The Next Best Thing to a Time Machine

I served a tour of duty in the active Air Force before completing another thirty-plus years in the Guard and Reserve. Back in 1970 I found myself assigned to my only permanent base, MacDill AFB, in Tampa, Florida.

I was a newly assigned personnel clerk, having only just learned to type on an electric typewriter a few weeks earlier. I served in the CBPO (Consolidated Base Personnel Office) and in the Separations/Reenlistments/Retirements Section. Day after day I typed DD Form 214’s which was, and still is the form everyone separating from active service receives on their last day in uniform.

I met and liked many interesting young, and not so young men at the CBPO, primarily in my own section, of which there were six or eight in attendance doing similar duties.

Having retired from reserve service in 2009, my wife and I still drive over to MacDill AFB, a distance of 50 miles, every 2-3 months, and buy groceries at the commissary. (As a matter of fact, as I write this paragraph, we just got back from that recurring “pilgrimage” in the last few minutes).

The CBPO is still there, and is still being used for the same purpose. Sometime in the past year while we were visiting MacDill, we stopped by the personnel offices in order for my wife to procure a new military ID card. While we were there, I stepped up to the customer service window, and asked the airman, (well, in this case, the air lady) whether she would mind me climbing the steps to the second floor, and check out the office where I used to work. “Airman Jenkins,” responded with a, “Well, no. I’m sorry you can’t. You understand these are active duty offices.” (To which I might have responded, “Well, duh…Yes, of course I know that. I told you I used to work here).

(Well,) my readers, I would not be denied. After I asked I thought, “Since its’ easier to apologize than to ask permission, I shouldn’t have asked permission.” I stepped away from the sight of the “nay sayer,” and climbed up to the second floor; on a staircase I had climbed on a daily basis over the course of three years. (Odd, that was almost half a century ago).

I mounted the second floor landing, and took an immediate right, and then another immediate right, and I was standing in my old place of business. I was surprised to see that what I was looking at was no longer a separations and reenlistment office, nor rather an office at all. The approximately 600 square foot office was now a conference room; complete with tables, and a flat screen television mounted on the front wall.

My mind momentarily drifted back to the original layout of the room; 3 typing desks cued up, front to back, on the far side of the office, 2 in the center, 1 closest to where I now stood, and 1 in the center, back of the room, where our supervisor, a 50-something Jewish NCO sat, (and as far as I recall did little or nothing throughout the course of the day).

Though sometimes I strain to recall the given names of my CBPO compatriots, I’ve never forgotten their surnames. There was Shannon, and Ortiz, and Collier, and Finch, and McGibney, and LaLone, (who happened to be a total twirp) and Barbenell, (and our “big boss,” Senior Master Sergeant Koppel had a small office across the hall).

I love that old movie, “The Time Machine,”… but sadly there are no time machines, and you truly can’t go back.

I guess I did the next best thing.

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "Concepts, Teachings, Practicalities & Stories"