Testing well used parachutes. Boy the things I saw in two weeks ! I think this was my second meaningful job, I worked as a Fire Department Dispatcher in Mid West City Oklahoma. The city is located right outside the main gate of Tinker AFB, at that time in 65 the new Star Lifters were flying out of Mid West City. In less than a year I was jumping from one. Life takes such crazy route sometimes. After going to the 101st the star lifter was being used as the main source of transportation for fast reaction forces of the Army. Everything was cool until they handed you ammo as you climbed aboard.
I visited my cousin rode there with my Aunt, He came back from Nam . He is still messed up mentally at 74 from his tours there. He left at 17 a happy free-spirited boy, came back with a blank look and sad.
I worked at a little Cheers type bar in Lakewood, Ga. right outside Atlanta. It was a quite little meeting place for locals. Then a group of bikers came in and demolished it. Beat a customer's head into the jukebox and I hid under the bar when it got bad. First time in my life a man called me a bitch. They took all the liquor, beer and tore up the pool sticks and table.
I didn't go. In the early 70s I worked in a factory with a guy who rode a Sportster to work. We used to get some beers after work. He was a very likable person, no BSer, and he gradually told me that he had been in Vietnam in the mid-60s, as a gunner on a gunship. I could sense that this whole thing bothered him but he held it in very well, to his credit. He told me one time that being a gunner was like having "a hunting license for humans." He was hollow about it, dead. He never said much more about it.