My 21st Birthday

Ok it's story time. I don't believe I ever posted what all went down on this great great day...well days.

I believe my 21st birthday was on a Wednesday or Thursday. Well I was temporary deployment to the beach. Yeah hard life, I know. There's an old navy base ( I think) that is just used for R&R now. There are some mobile homes and houses there you can stay at and it is right next to the beach.

Well I was there all week. Doing HVAC repairs. So the night before I turn 21 I start off drinking Budweiser and later that night some PBR. I still can't drink that PBR shit. yuck.

Well the rest of the time there nothing major happens. Ha! well yeah. There was this good looking life guard there. I was driving a golf cart to get some supplies or something. Well I stopped the golf cart and got out. Well I stopped on a lil slop of a hill and guess what happened. No I didn't run over the good looking life guard, but the cart did roll down the hill some :P That is just how smooth I am

Ha!

Well we come back that Friday afternoon. There is a Squadron picnic going on. There is also a keg of beer. Needless to say I have about 3 beers there. Our shop is one of the last to leave, I guess we were just a bunch of drunks. After that I went with one of the Sgt. back to his house, well first we stopped off at the samich join on base. Easy to do seeing as he lived on base too.

I had another beer as I ate my samich then took a nap while we waited for the other guys to show up. After that we ended up going to the local dirt track race. Oh that was fun! And it was a B.Y.O.B. event. I think I had six more beers there. Then we went to the bar. oh the bar. It was a little red neck bar. I walked in and got carded, the old lady of a bartender said that I just had a birthday and that the next one was one me. From that point on I never had an empty beer.

Even the DD's sides were hurting from laughing so much. I don't even know how much I had to drink. I just know it was A LOT. I even threw up some. Not much and I wasn't feeling sick before or after. It just kinda happened. Oh man that was some good times. Too bad I don't have any pictures of that.

Well anyways we closed that bar down and some how I walked to the car under my own power.

After driving back to base, all of 3 blocks. We got stopped at the main gate and asked to get out. Well I kind of just roll out. It's a random drug test with the first 30 or so people having to get tested. It would seem that we are the first 5 or so people though the gate from when they started.

You would that that it would be easy for someone who had as much to drink as I did, but nooooo. Somehow I end up making a big ol' fuss there. I even talked to a major about why they couldn't just take my blood. We got there about 2:15 and with all the bullshiting and almost passing out and drinking water that I was doing. I didn't end up leaving until 4:45am. Not to bad for a drunk :)

One shot....One kill

My dad was in the Air Force ROTC. He wanted to be a kc-135 refueler pilot. Well turns out he has asthma so it was going to be a desk job or get out. He got out. I was thinking about the Air Force for years and years it seems like. I went there a part of my life where I wanted to be a f-16 pilot. I remember thinking that I had the right body size for that. Kind of makes me wonder what my life would be like now if I would have really tried at all for that.

Then I went through some time where I thought I would be cool to be a sniper. Hell, I still do think it would be cool. To be able to take someone out half a mile away. wow. How different this blog would be if I went down that path.

For awhile I wanted to be an officer, then I didn't want to go through that much college.

So yeah. I was thinking about the military a LOT. And look how it all turned out. Even when I was getting out of the Air Force I was talking and checking out if I would be able to go into the Army as a Combat Engineer (21B).

Some of your duties as a Combat Engineer may include:

• Constructing trails, roads and field fortifications such as shelters, bunkers and gun emplacements
• Assembling floating or prefabricated bridges
• Operating various light or heavy engineer vehicles
• Placing and detonating explosives
• Loading, unloading and moving supplies and equipment using planes, helicopters, trucks and amphibious vehicles
• Operating or serving as a crewmember on a combat engineer vehicle, armored vehicle launch bridge or an armored combat earthmover
• Preparing and installing firing systems for demolition and explosives
• Locating mines by visual means or by using a mine detector

Well that didn't work as planned. Kinda glad that one didn't work out. It is kinda scary going from military to....not military any more.

So today is Veterans Day. I don't feel much like a vet. I don't think I did anything worth while. Sure I get VA health care, VA loan, and even a flag over my coffin when that day comes. Though, I just don't feel it.

When I was a kid

I wanted to be a:

• Fire fighter
• F-16 pilot (I can still remember the poster on my wall)
• astronaut
• Train engineer
• Civil engineer
• Bulldozer driver
• Air Force Officer
• Retire from the Air Force
• Air Force ROTC at the college here in town

My dad. He was in the Air Force ROTC at this college. He was working on becoming a pilot. He wanted to fly KC-135 refulers. My brother got to fly in one.

