During their three months on the road, Clive and Felix had paid scant attention to the news and were surprised to learn the “police action” in Korea had escalated into a full-blown war.

The boys registered for the fall semester at Pasadena Junior College, but when the government ratcheted up the draft, they decided it might be wise to enlist. Clive, who had always wanted to drive a tank, was ready to join the army. Felix convinced him they should consider a branch of the service offering more options than a perilous ride into combat in a steel coffin. On October 10, 1950, Clive and Felix, accompanied by several friends, drove to Los Angeles and were sworn into the United States Air Force.

A few days later, the recruits departed from Union Station in Los Angeles headed for basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. A sergeant, undoubtedly swayed by the fact Clive towered over his fellow recruits, announced he would be in charge during the trip to Texas.

When the train stopped in Alhambra, family and friends were waiting on the platform to see the boys off. One of Clive’s friends slipped him a large bottle of cheap bourbon, and when the train was once again underway, Clive and Felix headed for the club car. The bottle was passed around; somebody produced a banjo, and the congregation was soon singing “Good Night Irene” at the top of their lungs. One thing led to another, and several car windows were broken. Word of the fracas was wired ahead, and a squad of MPs climbed aboard at El Paso. Clive, relieved of his short-lived command, recalls the remainder of the trip was, “extremely subdued.”

At Lackland, marching and drills took up most of the recruit’s day. Clive and Felix were assigned to the same seventy-man squadron. Their commander, a corporal named Franklin, constantly reminded the squad that basic training culminated with an inter-company marching contest he expected them to win. When the squad realized how obsessed Frankin was with winning, they went out of their way to screw up. One man, on Clive’s signal, would suddenly break ranks and march off at a ninety-degree angle, or the first two ranks would take longer steps, and an awkward gap would appear between the lines. Felix often played the part of the spastic marcher. “Clive figured out all kinds of goofy maneuvers,” he says. “We drove Franklin nuts.”

Unknown to Corporal Franklin, the squad was planning a coup d’état. During their hour of free time before evening chow, the men would sneak off and practice marching by themselves. When the day of the big contest arrived, the squad marched to victory. Clive laughs, “Franklin couldn’t believe it. We didn’t know if he was going to burst with pride or go into cardiac arrest.”

A few weeks into basic, the recruits were required to fill out a form listing three choices for technical training and report for career counseling. Clive’s first choice was aerial photography. The sergeant interviewing him informed him aerial photography was not a realistic option. His second choice, Clive explained, would be military intelligence since it involved spies. Military intelligence, the sergeant advised him, was even less of an option.

Realizing his training might have more to do with the air force’s needs than his preferences, Clive asked about opportunities in the motor pool. Leaning back in his chair and clasping his hands behind his head, the sergeant drawled in a fatherly tone, “No way. A sharp guy like you doesn’t want to work in a greasy motor pool. All you end up doing is changing spark plugs. You want A&E - Aircraft and Engine.”

A&E school (now called Aircraft and Powerplant), consists of sixteen specialized branches of intensive instruction including hydraulics, electronics, engine theory, propellers, airframe fabrication, and fuel systems.

“That sergeant was good,” Clive says. “I bought his line and walked out of the office convinced that working on aircraft engines was far more glamorous than the motor pool. Instead of changing six spark plugs on a Dodge truck, I ended up changing fifty-six spark plugs on a Pratt & Whitney airplane engine. Real glamorous!”

After completing basic training, Clive received orders to report to the Department of Aircraft Maintenance Training at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas. Felix Dupuy remembers the day they parted company. “Clive left Lackland at the end of November. We said goodbye, shook hands and he walked out the door. Just like that. We had known each other since we were kids and didn’t know if we would ever see each other again.”

Felix never received his orders. After sitting in the barracks for two weeks, he suggested if the air force had no need for his services, he would like to go home. After reviewing his test results, the air force sent Dupuy to electronics school in New Mexico where he studied the workings of the atomic bomb. After two years at a SAC base in Maine, Dupuy returned to California, graduated from UCLA with a business degree and eventually took over his father’s tire business.

Clive reported to Sheppard Air Force Base in November. He was not impressed with the Texas Panhandle. “Wichita Falls was the absolute pits,” he says. “When I attempted to find the falls, I discovered they had been destroyed by a flood in 1886. If you were looking for some real excitement, there was Archer City, the dismal little burg where they shot The Last Picture Show.”

A&E school lasted six months. Clive graduated in the upper 10 percent of his class, and he was ordered to report to advanced engine school at Chanute Field, near Rantoul, Illinois. Since the train was scheduled to depart on Memorial Day weekend, Clive and another airman, Bill Flaherty, decided it would be foolish to pass up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attend the 1951 Indianapolis 500. When the train stopped in Indianapolis’s Union Station, they got off and hitched a ride to the track. After watching Lee Wallard take the checkered flag in his blue and gold Belanger Motors Special, they hurried back to the depot. “When we finally arrived at Chanute,” Clive says. “Bill and I gave them a lame story about getting off the train to call our parents and being left behind.”

At Chanute, Clive worked on the Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major, a powerful beast nicknamed the “corncob” due to its intertwined arrangement of four staggered rows of twenty-eight cylinders.

He graduated from advanced engine school in August 1951. After a tedious train ride, he arrived in San Antonio and found his way to Kelly Air Force Base.

Clive describes his three months at Kelly as, O.J.T. - on the job training. Working with experienced mechanics, he learned the ins and outs of the C-97.

In October 1951, Corporal Clive Cussler was ordered to an ATS Squadron at Hickam Air Force Base in Oahu, Hawaii. When he read ATS, Clive was thrilled, believing he had been assigned to an attack squadron. His joy was short-lived - ATS is Air Transport Squadron.