In 1994 I was assigned to the newly-created 750th Medical Squadron (750 MDS) located at Onizuka Air Force Station in California. The clinic was in the city of Mountain View, a beautiful community a few miles north of San Jose and about 30 miles south of San Francisco.

The 750 MDS was actually situated on Moffett Federal Airfield - formerly Moffett Naval Air Station. It was a very small Air Force clinic; at any given time, we had only 64 active-duty staff, and less than a dozen civilian employees, along with some contractors and a few Navy personnel. I was transferred to Oklahoma (Enid!) in 1997, and the 750 MDS carried on for a few more years until it was “BRAC’d” (closed) and turned into a recruiting/MEPS station. Those few years were quite memorable, however - the staff of the 750 MDS truly felt like a family, and I treasure the memories of my three years there.

Here’s the roster of the folks that made the 750 MDS so unique.

If you have any updates - promotions, moves, retirements - please let me know (davidmsc @ gmail.com).

I read the Air Force News page every day, and noticed that a young Air Force C-17 pilot named Lyndsey Goodman auditioned for the TV show “American Idol” recently. That’s cool - as much as I dislike the show, it’s always good to see the Air Force get some good press.

But would you believe that some people interpret Goodman’s failure to impress the judges as evidence of political bias on the part of the Idol judges and/or producers? I call *bull* on that. Look, I understand the left-wing bias of most mainstream media, but I don’t think that this is a case of that. The Idol judges eliminate the vast majority of applicants, and I honestly don’t think that politics plays any part in their decision. And after watching the Youtube clip of Goodman’s performance, it’s pretty clear that the judges did like her - they complimented her and noted that she does sing well, but not in a suitably “pop” way. And seriously - if they thought that Goodman had a chance of becoming a pop star, they would have whisked her to Hollywood in a heartbeat. A pop-culture mega-hit such as Idol transcends politics and ideology, and doesn’t have to worry about political leanings - it concerns itself solely with the bottom line and massive exposure.

If Goodman wasn’t bankable based on her overall “pop” appeal, then that’s it: game over. I don’t think her affiliation with the Air Force - and, by implication, support for President Bush and the military policies of the administration - factored into the judges’ decision at all.

And my two cents: Goodman is a TRUE American Idol. I salute her service.

Charles points out some rather unexpected results of searching for words that seem innocuous: NIGHTWATCH and SOCIALISM. Not together - separate searches, but both blocked by very literal-minded software.

My most recent experience with a “safe surfing” blocker occurred at work a few months ago…you see, I work at a nuclear-missile base (but not WITH the missiles - relax), and I was doing a bit of research on various missiles in order to better understand the history of same. But: whenever I tried to Google for “TITAN MISSILE,” I was thwarted by the Secure Computing program. Silly me — I puzzled over the blockage for a good ten minutes before I understood.