Tattoo removal, 1950s style

"Mike at Night" wrote about his experience getting a tattoo in Las Vegas -- an act that brought to mind my old friend Boyington.

For some reason I have never considered tattoos, body piercing, lead rings in the nose or other places, the scruffy unshaved look or men with long, greasy hair to be "cool."

Now if a person wants to get all that done to the body that God gave them, fine, I can look past all the camouflage to find and accept the good person inside.

My problem is that not only does one experience pain to get the tattoo; the blessed thing is permanent or at the very least even more painful to get removed. I can stand anything but pain!

I attended McCook High at a time when we had a dress code and a principal, Gordon Bliss, who enforced that unwritten code.

He thought that all boys that needed to should shave regularly and have a decent haircut. Maybe it was his Marine past, having served in World War II, that instilled those standards.

I think we were all the better for him enforcing his brand of discipline on us. And no boy that I knew even dared to consider a tattoo. It was also completely unthinkable for a girl of that era to have a tattoo when having pierced ears branded her as racy.

Six weeks after high school graduation, I found myself enjoying the rigors of summer training at the brand new Air Force Academy and there learning an even stricter brand of discipline.

I also found myself getting to know Gregory Boyington Jr. a star among a whole host of other characters. We became a tightly-knit group with bonds reaching down even unto today.

Boyington was a son of the legendary "Pappy Boyington" of Flying Tiger and World War II Marine fighter pilot fame. To know his dad, read "Baa Baa Black Sheep," his autobiography, or watch a current program on the Military Channel about his life and fighter squadron.

The Greg that I knew was a husky red-headed Irishman who earned his appointment to the Air Force Academy simply by being the son of a Medal of Honor winner.

Isn't this a great country to look after her heroes in such a way? I called him Greg but he also answered to "Pappy" or most normally "Cadet Boyington."

Like his father, he also had trouble with military discipline, but that is a story for another day. I knew him best as my wrestling partner in a sport that I dropped after my freshman year.

When Boyington showed up at the Academy, he already had gone through Marine Corps basic training.

Emblazoned on his upper right arm, in living technicolor, he sported a tattoo of the Marine Corps Emblem.

The tattoo seemed to attract lots of unwelcome attention so Boyington figured that being as how he was now in the U.S. Air Force it had to go.

He trundled over to the Cadet Dispensary, presided over by a Lt. Col. McElvain, MD, USAF, incidentally one of the very few Air Force Surgeons on active flying status as a pilot.

Gruff and bold, we cadets grew to love Dr. McElvain because he was on "our side." He had a deft propensity to sort out the sick, lame or lazy among us, treated what needed to be treated and assigned us back to duty.

If he judged a Cadet to be a malingerer the treatment was painful. Those unfortunate few who earned his wrath quickly discovered that duty was far less painful than the cure.

Well Dr. McElvain saw Boyington coming and diagnosed: "Yes, sure I can remove your offensive tattoo!" On the appointed day Boyington gets laid out out on the table, anesthetic is administered and Dr. Mac carefully removes the top couple layers of epidermis with his scalpel. Then he dunks the four inch by four inch chunk of fresh rawhide into a quart jar of formaldehyde and proudly displays it high on a shelf in the waiting room.

Boyington thought the process a little painful but well worth the cost.

To tell the truth I think he was proud to see his famous leather patch on display. Whatever happened to that wonderful specimen of a bad mistake?

Boyington led an interesting life at the Academy, a five-year man, he finally graduated a year after the class he started with. He then went to pilot training and eventually to Roswell New Mexico as a B-47 copilot, where I suspect he was rather a round peg in a square hole.

I ran into him once in Okinawa when he was returning from R&R in the middle of a tour flying F-4's in Vietnam.

Following that tour, he went to the Pentagon assigned to "Officer Assignments" where he eventually got in trouble for cutting favors for his fighter pilot buddies.

The last I knew, he assigned himself to be liaison officer for the California Civil Air Patrol.

Residing in the San Francisco area it definitely had to be a hardship assignment. I note that from my latest class roster that he retired in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and still lives in Oakland where he is in "Real Estate Property Management."

Knowing Boyington, that probably means that he looks after some high rolling fancy apartment complex and lives there for free. See where a tattoo can send one on life's journey! Tattoo or not I still love the guy!

That's the way I see it.