In 1971 I was Cadet commander of an encampment at England AFB, which was home to a Tactical Fighter Wing of F-100's. This outfit had just rotated back from Vietnam and had done some fighting. The sight of row after row of the "Hun's" on the flight line with their camouflaged "war paint" was awesome.

The North American F-100 'Super Sabre' was known as 'The Hun' (short for 'hundred'). Find out more about these cold warriors at www.F-100.org

We bussed out to the range and lined up on the ridge overlooking a valley. Our guide explained that the planes would approach over our heads, roar down into the valley and unload their goodies.

There were old trucks and tanks scattered down a road, like a convoy, for rocket and bombing practice. Another section had some big sail-like sheets set up for the planes to strafe with their 20mm cannons. To top it all off, we had the ringside seat, up by the control tower, overlooking the whole area.

The Officer in the tower announced that a couple of planes were inbound for a little practice. No sooner did he say that than two jets roared in just over our heads, right on the deck. We covered our ears as they peeled off and ripple-fired some rockets at the "convoy".

The convoy disappeared in a cloud of smoke. They were using practice rockets that just hit and popped smoke. We were disappointed. We wanted to see trucks and tank treads flying in the air! The tower seemed pleased, though, because the rockets hit where they were supposed to.

The planes swung around for another pass, this time opening up with their 20mm Vulcan cannons. These weren't fake guns, either. They screamed overhead into the valley and the guns hosed a line of tracers that ate up a big white target sheet. They also dropped a small cloud of empty 20mm brass that tinkled across the ground like metal hailstones. They banked into the sun and then zoomed back toward the base.

"OK, the range is clear," announced the tower. "You guys can go down and look around."

It seemed simple enough. Pretty soon everyone was walking around, looking at the shot-up targets.

After a little while, I caught my First Sergeant's attention. "OK, Wilkes, get everyone up here, line 'em up and be sure no one has picked up any unauthorized souvenirs." We'd warned them about not touching anything on the range; this was dangerous stuff.

Everyone was pretty "clean", just a shell casing or two. About the time we finished going down the line, Moody showed up.

"Hey, Sarge!!!!" he said. "Look what I found -- can I keep it???"

There's always one in every crowd. Get a group of people together and at least one will be the square peg in the round hole. Summer Encampment at England AFB, during the summer of 1971 was no exception. Our square peg was one little dumpy guy named "Moody"....

I really don't recall which CAP squadron he came from; everyone denied knowing him.

When it came to drill and ceremonies, Moody acted like he had two left feet. Inspect the barracks and his bunk and locker was always the worst. He probably spent all of his free time working off demerits under the watchful eye of my First Sergeant, Bobby Wilkes.

Wilkes was a clean-cut All-American looking guy who later went on to the Air Force Academy. He was tall, wiry and sharp; those icy-blue eyes missed nothing and Moody soon became a pet project of his.

I think I may have threatened to make him Wilkes's mascot, if he didn't enlighten Moody sufficiently as to what was really going on here. He knew I meant it. Intuitive as ever, I'm sure Bobby applied the pressure on Moody's Flight Sergeant to shape him up or, at least, keep him out of my sight.

That seemed to work until it was our day to visit the gunnery range.

Moody had both hands on some long pipe-like object. It must have taken him a while to pull it out of the ground and wrestle it up the hill. He was red-faced and puffing, but plainly proud of his new toy.

It was about that time we noticed that Moody's "pipe" had fins on it.

"HO-LEE COW!!" the Range NCO screamed. "Get those people back, You! Yes, YOU! Put that thing down -- VERY CAREFULLY..."

Moody, our village idiot, had brought us a unexploded practice rocket. Maybe he was going to make it into a key chain to impress his friends... All I could do was roll my eyes -- I'd visit his Flight Commander later.