"Where It All Began"

About 30 years ago, I spent time with a then 85-year-old Jewish Rumanian American intellectual, Alex Lunkin. One day as we were speaking about business and life, he became quiet for a thoughtful moment of reflection, and told me: "Norman, your problem is that you expect that the world is both reasonable and sane, and as until you realize it is not, you are doomed."

Alex was right, and I was/am too absorbed in my own version of right and wrong to realize that. I always thought that If I spoke clearly and softly and made sense, that my Management would jump up to say "Norman, you are absolutely correct, here, have some more money, and we are going to put you in charge of a "EVERYTHING." I am still waiting for it to happen in both business and politics.

One of my "expectations of sanity" was to have the media in this country serving the public as only the mass media can, and not serve their self interest so much of the time. I also expected "reasonableness" and sadly that too is non-existent. Alex was of course correct in his assessment of me. It is now 30 years later, and I continue to have the same expectations, but they seem more likely then ever to remain unfulfilled.

People, (or in this case) me, start life along a "path" and although I have changed along the way, I have stayed the same person all along, and probably will not vary greatly from the path until I die. I have been son, student, husband, father, worker, activist, friend and many other things, but I expect that whatever I "learned", good and bad has been with me all along, to shape my life, my work, my loves, and all of that other stuff.

I have grown to be an activist, and a rebel, yet, in so many ways; I have been that way ever since I can remember. I expect that in order to have a general insight into what I have written it is probably not a bad idea for me to explain who I think I am, and to do my best to explain why I have done what I have done, or at least provide some truths, or what I believe to be truths. Memory recalls the good stuff, not the bad stuff, but I will tell the truth, as I know it, embellished only a little bit.

I was born in the Bronx in 1932, the son of a sweet, but depressed mother, and an outgoing and successful father. One older brother who treated me with disdain, and a Wire Hair Terrier (Daisy) whose greatest pleasure in life was to bite me whenever she could, but only when my Mother wasn't around to see her do it.

Sports were a joy. Going to school was not. Most of my happiest memories are from summer camp, where I played sports ALL day every day, and my parents were thankfully 150 miles away. From 7 to 16 the summers were the highlight of my life.

In any event, and for whatever reason, I rebelled against everything, parents, school, my brother, Daisy, women, sports umpires, and corporations, the Air Force etc. Being in the military and in business didn't change things at all, but at least I got smarter in manifesting rebellion. In summary, I was a pain in the ass to the people in question, but I handled it in a way as to not get a court martial in the service, or fired in industry. (But did I ever aggravate my superiors). I had my own well-developed sense of right and wrong, but to be fair and accurate about it, I made up all the rules.

I was so unconscious in so many ways, yet like so many people my age, had all the answers. Repeating for emphasis, not just SOME of the answers, but all of them.

I was fortunate to have been born with a very high IQ, but sadly not the emotional stability to use it properly. I was given every opportunity to get the finest education available from Junior High (Joseph Wade), to the Bronx High School of Science, and on to the Barnard School For Boys. School was a problem for me, and at the time I was unable to overcome that problem.

I did have a "girl friend", but that relationship ended when she went off to college. Out of a lack of alternatives, I went to work for my Father in his dress business, but I was not your happiest of campers. That was not a good thing for me and then a "bad thing/good thing" happened. The North Koreans Invaded South Korea, and our unprepared nation found itself at war, and in desperate need of Soldiers to fight the dreaded Communist invaders. This was bad for the people killed or maimed on both sides, but good for me, as my life was dramatically altered for the better.

Having been so screwed up and rebellious as a teenager, I found myself in a position as a 19 year old of getting drafted into the Army or the Marine Corps and being shipped off to Korea. Of course I needed to be trained about how to kill people, and defend myself, and In the Bronx, this was a valuable skill, but of no use elsewhere.

I was a patriotic, gung ho, immortal young man, but getting killed seemed to be something that I didn't want to do, no matter how noble the cause. Of course it is easy in hindsight to wonder how noble that war was, and why over 50,000 American boys, women and men died, in addition to only a few hundred thousand Koreans and others. I of course remember the prevailing expression used at that time of "better dead then red'. I wonder if anyone polled the people who died or their families about that?

