In the Air Force

Perks

2007-09-24T14:15:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I got my first free stuff for being in the military. It was only a free drink which I and the two guys I hang out with each got, but still, free. I began to think that being out on the town in uniform gives you hot girl status. Everyone gives you free stuff, checks you out and wants to talk to you. It's pretty awesome.

PCS

2007-09-21T14:56:00.000-07:00

My first permanent duty station will be Langley AFB in Virginia to join the 30th Intel Squadron. I will leave Goodfellow on March 13.

Tech School: The Beginning

2007-09-20T09:44:00.001-07:00

After 6.5 weeks of BMT, I finally got out. It was pretty cool when I got base liberty on Wednesday: I went to the bowling alley across from the squadron to call my best friend, Mark, and I see a silver Jeep Grand Cherokee with Kansas tags pull into the parking lot. I vaguely saw the driver and thought, "That can't be." I was amazed when I saw a notable chief master sergeant step out of the car. It was my grandpa. As he passed me, not even paying attention to who was at the phones, I greeted him. He looked as suprised as me that we were seeing each other. But, since I was not allowed to visit family members before Thursday, instead of eating dinner with my grandpa, I discussed my BMT experience with a retired Chief. That is probably my favorite memory of BMT.
On Monday after graduation I got up early and got on the bus headed to Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo, TX. I was all excited to finally get out of Lackland and put the nightmare behind me. On the way there I was pleasantly suprised when we got to eat at IHOP, but it was not like before, FTL. To be finished...

Chow Runner

2007-09-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

Besides the first night, the other thing in basic to which I can devote a fair amount of time and hilarity is my main job: chow runner. There was a table in the chow hall where all the MTIs sat and ate or engaged in witty banter. It had been nicknamed the snake pit. It was the last place in that chow hall any trainee ever wanted to be. After I was told this I made it my goal to avoid it. I then was told that, as chow runner, I got to go straight to the center of the snake pit not once, but twice per meal. It was my duty and privilege to report the flight to whomever was in charge of the board that day. Chow runner turned out to be the BMT equivalent of cannon fodder. I was there purely for the MTIs' enjoyment. They criticized me if I talked too fast, too slow, marched at an undesirable tempo, stood too close, stood too far, my belt was off by a few centimeters, it was not shiny enough, my boots sucked, I sucked, my parents sucked, my girlfriend sucked (regardless of the fact that I did not have one), I said things incorrectly, and many things which were legitimately wrong with me, but I could have gotten away with under other circumstances.

The first time I wet in, I was proudly in my Carson Palmer jersey, with bleach blonde hair and glasses. That day I earned the nicknames Carson, Vanilla Ice, Napoleon Dynamite, and Napoleon Ice. They yelled the entire time I gave my reports for the first few days. It was miserable. I wished I had given my recruiter the finger while I still could've. Alas it was my job and I had to do it wether I liked it or not. My flight mates did get a kick out of the fact that whenever I yelled, "Proceeding, Sir" in response to the call of "Chow runner go" it was in my normal high voice, and sometimes they would get lucky and my voice would crack. The most commonly heard phrase in the dorm at night most nights was "chow runner go" followed by a falsetto "proceeding, sir."

The most memorable time I ever did chow runner was when I was just starting fifth week and the first week flight had just left the chow hall. I went in and stood at the control board and a portly, Hawaiian, female MTI was just about to tell me to report when four of the first weekers passed behind me. She yelled, "Stop, assholes." They looked quizzingly at her to which she responded, " Yea you assholes." They turned toward her and she asked one of them, "Is your asshole thirsty?" They looked back puzzled. She reiterated, "Is your asshole thirsty?" She was putting quite the obvious emphasis on the word ass. "Does your ass need a drink, you asshole?" She prompted a third time. It continued on like this for another minute with her saying ass more times than Sergeant Weimer said damn; I was impressed. She finally explained to him that his canteen was upside down, causing the mouth to point to his butt. She continued to rail him. It was absolutely hilarious to hear this MTI say ass over and over and over. I had to stand at attention the entire time. Finally, I barely broke a smirk and another TI, who I did not know was there, came to ask me what I found so funny. She sent me out, and my TI got angry and made me report to my dorm chief every half hour that night, 8 times.

