Memoir: Hot War - Cold War | Page 5

added to the risk of an emergency bailout from a disabled airplane.
At work one day, I was called to my supervisor's office.
'Just got a phone call from the front office,' he said. 'You're to report immediately to Headquarters, Seventh Air Force. The soldier in the Jeep outside is waiting for you. He'll drive you there. Move.'
Sitting alongside the driver, I wondered what it was all about. The thought that I had made an error in my work made me nervous. Was I being called on the carpet because an injury, or worse, had happened, resulting from an improperly packed parachute?
At Seventh Air Force headquarters, a Colonel cleared me past the security guards and I followed him into an office that had a sign on the door. It read 'Major General White, Commander, Seventh Air Force.' Several men in uniform were standing near a desk at the far side of the room.?? A uniformed officer was seated behind the desk.?? In the middle of the room lay several packed parachutes in a heap.
The officer behind the desk, stood, came around, walked to and crouched next to the parachutes. He motioned me to get down beside him. On each of his shoulder tabs he wore a Major General's two stars.
'OK, son,' he said, 'show me the problem.'
My reports had received attention.
I stared at the parachutes. Did any among them include the damage I had reported? I examined the inspection log attached to each parachute. The dates stamped in the logs showed that the parachutes had been recently inspected and packed at a stateside Air Corps base.
I stood, bent forward over one of the parachutes, and grasped one of its four straps; the strap is known as a 'riser', and it connects the jumper to the canopy.?? The life of the jumper would depend on the strength of that riser.
Jerking the riser straight up as hard as I could, I shook it repeatedly against the twenty-five pound weight of the packed parachute. The sudden yanks and shakings were only a fraction of the shocks that the riser would get when the parachute's canopy snapped open.
The cords, of which the riser was made, separated, and several cords were shredded. Here was another case where dampness and rotting had weakened an emergency man-carrying parachute into dangerous uselessness. Yet, the parachute had been tagged as 'serviceable'.
The General stared at the shredded strap and then, at me.?? He said, 'Thanks, son.'?? The Colonel, who had escorted me to the General's office, motioned to me and pointed at the door.
As I left, I heard the General say; 'I want a personal message on this from me to Hap Arnold'. General Arnold was the Commander of the Army Air Corps worldwide during World War II, and reported to the President of the United States.
I returned to my job. The quality of parachutes and other survival gear that arrived at Hickam Field from the Mainland quickly improved.
Serious defects in design, operating instructions supply, maintenance, and acquisition of aircraft and their components were also found in other types of equipment and methods used by the U S Air Force. When the fighting part of the war was over, I was assigned to a work group that gathered evidence from technicians, engineers and administrators on what was wrong and to write reports that went to engineers and managers at higher headquarters. They would do what was required to get the problems solved and, when appropriate, issue correcting technical instructions to the reporting field activity or USAF-wide.?? It was during that experience that I began to plan the 'checklist' that is presented in the following memoirs about (a) fixing mistakes in the workplace, and (b) supervisory inspection of the work unit.
MEMOIR: CHECKLIST - FIXING MISTAKES IN THE WORKPLACE
Grandparents and middle-years or older adults generally have technical and professional skills, are mature-minded, and form a constantly replenished technological and cultural resource. Their capabilities and perceptivity are the result of many years of hands-on, supervisory or management experience in a trade or profession, tempered by practical interactive human relations. It is characteristic in almost all species that survive by more than instinct that the experienced pass their knowledge along to the young whenever the time is right for them to do so. The urge to pass knowledge forward to a succeeding generation is ingrained as deeply as instinct. Older adults, as grandparents or otherwise, will always do what older adults do best: working with, guiding, and mentoring youth. Fixing mistakes, learning from the process, and passing forward what was learned is inherent in survival of the species.
I presented an earlier version of this memoir's contents as a United States Small Business Administration 'Management Aid for Small Manufacturers,' number 242 'Fixing Production Mistakes' published in March 1979. I've reworked the text since and occasionally email copies