There was of course the possibility of my joining the Navy, but I decided not to do that because I was afraid of the water, but I hated the Navy uniform, particularly the silly white hats. The Air Force however seemed like "off we go, into the wild blue yonder?" and I thought that their uniforms were neat, Blue Wool in winter, khaki and blue in the summer, not bad. My Father was against 4 years, but my Mom and I liked the apparent safety of the Air Force. It was simple for me at the time, get drafted and killed (in a noble cause) or spend 4 years in the Air Force.

The Air Force changed my life. I started to grow up during my first morning of basic training at Sampson Air Force Base, in upstate New York. I arrived there on January 22, 1952. It was there that I learned on my first day the meaning of cold. There I was, far from Mommy and Daddy, standing outside of what was to be my home for the next 60 days, freezing my ass off, and being verbally abused by my Drill Instructor, and it was at that moment that "I got it". I had my first and only epiphany. I had made a GIGANTI*C mistake in not going to college, for if I had done that, I would be asleep in a bed somewhere and not dealing with the horror in front of me. Is there a moral to this story? For me there is, and here it is. Allow your children to fail as often as possible, and try to allow them to realize that they were responsible for what had happened to them. Easy? No. Effective? Probably.

No matter how patient and persistent parents are, (drum roll please) lessons MUST be learned by children from experience and not by pestering. "Experience teaches", instructions "annoy".

There I was, literally up to my ass in snow, being yelled at. What a revolting development that was. This was my LESSON to be learned from "life", not to be given the answers by Mom or Dad.

Air Force Basic Training was an absolute joke. Other then being cold, and everyone getting pneumonia, it was easy. We did march a lot, and that was fun, and it was there that I learned how much fun it was to look sharp when you were marching. It was also fun cleaning a latrine, and making it "shine". Who would have ever thought that?

Here are the things I NEVER did: Not sleep in a bed. Wear a helmet, fire or even hold a weapon, eat a ration, see any kind of jeep, tank, armored car, machine gun or automatic weapon. We did go on an obstacle course for a couple of hours, after it had been postponed once for inclement weather. The obstacle course was fun to do, and it was only one indication of how bad my training was. We ate, slept, marched and went to classes. Not bad for a war if you didn't have to fight in it.

If I were to survive this ordeal, I knew that I needed to do it on my own, and that my loving and concerned parents "COULD DO NOTHING TO HELP ME" Wow, what an insight, what a concept. My answer was go to the longest school in the military, and that's what I did. I got into Radio Maintenance School at Scott Air Force Base, in Belleville Ill. for at least 36 weeks of school (or as many as 42 weeks) 6 hours a day, 6 days a week. I learned a lot, had a good time, and became an instructor in the school I had just completed. 12 more weeks of instructor training, and I was "a teacher".

So there I was, defending our country in the Korean War (or Police Action). I went about my business, and although I was an all-purpose "wise ass" I almost never did anything that the system could punish me for. On my base as well as in the large and small towns around the base were women. What an opportunity for me in so many ways. I did become aware for the first time that women were probably at least as sexual as men, and that sex was for the most part, not "forced" upon them. Now this concept was at odds with everything I grew up with, and came as a big surprise to me.

Now having said that, there were a couple of other things that were noteworthy, and should be mentioned in this context. I was supposedly a highly trained Radio Maintenance Instructor, and went to work 6 day a week to teach my class. I lived in a barracks that was loosely divided into "rooms" and of course each room was very small and could accommodate two cots, two footlockers, and a place to hang your uniforms. For quite a while my roommate, an instructor as well, and my partner in crime, Richard Carleton Miller was always building and fixing other peoples radios and TV's, and of course using commandeered parts that we happened to have access to in our school. I on the other hand was teaching, going to school, (Belleville Jr. College), drinking, chasing women, or playing golf, and never thought of building anything, not because I didn't have the time, but because I wasn't interested in doing it. Dick was dedicated to the "electronic" stuff, and I was not.

The woman in charge of the service clubs on the base asked Dick and me to assist her in installing an audio system in all of her clubs, which we were happy to do. I was happy because Dick did most of the work in that he was far more competent then I was, and I held the coffee, and smiled a lot. When we were finished, a job that probably took 50 hours, over a few week. She thanked us, and said that she had some stuff that we might want. She took us to a locked storeroom that she maintained and showed us several cases of electronic components that had to be worth a gazillion dollars that were just "sitting" there. She said that she had tried to find out what part of the school on our Base that they belonged to, however, no one was interested in the stuff. She offered the cases to us, and while I didn't care at all, Dick couldn't stop drooling and jumped at the offer. Now the materiel was definitely Air Force stuff, that had somehow been lost in the system, and Dick was very happy to rescue it all for himself. There were hundreds of vacuum tubes, relays, special components of all kinds. The problem for Dick was to get the stuff to his home in order to use it when he was discharged from the service. Not as easy as it would appear to be.

