Patrick D. McCaslin Interview, 25 February 2001
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| PM: | That's the only crew I was ever on. I mean if it was S-01—I'm not sure the number was S-01—you said that. I'm not sure what my crew number was, I don't remember. | |
| INT: | Well it had to be either 1 or 2, because in Standards and Evaluations— | |
| PM: | Yeah. | |
| INT: | And Jack Partin was S-03, so it had to be either 1 or 2, and I've never heard anybody say it was 2. Everybody says it's 1. | |
| PM: | Okay, whatever. I remember the names of most of the crewmembers, but I don't remember the designation. But that's the only crew I was in, in StanEval. | |
| INT: | So, with StanEval you just had additional duties, is that correct? | |
| PM: | We did less of the day to day training missions that—we did some of those, but most of our time was spent either training and mostly evaluating people. There were squadron instructors who were not in StanEval who did instructing—got people ready for evaluations, and it was StanEval's job to evaluate those people when they were proposed, but we did some instructing also. We'd go along on missions as instructors, so that was pretty much the order. Evaluation, instruction, and then we did our own training missions too. | |
| INT: | How did the positions within your crew work? I mean who was sort of like top and who was bottom in that? | |
| PM: | Oh, the Aircraft Commander was top. But beyond that, there was no real hierarchy as far as—I guess you'd say the Aircraft Commander was in charge regardless of his rank, and then because, what the heck, he's the guy in charge of the airplane. And beyond that, everybody was pretty much well, with the exception of the gunner who was enlisted. Well even that was true. It pretty much fell on rank order. If a Lieutenant Colonel was a radar navigator, then, you know, you gave him the courtesy he earned as a Lieutenant Colonel, if you were subordinate to him. If you were a Captain, you treated him like a Colonel. | |
| INT: | Okay. So it was pretty democratic amongst the crew? | |
| PM: | Yeah. Outside of the military, you know when you have other folks around and it's a formal occasion, or there's an inspection going on or a wing commander's around, it's Colonel this and Captain that, but when |
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