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Some time after Det 1 6916th S.S. opened in Athens, Rory Foran became our Operatons Officer, following, I believe, Stevie B Wonder (Stephen F Morehouse). Although we called Rory "Captain Foran" at work, he was always "Rory" off duty. This is the same Rory Foran who was later the Information Officer that gave wonderful articles to Gene Willard. Gene had a unique filing system for Rory's creations: a burn bag .
The first Det 1 compound consisted of a fenced in area behind the Air Police HQ, with Pierced Steel Planking (PSP) on the ground, a number of H-1 vans, generators for power and a cracker box ambulance for a gate shack. The latrine was in the AP HQ. Carrying classified information and equipment between vans was treacherous at best and even worse in rainy weather. Man that PSP was slippery.
The Maintenance Gang and some of the Ops types built a homebrew hallway that connected the vans. A later improvement was when we moved across the street and had a cement block building, the same vans, cement floors in the hallway and a real latrine.
The Scheduling/Mission Management/Admin Clerk van was located right across the hall from the NCOIC of Operations and Operations Officer van. One whole wall of the Scheduling van was occupied with Plexiglas schedule boards. Rory would often come into the van to check out the schedules. I think he was really after the stash of candy that I kept in the front of my top desk drawer. I would often see Rory back up to the desk, while studying the scheduling board, sneak into the drawer and nab a piece of candy. I told him many times to keep his hands off my candy and he told me many times to shut up and get to work. It was all in fun.
One day I decided to fix his young Captain's butt and put some licorice candy in the drawer. I warned the other guys in the van. Rory backed up to the drawer and got himself a piece of the licorice candy and popped it into his mouth without looking at it. Then he screamed, as only Rory could scream, "Bristol, you son-of-a-bitch, I'm going to kill you…. You know I hate licorice." Of course I knew he hated licorice. That's why I put it in there. We had the same old discussion. "You keep your hands out of my candy." And the same answer, "shut up and get to work." This time it was not all in fun. I promised to never put licorice in the drawer again.
I had a better idea. I got some M&M Peanut candies and piled them neatly in the drawer, right on top of a set mouse trap. This time Rory looked and saw his favorite candy in the drawer and reached in to grab a few M&M's. Then the mouse trap went off. He flinched and skinned his knuckles on the desk. The screaming really started then, while we doubled over with laughter. These are my favorite memories of Rory Foran.