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.
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