Late one afternoon I got a call from a fellow squadron commander over on the training side of Keesler Air Force Base when I was stationed there in 1970. This was unusual. Our aircraft maintenance squadron usually had very little to do with the electronics training that was also going on at Keesler, quite separate from aircraft operations.
Captain Stoddard said that he had noticed some civilians at the Biloxi Airport (General Aviation, not part of Keesler) using what looked like Air Force issue parachutes. Stoddard said he’d heard that the civilian jumpers had paid over $200 [around $1500 today] for the chutes. He wanted to know if they were legit or perhaps stolen.
I told him that we occasionally “surplused” our parachutes if they were damaged or if they were more than three years old. They were then dropped off at the base salvage yard for sale. But they were not sold for anything close to $200; more like $50 and they were labeled “not for civilian use.” I guessed that was where the chutes may have come from, but, given the high price tag, I said I’d look into it.
I first checked with our civilian paint, fabric and corrosion control shop chief, Mr. Sid Forman, whose responsibility included the Parachute Shop. Forman said he was unaware of any inventory problems, and that all the surplus chutes were accounted for; he kept records of each one dropped off at base salvage. Each chute was numbered and the salvage office provided a receipt for each one dropped off.
But out of curiosity, I went over to the base parachute shop and took a short course in parachute rigging and admin.
After three years of service (at that time), for safety reasons, Air Force parachutes were taken out of service and sent to the base salvage yard, basically a large rummage sale of old equipment and supplies which was operated out of an old supply warehouse. They produced a monthly inventory of items that were available for sale with a brief description, condition, and price.
Salvaging parachutes was just one small part of the operation. The parachute shop did routine scheduled inspections, drying, and any necessary repair of the dozens of chutes used by our Flight Operations pilots. The chutes were unpacked, opened, laid out on a long table, checked and raised by a hand-hoist up into a tall tower to make sure there were no tangles or holes, then dried with an upward fan.
Since Keesler was right on the Caribbean, the high, salty humidity could cause mold and decomposition. Then they were lowered and carefully repacked following a detailed USAF parachute rigging manual. It was a two-airman job to make sure things were done right. Then before they were returned to the parachute packs, they were re-inspected by an experienced supervisory sergeant-rigger.
At Keesler we had a small three-airman parachute shop on the night shift which did most of the inspections and occasionally surplused the over-age chutes. The night shift did not pack the chutes but left the rigging and packing for the more experienced day shift.
Things seemed to be in order, so I set the question aside.
A couple of days later I got a call from another squadron commander from the training side of the base, reporting much the same thing as the first, adding a detail that the chutes had the distinctive USAF logo on them.
So I asked Maintenance Superintendent Chief Master Sergeant Ralph Johns about it. Johns, always quick to jump on potential problems, immediately said that we should go to the salvage warehouse and have a look around.
Which we did. Everything looked ok. Several chutes were on factory style metal shelving in their gray packs.
Johns pulled one down and opened it up. It looked ok. But when Johns hefted the chute in its pack, he noted that it seemed a little light. So he opened the chute. Lo and behold it was mostly old bedsheets disguised as a parachute by an outer wrapping of parachute material.
Hmmm.
We checked the records and saw that all of the salvaged chutes had been brought to the salvage facility by a Sergeant Daniel Robinson, the Staff Sergeant in charge of the parachute shop’s night shift.
Sergeant Robinson was a sharp, young black kid. He and two other airmen comprised the night shift.
The next afternoon we brought Sergeant Robinson into my office for questioning before his shift began. We told him what we were investigating and read him his rights under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, basically a version of the Miranda warning.
We quickly discovered why Sergeant Robinson was on the night shift. It took a very long time for First Sergeant Johnson and I to conduct the interview because Sergeant Robinson had a serious stutter. That’s why he was on the night shift where conversations were minimal. It was almost painful to pry answers out of him as he haltingly tried to reply but seemed barely able to complete a sentence. Making the time problem worse was that, because this was a formal, potentially disciplinary interview, we weren’t allowed to finish his sentences for him even when we knew what he was trying to say or if they were simple yes or no questions.
Sergeant Robinson had a clean record, everyone in his shop thought he was good at his job. He was friendly and cooperative. He was also a decent musician who played jazz organ and accompanied himself singing blues and pop tunes off-base on off-hours. In fact, I had heard him perform at the base NCO club a couple times when I had gone over there for periodic Officer of the Day inspections. When he sang, he didn’t stutter.
Robinson at first denied any knowledge of the situation. But, confronted with our “evidence” — his signature on the salvaged parachute records and the chute that Johns had opened up — he eventually admitted that he had been earning a little side money by selling chutes to local sport jumpers. He pointed out that the chutes were being salvaged anyway, so what was the big deal?
Robinson also made several veiled accusations of racism, claiming that he should have been promoted to Tech Sergeant a couple of years earlier, but that a black squadron commander at Subic Bay in the Philippines where he had been previously stationed was harder on black airmen than he was on white airmen and that he had been denied promotion because of it.
Robinson also claimed that he knew of other airmen who were using base facilities and supplies for side jobs, so he didn’t think anybody would mind. But he refused to name any. He insisted that no harm was done. No one was endangered by the chutes he sold which he said he personally checked out before selling them. He pointed out that the scam began when he realized he could cut up one surplus parachute and use that material to wrap the bedsheets he took from the barracks laundry room so that they looked like parachutes to the casual observer.
I asked him how many parachutes he thought he sold this way. Robinson said he thought maybe four or five.
We didn’t argue with him, it was taking too long anyway.
I excused him and talked the situation over with First Sergeant Johnson. We agreed that Robinson had a good record, he had confessed, and we needed him to stay in his night shift position at the parachute shop. But he had violated several regs and some kind of discipline called for.
So we calculated that he had probably made over $1,000 on his little scam and offered him the equivalent of a plea deal involving a $1200 fine and a suspended bust of one rank to buck sergeant. Basically, if he paid the fine over the next six months and had no other problems in that time, we’d leave him at the rank of staff sergeant and clear his record.
Robinson agreed, and he did. Six months later we removed the disciplinary action from his personnel file.
We also required the base salvage yard staff to open and inspect all future parachutes brought in for salvage.
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