I can't help but wounder what could have been. What could have happened differently so that I did become a pilot? I bet it has got to feel so good the first time you get to go up in the air.

This isn't to say that I'm not happy with where I've been, what I've seen, what I've done. But like anyone else, there are things that I wish would have gone a little differently. 30 more work days until I start a new life path.

I missed my two year anniversary got getting das boot. My oh my how times have changed in such a short time.

Pictures or it doesn't count!

Ok so I was going through some old paper work I have had in a box for a long ass time. Well just about 2 years I would guess. I found some pictures. Some pictures that my mom sent to me when I first got to my base.

This picture was taken in Gulfport, Mississippi. In the summer of 2002. I can't remember what part of the Tech school I was in, but that is where I was at. It is also one of the few pictures that I have of me in uniform.

I just wanted to share this with y'all.

Suicidal thoughts

No, I don't have any of those. But, I'd be a liar if I said I never did. I think most people get to that point sometime in their life. Where they think how much easier it would be if they just ended it now. To make all their pain go away. To have the choice of how to do it. Will your friends remember you? Parents?

Ok , so this is getting a little dark.

I do have a point, kinda, with all this. It is almost a part 2 of My Story.

So while I was going around and around with my 1st Sergeant. There was this other lady, about a week behind me in the whole getting out of the military deal. We've talked in the hall way. She also stayed in the same dorms as my self. She was an odd little cookie, not sure what she did though that got her to that point. Anyways.

A few weeks after I got out of the military, maybe it was months. I called a buddy of mine at the shop I used to work in. Well, we talk about what has been going on. Where I'm working at now. Things like that. Well I come to find out that she drove her car off a bridge or something. What ever it was, I guess she couldn't take it anymore. Thought she had no place to go. Who knows. She ended it all.

I on the other hand. Think I am a much stronger person for going through what I did. If that didn't bring me down, well ok it did. What I'm getting at, I'm still here. And one way or another I am going to make something of my self. Military or not.

My Story.

Story Time.

This story is going to skip a lot of the well...story. I'm going right to the end. This story took place over 12 months, you got the last week or so. Oh yeah, this all took place while I was in the Military.


The date: Feb / Mar 2005

I don't really know how to put all of this out here on this screen. It is a story about my character.
I can still remember the 3 worst days in my life. They were bad ones. two were planned one wasn't.

Starting this start with out the background is hard. I want people to be able to understand, but I don't think it's going to come across that well.

It is Super Bowl Sunday 2005. That is the first day back on base for about 4 months. I remember not being able to find my ID card, so we had to stop and get me a pass. I did find it later on when I got to my dorm room and emptied out my bags o' junk. It did feel good to be back, even if it wasn't my room. By this time my truck ('03 green S-10) was back here in Cali.

Anyways, later on that day I went down to the e-club to watch the game at the lil super bowl party they had going on. I had some beer. Called some friends, told them why I seemed to have fallen off the face of this planet. That was fun.

They didn't have me go back to work with my shop. To this day I still don't understand the reason for that. But, whatever. I liked what they had me doing better. I had time to eat breakfast, walk to work in the rain (I didn't mind at all), and drive around in one of those 4 x 6 Gator thingys. Now that was fun. Driving across the grass, in the mud, and just messing around during the day.

So it comes down to one person. One person with my career in his hands. That person would be the 4th Fighter Wing commander Col. Mike Holmes. Yes, a wing commander. The highest ranking person on base. In charge of almost 100 F-15s. Me. And everything else on base. He was the person that my job, dream (funny how people have used that word to me in the past few days.), plan, life, and just everything I wanted (or so I thought) to be.

That's a lot of power that one person has over me. But that is why he makes the big bucks and I don't.

I do have a right to send a package up telling him why I think I should stay in. Well fuck, this is MY life. I don't want some package to tell everything I want. I want to be there, I want to tell him face to face, I have no right to that. That's right folks, this is lil or E-nothing me wanting to go up face to face with the O-7 (I think) Wing Commander. How's that for a tall order.

First I talked to my 1st sergeant (that link will tell you about what a 1st Sergeant is). Who told me I should ask the defence people. I called, the paralegal chica said it can't be done. That it was in the Air Force instruction (AFI). Well humm...It can't be done, eh. So I called the 1st Sergeant back. I told him that I want to do it.

Heck, the defence people just give advice, that's the way I seen it. So, I took it and did my own thing with it. I filed it away in a filing cabinet. Light that filing cabinet on fire. Then I pushed it off a huge fucking cliff! That was all she wrote.

