A Matter of Morale

Up to a Gulfport, Miss. motel last week cruised a Pontiac station wagon. There the owner unloaded a wondrous array of equipment: an indoor barbecue set and an outdoor barbecue set, a box of charcoal and a box of pots and pans, cocktail glasses, an ice chest, a bottle of gin, a bottle of bourbon, a bottle of blended whisky, two deck chairs, four books about the stock market, a rack of record albums, a set of golf clubs, crab nets, a Coleman lamp for flounder fishing, a football, two tennis rackets, playing cards, a hi-fi set, beach sandals, a straw hat--and a set of military uniforms. Then, mixing himself an oldfashioned, he settled down to begin his two weeks' summer training with the Louisiana Air National Guard's 159th Fighter Group.

Across the U.S. this summer, thousands of National Guardsmen will trudge reluctantly off for two weeks of required duty in the dust of Massachusetts' Fort Devens, the red clay of Georgia's Fort Benning, and the isolation of dozens of other dreary installations. But for the past six years, the 800 members of Louisiana's 159th Fighter Group have barely been able to wait for their training sessions to begin at Gulfport, a resort town on the silvery sands of the Gulf Coast.

Ogled Show Girls. As they congregated at Gulfport, many married men brought their wives to motels, some bachelors shared beach cottages--and one free liver installed his mistress in comfortable, convenient quarters. At Gulfport's Municipal Airport, the mess hall ordered an extra 500 lbs. of ice a day to keep the Guardsmen's drinks tall and cool. During the day, the Guardsmen set off for the beach, headed for the bayous to fish for bream. At night they swarmed into Gulfport's nightspots to gamble at the tables and ogle the show girls. There was little work for the unit's recreation officer. Said he: "Last year I tried to organize a softball league. It was a real flop. They were all at the beach, or fishing--or someplace. They didn't need any more recreation."

To make sure everyone has enough fun, the 159th begins work at 7 a.m., and nearly everyone is done by 3 p.m. The base supply unit improves even on this schedule: it has two duty shifts, one from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. and the other from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. Mused one supply man last week: "Of course the four hours in the second shift include time out for lunch. But, on the other hand, that shift does break up your day."

Dedicated Men. Yet for all its charming ways, the 159th Fighter Group is considered by the Pentagon to be a crack Air National Guard outfit. The group can put eight of its 16 F-102 jet interceptors into the air within 20 minutes, can come to full operational strength (pilots, maintenance men, armorers) in less than an hour. The hard core of the 800-man group is 175 fulltime employees who are classified as "civilian personnel.'' With little real responsibility, many of the remaining 625 might be bored with the Guard--were it not for the annual training in Gulfport. Says Louisiana's Colonel Milton O. Barth: "It's a real fine morale factor." Says Lieut. Colonel Daniel F. Hynes, the 159th's executive officer: "These men are dedicated." They sure are --and they sure ought to be.

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