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A recent thread on the Prop Wash Gang Yahoo Forum reminded me of when Capt. Jeff Lavalle first arrived at Athens. Unfortunately, for him, his first flight with one of our crews was with Charlie Crew (and I was a proud member). Keep in mind that the good Capt. had already met Charlie Crew at about 2:30 AM on our 3rd or 4th mid sometime earlier, which is another story altogether; he was not impressed. In our attempts to maintain the fine traditions of Charlie Crew as set forth by previous illustrious members (Soppy, Francona, Flowers, et. al.). We set forth to give a proper welcome to the good Captain.
Prior to his arrival Mike Cortopassi, and others (CRS taking hold) had gone to Sharm El-Sheikh on the Red Sea scuba diving (a story in itself). The members of Charlie Crew decided that the Arab linguist needed the traditional Arab headdress to wear, and the Hebrew linguist got outfitted with yamulka's. Mike was kind enough to make these purchases for us. We had already established the custom of donning this headgear during pre-flight equipment checks.
On the good Captain's first flight, we decided it would be a good idea to properly welcome him to the unit by displaying our finest customs to aid in his adjustment from Training Command to Security Service. After the normal pre-flight checkouts of O2, helmet, parachutes, equipment, and the removal of regulation patches and name tags. We donned our headgear and other crew traditional wear (Charlie Crew patch if you had one, worry beads, etc). Even Rusty Mulligan had brought his Russian bear hat complete with red star for the occasion. I could see the dear Captain's face from position 7 on the RC-135 V as he was getting settled in behind the AMS in the sling seats. To say he had a confused look about him would have been an understatement. To his credit he made no statements about our antics, at that time.
Settling in for take-off, with our seats facing aft and belts properly secured, we introduced another tradition to the Captain once we began our take-off roll. All members of good standing on Charlie Crew removed their kazoos from their breast pockets, rolled over to ship's intercom and began playing "Up into the Wild Blue Yonder" for all aboard. It was a marvelous site, at least 15 guys playing their hearts out in perfect harmony as we rolled down the runway for another mission for God and Country. It still brings tears to my eyes today. We were so proud. We had done our best to welcome this, our newest member, into our arms and make him one of us. (Footnote: I have never seen anyone's face as red as Capt. Lavalle's was. I thought he was going to stroke-out on us). And that my friends, is the true explanation of the beginnings of the white "Dickies" tradition for crew wear at the 6916th in the late 70's.