The Beginning...

2007-09-12T18:28:00.000-07:00

So... everyone seems much more interested in my life as of late. It's almost like something big has happened or something. It's like I moved away, got a new job, changed some of my habits, started acting different, and became a yodeler all at the same time. While the last one is not true, you can't expect me to do everything; I am not a Chief yet. I have decided that to keep you all informed and so no one feels too out of the loop, I will blog about it. I will start at the very beginning... a very good place to start.

BASIC MILITARY TRAINING

First Night

As soon we got off the bus at Lackland AFB, they started yelling at us of course. Telling us we were not moving fast enough, asking us why we were so ugly, telling us how dumb we were and so on. We formed up females to the left, males to the right. We stood looking straight forward not daring to look around for fear that they might pop up and start criticizing our mother's choice in men or some other sort of outrageous but insanely scary insult. As we were standing there, out came a Technical Sergeant. We were scared that he was going to yell at us, and rightfully so. He said, "Here's a question your recruiter didn't tell you about, who here played a musical instrument in high school?" We all stood there half scared. We had been told not to volunteer for anything, and this was no exception. One person raised their hand, then another, then another and eventually, we all seemed to get scared that he could read our minds and knew our thoughts and would punish us if we did not answer truthfully. Acting on this feeling, I raised my hand. He told us all to move over to the side and line it up. So we did, though nowhere near fast enough, neat enough or smart enough for his liking. We watched as the others all got corralled inside and stood out there thinking, "why the **** would I have volunteered for this ****?" We got to go in eventually, but not before another busload of unsuspecting victims faced the same question, and we listened as they too went through the mental process of deciding whether or not to sacrifice their lives for their anonymity. And of course, just like those of us standing against the wall, there were some people dumb enough to volunteer.

While inside we got to sit down, but not sleep, absolutely no sleeping. Most of us had been up since 3:00 in the morning and it was now past midnight, but there was absolutely no sleeping. Talking was another thing we were not allowed to do, but we were all to scared to do that in general, so there was no problem. There would be MTIs that would come roaming in and out of the hallway they had stuck the band people in who would yell at us and get in our faces just for fun it seemed sometimes. Finally, at 4 am, or salvation came in the form of Staff Sergeant Weimer. He corralled us onto a bus and we went to our new "home" the 323rd Training Squadron. We were told to line up in four columns, again being told we were too slow, ugly and dumb. This entire time I was thinking to myself "This guy says damn more than i believe the english language permits." I started worrying that I was going to have to deal with this guy for the next 6.5 weeks and I was already tired of that word. We ran upstairs and ran into the first bay (sleeping area with 30 beds) and all ran to wall lockers, when they ran out in A bay, we ran into B bay and the first wall locker I see is locker #42, I immediately claim it as my own, hoping to gather some luck from it's glorious digits. When we all get to our wall lockers and were standing there sniffing the steel he yelled at us to get out our shaving and showering equipment and "shave our nasty faces and wash our damn nasty bodies." He gave us 5 minutes for 49 guys to shower shave and use the latrine. We did not do it in time, so we got to run in and out of the latrine a few times for good measure. We then gathered in the day room and he made fun of us and because of my bleach blonde hair, gave me the job of "chow runner" and chuckled as he said it. We then went back to our beds, he told us we had 6 seconds to remove our dust covers from our beds so we could sleep in them, and there was no way this could be done, so of course, we did it five times. We finally got to bed at 430-500. I really had to pee that night, but there were rules about the latrine door which I did not remember, so I chose to hold it all night, and it felt good to pee in the morning. And that was my first night at Basic Military Training.

Soon, I will describe the joys of being chow runner and other BMT experiences.