Gunter AFB is located in Montgomery and was home to various medical training courses. At the time, the Civil Rights movement had begun a few years before with the Montgomery bus boycott. Of course, I was relatively clueless about that or the Klan and racism in general. My introduction to real life was my first day in the cab ride from the airport to the base. I shared the cab with a couple of other airmen. Someone brought up the subject of the treatment of blacks and the restrictions of blacks and whites associating with each other. I made a comment that no one was going to tell me who I could associate with. At a stop light, the cabbie (white) turned around and said “Be careful talking like that around here white boy. It can get you killed.” He said it calmly and I didn’t feel threatened. Thinking about it later, I think he was just giving me some good advice. Luckily, we didn’t get very many chances to go off base. There were no problems between us on the base.
The course I attended was Basic Veterinary Specialist training. We were taught how to inspect all types of food and how to inspect food service facilities. Courses were conducted in food borne diseases and their prevention. The reason it was called the Veterinary Service was because of the relationship between animals and food. Zoonoses are those diseases which are transmitted from animals to man which is why Doctors of Veterinary Medicine run the service. Part of the course was testing and tasting various types of food. The only thing I couldn’t take was sampling oysters. They brought in toad sacks filled with the miserable things. We were supposed to eat some along with learning what fresh ones look and smell like. I could not choke down one of the slimy things. Others in the class had a feast because they didn’t want to throw them away so that let the class chow down. Today, I have to force myself not to be too critical when visiting restaurants or any place where food is prepared. Otherwise I probably would avoid a lot of places.
I was also at Gunter attending an advanced class in 1963. They interrupted class the afternoon on Friday, November 22, 1963 to notify us of the assassination of President Kennedy. All of us were in shock of course on losing our Commander In Chief. They brought in a television set and we gathered around to watch all of the news coverage. The thing I remember most about it was the silence in the room. I think most of us spent the weekend glued to the television. Come Monday, it was back to class and tried to get back into our normal routine. I’m ashamed to admit it now but the first president I voted for was Nixon instead of Kennedy. Watergate proved how wrong my choice was.
At the end of the course, we got our next assignments. I don’t recall having much of a choice in deciding where to go. Mine was to Misawa AB, Japan.
Jim's Memory Walk 
Funny how virtually everyone remembers what they were doing when Kennedy was assassinated. I was sitting in a car in front of a bank in San Francisco waiting for my husband to cash his check. We sat there for an hour listening to the radio. Kept hoping it wasn’t true.
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