Now keep in mind he could easily just say "yeah you know what....nu uh" to me. As I got nothing giving me the right to a face to face meeting.

Funny thing is. My 1st Sergeant who was in for 22 years or so has never seen anyone ask, let alone do, anything like I am asking. And I'm doing it with such passion, such desire. That if anyone was going to beat the odds, it was going to fucking be me!

Well I don't just get to go up to the base commander and say "yo..what's up hommie..." First step it to talk to the Command chief Master Sergeant (more info here). That is the highest ranking enlisted person on base. You could call him the Commanders right hand man type of deal.

So I got the date and time to talk to he Chief. Holy cow, talk about freaking out. I'm about to do something that just about no body does. Walking back and forth. Making sure my uniform was just perfect, no strings hanging or anything. I even got an index card of the things I want to make sure I say. I remember waiting int he hall way out side of his office. Waiting to be called in. Just breathing. Not knowing what was going to come out of it. Not knowing what he was going to say. So many unknowns.

(damn I'm getting tried of typing this book now...)

So that meeting goes well. I say my story, then he replies with what he things. I can't really remember what all he, or I, said. But it did end good, or so I thought. He said something if having only a little hope could be a bad thing. There was a 99.9% chance of this thing going as planned no matter what I say or do. So I was reaching for anything and everything.

So yeah, I was having to sell my self. Sell who I was and who I wasn't. show to them that I was more than what I was on paper.

(ha, I still need to do my taxes)

Well as some point in time the Chief and Commander have their little meeting.

Well he is going to see me! Holy cow! That is just an unreal feeling. I get the chance to do what I've been wanting to do. I get so talk face to face to the wing commander. Talk about having some big balls ;)

Ok, so that feeling that I had to talk with the Chief. Yeah that was nothing compared to what I was going through now.

So I get to talk to him. I first meet up with the Chief, his office is just down the hall. He tells me what I need to know, what I need to do.

I go in the Commanders office. "Sir, Airman B. reports..." Now this is the formal military shit you see on TV. Well, more or less. This is the only time I salute indoors.

Well I got my meeting. The chance to say my peace, I guess you could say. I guess I made him think about it. It did take, what seemed like, forever to get back with an answer. That answer was...

I remember that phone call very well. March 26,2005. I was in my shop. I remember what I said to my shop NCO and the others around. Who were of course behind me in all this. "that's it, I'm out."





I had three days to get out of the military.


March 29, 2005. I got my last meal (well going away lunch), then changed clothes and left for the airport. I remember that drive so well. What we talked about. Just looking at everything alone the freeway for one last time.

March 29th, 2007

On that day it will be two years since I got out of the Air Force. So, with that going on in my head I've been wanting to blog. I have also been looking for reasons to not blog.

There is a story that I want to post here. At the same time, I don't want to. I guess it's hard to understand.

It's a story that doesn't really end well. It gets way to close to...well me. I got friends that don't even know that much about me.So I don't know. Maybe I'll just blog about blogging about it. That might just get it out of my system.

I just don't know. two years is a long time. At the same time it goes by in the blink of a eye.

Today I had to call the tow truck out two times for my El Camino. So it just wasn't my day. The first time was because I locked the keys in, well about a month ago I did. I just now went down to my Grammy's to take it for a drive. The weather outside was just great!

So, he gets the keys out. It doesn't take him 5 min to open the door. Nice having the right tools. So I start it up for the driver, he asked if I could. We talked about it some. I chill at my grammy's for awhile, then take off. Well, I get on the freeway, and something just doesn't feel right. This is about 15-20 miles into my 45 mile drive back home.

I get off the freeway and at the first stop light, my car dies. That's never good. Oh yeah, and it wouldn't start back up. Super Duper! So I was just waiting for someone to see the green light, but not see me. Then run right into me. I've seen that happen before. Lets fast forward some. So get a tow back home, 16 miles. It cost $89 but I shall be reimbursed via my insurance.

Maybe it's just the amount of money I've been putting out these past two weeks. I bet that has something to do with being bummed out.

Damn, I've changed so much just in the past year (I went to re-read some posts from March 2006). I hope it for the better. I guess it's a good thing I wasn't posting in March 2005, I don't think those would have to be read by adults only. I still remember that day. The trip the the air port. The lunch. Saying Good bye. All of it. I don't want to forget it, but it also doesn't bring that warm fuzzy feeling.

One year and one day

Well it's been one year and one day since I've been out of the U.S. Air Force. I guess more good than bad has come out of it. It's been one hell of a ride this past year. I guess I'll add more to this over the next few days. Who knows.