The Military

The shop was near to Hill Airforce base, and a naval supply depot. There were lots of military personnel, and lots of civilian employees. And they all had TV sets.

The largest bunch were the grunts, probably privates and sergeants. They almost always displayed large amounts of concern about what it going to cost to fix the TV set. They watched me with as much concern and interest as if I were handling their vital organs, even sometimes groaning in pain at what this was costing. They had to have it fixed, because their families demanded it, but they worried about the cost.

Since the cost was dear to them, they demanded full value for every nickel spent, and the TV had to perform at its best when I was done. I gave the best I could, but occasionally the design left much to be desired, and the results of my labors were not up to what they felt it should have been.

The next group was the lieutenants. They were also concerned about how much it was going to cost, but they felt compelled to advise me on how to go about fixing it. It didn’t seem to matter whether they knew anything about the care and feeding of electronic devices, they had to tell me what was wrong, and how to set it right. I often wondered to myself, "If you know so damn much about it, why didn’t you fix it yourself?"

The majors, captains and colonels were not too concerned with how big the bill was going to be, and they didn’t seem inclined to give me the benefit of their superior electronic knowledge, but it did seem that I needed to know, and be impressed, by how important they were, how many exotic places they had been, and how smart they were. A few of them had exotic foreign radios, tape recorders, and the like. They talked about the superiority of these things, or the great sums they had expended in getting them.

At last, the general. I only remember one general, and he was the base commander. I knocked on the door, and a fit-looking middle aged man answered. "Can I help you?", he asked, looking at me with a puzzled expression. "I’m here to fix the TV set", I explained. "Oh, yes", he said. "We’ve got one around here, someplace. Come in, please."

He invited me in, and together we explored his ample quarters until we found where the TV set was. "There you are," he told me. "I’ll be in the next room if you needed anything.", and he left me alone to do my job, while he involved himself with more important things.

After replacing a few tubes, making a few adjustments and cleaning off the glass, I presented him with the bill, which he paid in cash. There was no inspection of the results of my labors, no constant watching, no advise. He gave the impression that he didn’t care if the TV worked, or if there was a TV in the house. It was just some silly thing that his wife involved herself with in her spare moments, but of no consequence to him.

One thing seemed universal among the military, though. They almost always paid the bill. They might be late with it, they might gripe about it, but in the end, they paid.