James Glezen:
CLASS OF 1978
Austin High SchoolClass of 1978
El paso, TX
James's Story
i loved traveling, due to my father being in the Army. I tried working for the airlines but no luck! so i joined the Air Force & became a crew member on a141 transport out of Tacoma washington. we flew to alaska, japan, s. korea, Phillipines, Okinawa, guam hawaii * n. cal. after a feww cycles of that, we were assigned to fly to N cal, s.cal Okla & other places. after a few cycles of that we were put on local flights. (mostly dropping off paratroopers out of ft lewis was to Yakima Wa or Ft irwin,ca. after 2+ years of that I was sent to Frankfurt Germany for 2 yrs & then got assigned to Berlin as the wall came down. It got alittle old so i decided to get out & work for the Airlines. That year (89) Branniff, Eastern Pan Am & others went broke so i ended up baking pies at Furrs at Sunrise in el paso. our dishwasher, who was getting to graduate, his dad was a USN recruiiter. so he pulled a few strings & i joined the Navy. I was assigned to a cruiser out of Pearl Harbor hawaii & did a few tours in the MidEast (desert Storm & Southern Watch. the boat was scrapped mar 9. So i got assigned embassy duty in Bahrain. Due to my AF background I was sent to Somalia to train Marines in cargo duties (Black Hawk Down) Rvcd a few medals for that. after 2years was assigned to Puget Sound Naval Shipyards in Bremerton wa. got out in 97. moved to elpaso, got my degree & moved to Phoenix. worked as a prison guard recruiter until 9-11. joined the Army as a combat engineer. broke my foot. while in the hospital & rehab, took some cooking courses & got my certification as a food service manager. however the Army decided to retire me. So i now live in Phoenix as a retiree. i take a few vacations here & there using m ID card. been to San Diego a few times, Hawaii 1-2, utah & texas.
after working in Germany, i moved back to el paso. i worked asa busboy at dennys then frycook at the logan hts army snack bar. i joined the air force in jul 82. my recruiter told me that i was going to be a payroll clerk. well, during basic training, i had to take Morse Code test. before leaving basic training. my drill instructor told me that i was going to cyrptology school in pensacola for 9 months. after a few weeks i told my instructor that i couldnt hear certain frequencies (due to a hole in my ear drum) so they AF decided to patch the hole up, take me out of crypto school & they sent me to AF flt school at Altus Okla, then POW school at Spokane, Wa & Eglin AFB fl. After that I was assigned to 62 Military Air Wing in Tacoma, I was assigned to a C141 that would go from Tacoma, to Fiarbanks Ak- Anchorage Ak, Tokyo Japan-Seoul S Korea- then either Phillipines/ Okinawa or Guam then Honolulu- Fairfield Ca then back to Tacoma. We wouild spend 2-3 days at each stop.
One time in Guam the crew bus droped us off at our airplane, dumped our bags on the flightline. The pilot told us Hey guys gets your bags & do your job so we can get home. There was a few AF cadets from the AF Academy with us. One told...Expand for more
me GET MY BAGS WHY DONT YOU SGT. I looked at him & thought NOT ONLY NO BUT HECK NO but I didnt say it. After landing in Hawaii, the cadet was looking around & the pilot asked Hey son whatcha lookin gor? The cadet said In Guam I told the loadmaster to load my bags. The pilot looks at him, patted him on the back & said Wll son, your bags are probably still in Guam, Cuz a loadmaster aint no porter!.
Another time we were at Rhein Main AB outside Frankfurt Germany. me & my buddies were walking out of the base hotel, when a Cadet said I DONT SEE NO SALUTE SGT! I do a 180 & say I DONT SEE NO BUTTER BAR CADET! & walk off.
I have 1200 flying hours with the Military Air Command. Looking back it was alot of fun. Back during the Reagan years out Sqdrn C>O> tried to keep the Pilot, CoPilot, Navigator & loadmasters together so they knew what each idiocincriy was.
The pilot I flew with was one of the nicest Capt (O-3) to have. He used to put an eggtimer on the flight deck. When we were at Travis AFB in Fairfield,Ca & he asked for 1 hour ground time so we could get home to Tacoma before the 8 hours crewtime ran out from flying Hawaii to N.Cal to Tacoma. If we went over 8 hrs then we'd have to spend the night at Travis. After 8-10 days flying, we all wanted to get home. So the Capt would set the eggtimer to 59 minutes. If we were still on the ground at Travis when the timer went off then he'd pay for a steak dinner for all of us once we got home. Afew times we'd barely have wheels off the ground when the timer would go off. We'd snap our fingers Darn, 5 seconds sooner we'd have free steaks!
When I was stationed in Frankfurt I worked at the European Reservation Center for MAC. The way we'd answer the phone was Rhine Main PRC this is Jim hopw can I help you?
One time there was a German Civilian who worked for the US Army in S. Germany. she called & asked for a reservation Munich to Washington DC for a GI & his wife on such & such day. after loading the info in, we gave her the flight number & confirmation #. A little while later she called to cancel such & such confirm #, which we did. 1 hr later she called again & wanted to book the same persons on that flt & date, which we did. all thru out the day it was Book Cancel Book Cancel. I asked her why is she booking then cancelling that ticket so many times? she got huffy & said Let me tallk to your supervisor. So I put her on hold, counted to 10 & said Hi This is Sgt Glezen, how can I help you? she told me what nJim had told her. I told her that I had been monitoring the calls & Jim was following proper procedures. Plus since this was a Commercial Ticket Pan Am could, By contract , cancel the contract due to booking abuse. I asked her if she could talk to the GI, explain to them that they do have almost 5 weeks before flying out, maybe they could talk it over when to fly. I then told her that I would had her back to Jim & he could finish the booking. She never realized that Jim & Sgt Glezen was the same person.
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