From out of the dim dark past…
The Brass Nut!!!
This was the patrol squadron’s highly illegal bar in the BOQ in Iceland. MWR hated it, tried for years to get it closed down, yada, yada…
But it stayed open!
It was simply a barracks room that had been ‘remodeled’ over the years. The blue things hanging from the ceiling were our nametags off our flight suits. The nice thing was it was CHEEP!!!
If I remember correctly, beer was a quarter and a shot was fifty cents, and you could run a tab! The booze and most of the beer was top shelf stuff (there ARE advantages to having long range airplanes, just sayin). And a ‘lot’ of trading got done with folks from other locations…
The ops/ready crew had the ‘duty’ as the bartenders in the evening, and were responsible for the cleaning of the bar, keeping it stocked, and keeping the folks out of trouble, more or less… Which usually meant keeping the 57th FIS pilots/RIOs out of the bar… sigh…
The nice thing was nobody was driving anywhere, as the bar was in the barracks, so you could haul the ‘drinkers’ directly to their rooms and dump them in with no problems (unless you got a heavy one).
Hard to believe that was over 40 years ago!
“Hard to believe that was over 40 years ago!”
I find myself saying this about a LOT of stuff in the 80’s. Nice bar, nice concept. Thankfully nobody got a stick up their arse so much about this that they forced it to shut down. (Another plus of the 80’s, people tended to roll their eyes and look the other way about a lot of fun stuff, thankfully.)
Such a contrast with today.
” He who enters covered here will buy the bar a round of cheer! ” ,the sign clearly stated, anyone remember that ? Don’t know if that was just a Navy thing . My buddy argued strenuously that his visor (we had been playing golf) was not a “cover” , but lost the argument , “leave now or pay up” , he also lost about 40.00 bucks buying the bar a round . Civie hats were included in the rule .
At least at the casual bar when I was in AF Undergraduate Pilot Training, we had the same rule. We also played “Deceased Insect” (to utter the actual name requires extreme actions which might break me now).
40 years. I did two tours as a F-4 crew chief in the 57th in the early 80’s. Good times. And there were several barracks bars; as well as the Rock.
Tomoldguy
Hey Old NFO,
Of course MWR wanted to shut it down, they wern’t getting their beak wet. Remember the “Khaki Mafia” of the Vietnam War fame? They didn’t roll up everyone involved, there were holdouts here and there. THat was a cool place from the pics though.
40+ years ago I used to fly in and out of Keflavik several times a year. Always marveled at how friendly the locals were both native and U.S.personnel, now I know why 😉
You also have to know that law in Iceland limited sale of beer to alcohol content 2% or less, hence the local practice of dropping a shot of vodka into each beer. Good times indeed.
The enlisted AWACS barracks there had the Kennel Club. I had many wonderful TDYs there with the appreciative navy women. Dunno why they liked the USAF crewdogs, but it was a target-rich environment, at least for me.
Was there in 1978 and lots of great memories. We had a night where some of the crews put together skits. I never laughed harder in my life. We had a few of Keflavik locals that would come by for the cheap drinks. They would drink themselves stupid and we’d have to carry them out and find transport to town. I’ve got a great photo from ’78 but don’t know how to post it.
I was a crew chief, there in ’72-’73. I was in the f-102, Russian Bear, interceptor squadron (can’t remember name or number). We went to the Navy barracks, they were running P-3 Orions to all the good places in Europe. They would bring back hash, no customs and no dogs. Maybe that’s why I can’t remember.
That was a good tour.
It was the 57 FIS, I was there 73-74. Do you remember the”informal “ bar we had in the day room on the second floor?(I assume we were in the same barracks) I was a welder and worked out of the navy airframe shop. When I got there we were transitioning from the 102 to the F4.
We had beer when we were in the field. Otherwise, a large part of the company would be in the nearest German town. Someone needed to be in charge and would ‘reluctantly’ volunteer.
Ag- Sigh…don’t remind me…
Boats- Oh hell yes! 🙂
Tom- That there were! I know the Chiefs and E-6s had their own bars too.
Bob- Yes, and the Cubi ‘O’ club!
Terra- Yep, I’d forgotten that. They liked to come ‘visit’ the bar for beer…
Mark- Green…nuff said 🙂
Lash- Lots of folks visited Kef over the years!
Tree- 57th FIS, I know nothing…LOL
WSF- I can imagine!
Throwing out a story here, don’t know if its from Iceland or not…
Working many years ago in JAX, there was co-worker who was with VP63 and he related a story… as I recall, it centered around a change-of-command ‘celebration’; an aircrew got the idea to ‘roll’ the event by loading toilet paper into the sonobouy tubes and the idea was to fly over the event and eject the ‘streamers’. Unfortunately, upon release the TP rolls didn’t ‘stream’ but simply fell and bounced all over everything, including going through some CO/XO level housing windows..
Ever hear that one?
1964, Carswell AFB, Fort Worth, Texas: I remember aircrews (I was in Mx) bringing back Coors from where they had landed for whatever reason farther west, as the distribution system had not reached Texas yet. (Longneck Lone Star was de rigueur outside the gate.) Funny how these days we assume nationwide availability of almost everything. Hell, I get boudin and crawfish pies from Opelousas, Louisiana and I’m in Central Florida.
Crew Chief at Bitburg AB, GE, 36 Equipment Maintenance Squadron, mid 1980’s. We had a bar on the bottom floor of the dorm, on the end opposite the Squadron Commander’s offices. Served only Bitburger Pils, but you could sweet-talk the bartenders into finding a bottle or two of the local sweet white wines on occasion.
We were right across the road from the Enlisted Club. When the Club closed, those in-the-know came to the dorm to continue partying.
JD- That wouldn’t surprise me, not at all… sigh
Bob- Oh yeah, Coors stories… I watched a tractor trailer pull up to a Coastie C-130 at Moffett in 73 with four PALLETS of Coors, loaded in the back of the bird, and off to NAS Barbers Point it went. The Coastie club at Barbers was ‘notorious’ for serving Coors…LOL
WN- LOL, of course, what better way to do it! That close to the CO’s office, MWR had to assume it has ‘his’ approval!