Going to War with both of your Flight boots

Just as Desert Shield was kicking off, I received a call from SMSgt “Tonto” Arrevelos to get ready to deploy (to fly RJ/Rivet Joint). At the time I was serving at the NCO PME Center at Goodfellow AFB. So, I picked up my gear from the base supply
center and got my tickets to Offutt AFB, from where our crew would deploy.
Once there, I met the others on the crew – only to find out that I was the senior-ranking individual and would be responsible for getting the crew from Offutt to Riyadh AB, Saudi Arabia. Sounds easy, right? Well, just one minor detail – we’d have an
overnight stop in Athens, Greece. And of course, the crew wanted to go out and party that night — their last chance to have alcohol before we hit the ground in Saudi.
Once we landed at Hellenikon AB, we were bussed to the Apollon Palace Hotel, which was where military personnel stayed in transition. As we arrived, I instructed the crew: “Go out and party all you want tonight – just be here at 0800 sharp tomorrow
morning. The bus is going to leave at 0800. Be here with all your gear”.
The next morning, I came down to meet our bus at 0730. As the time neared 0800, the crew slowly straggled on to the bus – except for our 3-Op, Mik Travis. Finally, at 0755, I asked Tim “TJ” Johnson, our 4-Op – “Where’s Mik”? TJ put his head down and
said, “He’s up in his room, looking for one of his flight boots.” A bit bewildered, I said: “Flight boot? As in a singular boot? What the $#%@#%*?” TJ just nodded.
Well. by now it’s 0800 on the dot. So, I told TJ to go get Mik, with or without both of his boots. And sure enough, a couple minutes later, Mik ambles up – in his flight suit – but with only one flight boot on. I looked at him quizzingly and asked, “Mik,…where’s your other boot?” He answered, “I don’t know Marco.” I answered, “So you came here yesterday with both of your boots, right?” He responded, “Yes, I just don’t know what happened to the other one.” TJ then chimed in, “I looked in his room too and didn’t see the other boot.” These are the times that try men’s souls.
By this point I’m really steamed and perplexed. I told both to just get on the bus and we’d figure out something when we got to base. On the way there, I told the bus driver to pull up in front of the squadron ECP for just a couple minutes. As he did, I
looked at Mik and said: “Mik, listen carefully, you have two minutes to go into the SCIF and come back out with two boots.” “And I don’t give a crap how you do it – just come back out with two boots!! – you can’t go fly in a war with just one boot!”
So Mik hopped off, went inside and about 90 seconds later came out with a flight boot on both of his feet. I signaled the driver to get us out to the tarmac so we could board for our flight to Riyadh. We made it on time and landed safely in Saudi Arabia.
Once there, I asked Mik, “Ok, tell me, how did it?”. He just cracked a smile and said, “I bought a pair of boots off of somebody on the ops floor.” I just shook my head in disbelief and sighed….and that’s how our RJ crew went to war with both flight boots!