OBOGS Reed

In June of 2015, I started a Facebook page for the incoming TPS Students & Spouses, Test Pilot School that is. The military is full of acronyms and as I was starting my new job as the Commander's Secretary, I was slowly learning the "speak." On my first days of the job, I answered my giant 1980s phone with a very professional, "Hello, this is Britney." Unbeknownst to me, I wasn't even up to speed on the radio call sign assigned to me nor did I understand I had to hold down a button for you to hear me. This was going to be interesting, I can't even figure out how to answer the phone.

Duncan and I couldn't wait for the new test pilot class to arrive, 15B for the year he began. We were already at Edwards, but students would be coming from all over the country and world with two international students, from Japan and Italy. I felt like the scene in Harry Potter when all the competitors arrived from the triwizard tournament. Welcome to Hogwarts, get out your wands. Duncan just looovvees my Harry Potter references because he refuses to succumb to J.K. Rowling's genius.

As the first of the class began moving into their base-issued khaki stucco homes in neighbors with streets named for famous test pilots and Astronauts of the past, I went for my first social event solo. Duncan was in San Antonio testing out his reaction to the centrifuge and learning to fly the T-38. The first two couples I met, I was surprised and intimidated, even their spouse's were brillant engineers. Carlie had spent the last several years working as a successful engineer for General Electric and Becky was a licensed pilot, engineer, and current test pilot school instructor. Talk about power couples. At the time, I was working at the on-base youth center making life-size board games and telling sassy tweens to pick up their backpacks and legos.

One day at the youth center, I was told by a 10 year old that he was going to sue me. Cleverly or so I thought, I told him you don't have legal grounds for that. I went to law school before I worked here. The little boy retorted, then, why do you work here? Touche'. I think he won that argument.

Back to TPS, so I was trying hard not to embarrass my husband or say anything around these engineers that would put me on the outskirts of this social circle. I'd already had a rocky start at the Officer's Spouse Club. I told a lovely lady from Tennessee about how excited I was for Duncan to start Test Pilot School because we didn't have many friends and I was ready for the social events. Her husband had been in Test Pilot School some years before. I chatted with her for a while and then made the joke, I hope no one ever drinks too much and goes in the wrong house since they all look the same. I thought such a witty joke grinning to myself. Another bystander quickly corrected me. Test Pilot School is soooo serious no one would EVER do that. Just great, day one and my humor and sarcasm have brought shame down on the whole Reed name. This lady did not like my joke. Crickets.....Duncan's career.....shame shame. What to do next....create a diversion with a funny dance or pretend to be a tree....errr....no just act like an adult. This is the AIR FORCE. Not sure why I'm yelling in my mind. Breathe. Smile awkwardly. Walk away. She just happened to be the 2-star General's wife, who coincidentally is the highest ranking officer at Edwards. Pretty sure that's step 1 in the Good Air Force Wives Guide to not ruining your husband's career....."Rule 1: Don't say something stupid or inappropriate to the most important looking person on base. If you aren't sure how important they are, stop talking." "Rule 2: Stop talking."

Fortunately, the Test Pilot Couples accepted me into their good graces and we planned a big welcome get together for the new families. Yay parties.....now you're talking my language. Whoops....I mean socially responsible, philanthropic parties for the desert tortoise.

Little did I know while I was minding my Air Force wife P's and Q's at this event, my husband was down in Texas embarrassing us for different reasons. He had conquered the centrifuge and gotten what the pilots call "geasles." They are really burst blood vessels in your lower body from squeezing your leg muscles tight in order to retain blood in your head where you don't pass out. It's as painful as it sounds. They put you in a chair and spin you around where your face looks like a Sci-fi 80-year-old you in a blender and see if you pass out or not from the g-force. More like Dr. Evil torture force with sharks with laser beams attached to their heads. Anyway, he survived. Good thing right;) Back to me, so Duncan asks me about not responding to his text.....

I said, "What text?"
Duncan, "I sent you a picture of my geasles."
"I never got a text from you." -Britney
(Panic)....."Oh no...." -Duncan
"Why, what's the big deal?"
"Well, it was a picture of the geasles on my thigh." -Duncan
"Lord....who did you send THAT too?" - Britney
"Rob Hutsell." -Duncan
"Who's that? Do you know him well? Can you explain?" -Britney
"He's a left-seater from Charleston. Kind of." -Duncan
"O lord. Well, what did the text say? Maybe he'll think it's funny."-Britney
"It said what do you think about this?" -Duncan

I died with empathetic embarrassment. My introverted, distinguished husband had texted a picture of his hairy, geasley thigh to some other man. 

I asked, "Did he respond?"
"He did. He said looks bad man. I don't think this was meant for me."

Duncan and I died laughing. At least Rob was a good sport. I never told that story to anyone of Duncan's classmates.  I was given strict instructions not to tell anyone any stories about him that would result in a call sign. 

It's a common trend in the fighter pilot culture to give pilots and flight test engineers call signs, like Top Gun's famous Goose and Maverick that become very much your new name. Unfortunately for many people, the call sign has a deeper and sometimes embarrassing meaning behind it. I just knew I was going to be the reason Duncan received some embarrassing name for the rest of his career.......meet OBOGS Reed. ;) lucky for me On Board Oxygen Generation System or OBOGS did that to himself. You'll have to ask him about it.