Dick borrowed a truck from a friend, packed the materiel in big boxes, and prepared to send them home to Shillington Pa. He asked me to join him as he took the boxes to the Railway Express office in town. Now this part was simple, but we had to drive off the base that was guarded by the Air Police. We had figured a long explanation if we had been stopped, yet in the back of my mind I wondered how long we would spend in the "stockade" if things did not work out for us.

I often would joke that a Russian tank division, each having a large red star on its side, could drive onto Scott Air Force base as long as each tank had a "sticker" authorizing access to the base. Sure enough, the guard waved us through, and my heart rate returned too normal. I had thought that if we were caught, that I would testify against Dick in order to escape punishment. Welcome to the organized world of The United States Air Force.

At another time I roomed with a German/American Catholic man named Joe Gruendler from St. Louis who was a lot of fun to be with. He did share with me that the Nuns in his church were concerned about his sharing a room with a Jewish heathen, from New York. (Yet).

Joe was doing some audio work at the base Officers Club, and decided that the tile that they were installing at the club would look great in our room, so he "appropriated" enough of it to do our room. He was on the way out, boxes of tiles in his possession when he was questioned by a very young second Lieutenant that asked why he was taking the tiles, and Joe, who was very quick on his feet, replied " Are you in charge here? The Lt., taken back by the reply, said no, and Joe just continued to his car with the tile.

Several months later, we had an inspection of our barracks, when the Major, our commanding officer, came into our room he remarked to the Adjutant "Isn't it nice, they have the same tile in their room as we have in the Officers Club. It was all that Joe and I could do to keep from laughing out loud, right then, right there.

One of my fun assignments was to put on a "show" for all incoming students. A few hundred started every week on 3 shifts, and I had a great time demonstrating electronic phenomena that made up our show. It was such fun creating curiosity in the students, many of who were older then I was. It also gave me an opportunity to interact with all of the WAFS coming into the school, good news for the predatory person I had become.

I was unaware of the Racist society we had in our country. The service did give me the chance to find out that all Irish Catholic people were not prepared to kill me for my role in the death of Christ. I also learned that Jews were denied access to almost as many places as blacks. I once asked my friend, a black civilian teacher in my school named Harold Antoine if he wanted to play golf with me at a nearby course. He looked at me with great disdain and suggested that he would be killed for trying to play there, and as an afterthought, said that I would be killed as well if they found out that I was a Jew.

My teaching was fun for me, and I did that for 3 years. Classes went on for 6 hours a day, six days a week. My students came from all over the world other then the Soviet block, they were mostly bright and mostly interested in what I was teaching. Six hours was a long time each day to be trying to pass on information to my students, and of course I developed a very casual teaching style, and took time out regularly to "lighten" up the class with some casual interaction. During these periods I was asked from time to time, "Sergeant, where do you Jews hide your horns"? Or what do you do with the bodies of Christians after you have used their blood for your pagan rituals"? My favorite was during Yom Kippur, "so how come the fucking Jews get the day off and we have to go to school"? When I replied that "as one of the fucking Jews, ?" and my student almost died on the spot when I said that. This was funny in a way, and sad in a way as well. Racism was and is rampant in America. I always loved being told "Norman, you are a great guy for a Jew".

Carol, the Daughter of a Fundamentalist Church of Christ minister with whom I lived in sin for several years, would say "Norman, they're just ignorant, and they don't know any better".

Our major Sunday morning scam (our only day off) was to go to St. Louis to the YMHA for brunch of lox and bagels. They always had tickets to sporting events, movies and such and of course there were young and at times pretty Jewish women for all of us to chase. Following brunch it was nice to go to a Cardinal game for a few hours, and if you chose to wear your uniform, people would always buy you beers, hot dogs and such, I always thought that Korea was a popular war, and the public was very supportive of "our boys in uniform"

At night we all would meet at the Christ Cathedral, where they served dinner to any servicemen that showed up. There were of course many women there as well, all Catholic, and as I recall, following supper they held a dance, and that was fun I met several very nice and very pretty young women there, and as I was in my early stages of trying not to date Jewish women, it worked out well. I also loved being invited by some of the women to come to lunch on Sunday, and these conservative Christians almost died when they met me. I expect that they were not sure that I did or did not have anything to do with the death of Christ, but I represented everything that concerned them about their daughters I was in the military, I was from New York, and I was a Jew, what a combination!

