Aug. 2, 1982.
Ronald Reagan was president, the USS Intrepid museum opened in New York City and the world was a much different place.
And I was going home. Back to Elmhurst, N.Y., and my parents’ home after four years in the Marine Corps.
In October 1978, just before boot camp graduation, when I got my first military identification card, the expiration date seemed like an eternity away. At that time, Aug. 2, 1982, might as well have been Aug. 2, 2002. To a 17-year-old coming to grips with military discipline, even next week seems to be an incredibly distant time in the future.
But the day had finally come. I said goodbye to the crew in VMA-513 Avionics, said goodbye to the squadron’s Harrier jets and walked away from the “Hootowl” hangar at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz., for the last time.
If I thought there was a ton of paperwork involved in getting into the Marine Corps, there was even more in getting out.
Funny how things stay with you. I still remember the flight home: Yuma to Phoenix to Dallas-Fort Worth to JFK. Unlike my return from Marine boot camp, my first sight of the city wasn’t the World Trade Center.
It was the weirdest feeling in the world. After four years of living life as a military man, I was a civilian again. No more high-and-tight haircuts, no more duty section musters and no more stuffing those E-A-Rs in my ears when I walked on the flight line.
Yuma was a training base for F-4 Phantom and A-4 Skyhawk pilots, though those planes would soon be replaced by the F/A-18, which was still undergoing flight testing.
It was an invigorating sight, sound and smell on the flight line, as the F-4s would taxi for takeoff and run up their engines, black smoke flowing from the tailpipes.
Then the pilot would light the afterburners. In the early morning or late afternoon, you’d see the twin flames trailing a few feet behind the engines as the plane roared past and into the sky. Then, like a light switch being turned off, the afterburners would be shut down.
When their squadrons visited, we’d marvel at the F-14s as they flew over for the midfield break, wings swept back, fly the pattern with the wings slowly coming out, then come in to land with the wings extended.
A wide variety of aircraft would visit Yuma, including even Air Force F-15s. The Airedales would sneer at our little Marine Corps base and gag at our chow hall, while we Marine aviation types would show them how real military types marched and stood tall.
But we loved their sleek fighter planes.
Just before I left the Marines, I was part of a deployment to Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada, and we rode there and back in a C-141 transport. Flying as a passenger is fun, unless the plane has no windows, I learned.
I’ve sometimes wondered how my life would have been had I stayed in the Marines. I never regretted leaving, though, and see it as an experience I’ll never forget.
Vincent F. Safuto works for a newspaper in Florida, and occasionally turns up on his brother Robert’s podcasts.
