture of him BBQ'ing a dog out back of the motor pool and will post it as soon as I find that sucker.

The trip to clark in that truck was somewhat tiring to say the least. We ran into mechanical trouble and broke down right in the middle of Tarlac province. If you remember this was a communist infested province and rebel stonghold. We were a bit worried when the sun started to go down and we became surrounded by what seemed like hundreds of natives from out of nowhere. I told my Mechanic driver to say a prayer and get this thing back on the road as I didn't think we would survive the night.We had natives all over the bed of the vehicle in the cab and looking over our shoulders. They were a curious lot, friendly but their countenance changed as nightfall suddenly approached.

About 15 minutes later I heard the engine start-up on the big truck, my driver shouted something in Tagalog, probably "get the hell off the truck" we jumped in the cab and sped away while the natives were still jumping off the truck like chickens flying to safety from the big bad fox. It was pathetic but comical in a way, I couldn't help but laugh. I hope no one got hurt and we wasn't about to go back and find out.

When we arrived at clark we went straight to the filipino cafe down on the flightline where we indulged in alot of filipino food. We always ate at this cafe whenever we went to clark, they had great adobo. From there we usually went to the map-area, that's right the map area. Remember tent city, I sure do. Next to tent city there was the big fire station where they always had a guest bed and I used it alot while visiting clark. The next day I signed my life away I signed so many 1445's at civil Engineer wharehouse's obtaining all the materials required to remodel our beloved third floor dayroom.

We arrived at Wallace the next day and began off loading all the wood panels and things needed for our remodeling project. In just a few days the project was complete and the troops appreciated our efforts in making the dormitory a much better place to live.

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