We had a stunning Nordic blonde woman (Linda), who worked our Squadron orderly room, She and I would chat a couple of times a week, have coffee, or perhaps share a table for lunch or dinner once in a while. I was always nice to her, but never asked her out. An opportunity presented itself about a year after I met her, and I asked her to join me for a Dixieland concert, She said yes and asked why I had not spoken up previously, and I told her that everyone else was chasing her, including all of the married men, (and now the bad news) but because I had not she was very intrigued by me. This was a very bad lesson for me, once again an indication of women wanting what they thought that they couldn't have. Part of the awareness for me was once again my fear of being rejected by a woman; any woman was something to be avoided. Boy, was/is that dumb!

While it wasn't exactly "Animal House" in the Air Force, there were times and events that could have fit nicely in the movie. Among my friends was an Irish Catholic man from Brooklyn named Francis J. Curran. Among all of the nut cases in my Squadron, Frank was way up there. He smoked all of the time, and he would drink beer almost all of the time. Because we were after all in the Military, and subject to the draconian punishments for rules violations, getting to work every day was a requirement. Not easy for most of us, but impossible for Frank. Alarm clocks, wake up "shakes" from his barracks mates, cold water in his face would only serve to slightly arouse "the beast". That was true as a rule, but if Frank had been drinking, it was even more difficult to wake him up.

We decided to do something special for Frank A group of us carried Frank, bed and all out of our barracks, across the road, and a few hundred yards across the grass that separated us from an active runway, and placed his cot with him in it about 50 yards from the end of the runway. We stood around like 8 year olds waiting for what we knew was to come, 3- F86 d's taking off at the same time in formation, and as they neared the end of the runway, they lifted into the air, and all at once kicked in their afterburners, and the noise that it made was unbelievable. Frank must have jumped 10 feet into the air, which was funny enough, but to watch him scurrying around in his white under-shorts, not knowing where he was, was a moment to be treasured by all of us, except by Frank. Sick? It probably was, but a part of life in the military that made it bearable.

Shortly before Dick Miller was to be discharged, he was married to Barbara, his high school sweetheart, in a big deal Church wedding, with this Jew as the best man. Another lesson for me, and I am certain that everyone, especially the Minister was uncomfortable in the process. Dick and I (Dickums), are still close, and we email and talk on the phone regularly. At the rehearsal, the night before the wedding, the ceremony was full of God and Jesus stuff, and everyone kept reassuring me that I didn't have to say or do this or that, and everyone was relieved to know that ANYTHING that they were doing was OK with me and that I just wanted it to be easy for everyone. Religion stuff is funny in a way, particularly if you are serious about it, which I have never been.

By the way nothing has changed for me in the intervening years, my most called upon mantra was/is "it is easier to ride the horse in the direction that he is going". I know that I would like to have things be the way I want them to be, but it doesn't work out that way most of the time.

I managed to have been in the Air Force for almost 4 years, and never been on an Air Force plane that had ANY intention of leaving the ground. TWA? Often. Why, you might ask? Simple answer. I taught the people how to fix the radios on the planes, and I wouldn't fly in a plane where I had fixed the radios myself, never mind any one of my students,

One of my civilian teaching buddies was a reserve pilot named, would you believe O.B. Blessing, and on a particular Sunday morning, he was going to take me for a ride in a T-33, 2 seat Jet trainer. OB insisted, and I was so intimidated that I agreed. On Saturday afternoon, an F-80 crashed while attempting to land, and it exploded in a ball of fire on the runway, not 500 yards from where I stood. It was wild, other then realizing that the pilot was being burned to death, if the crash didn't kill him first. The next morning OB arrived to fetch me and I wouldn't go, proving yet again either how smart, or what a coward I was.

I look back fondly of my time in the Military, as it gave me the opportunity to grow so much, to fool around as much as I did, but most important of all, to hang out with the diversity of men and women that I did, It was in so many ways, a gift.

I had joined the Air Force to avoid getting killed in Korea, and it served me so well in so many ways, I will always be grateful for that.

I would not suggest that young people join the Military to see the world, but do so in order to learn a little about life.

Norman Horowitz
U.S. Air Force Veteran

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