In my last post I told you a little about Basic Training week 1 or as I come to find out, Zero week. Zero week and week one were quite a shock. A person begins the transition from civilian life to military life during Basic Training. It’s meant to be a shock. Prior to joining the Military you typically have the freedom to wake up and do pretty much what you want each day. Not so in Basic Training. Every day is mapped out for you. You wake up, shower, shave, eat and sleep when you’re told. Some people have a harder time adjusting than others.
I must have been pretty naive back then. I believed everyone who joined the Air Force to serve their nation would inherently embody the core values of, “Integrity First, Service before self and Excellence in all we do.” You see my uncle was pretty much the only military experience I had prior to joining in 03′. He (in my opinion) embodied the core values. I looked to him as an example; which he happened to be a very good one. However, not everyone in our armed forces is like my Uncle.
I recall, being assigned as the Dorm Chief for a short stint. An interim TI found one of our Airmen had a wrinkled shirt in his wall locker. He declared it was returned from the cleaners in that condition. For you, a person with more life experience than I likely had at the time, red flags are probably popping up; however, for me, they weren’t. I believed the guy. I honestly thought, why would he lie? So, when our interim TI asked me my opinion, I looked right at him and said, “I believe him.” Later that evening I began to wonder about the shirt. I approached the guy privately and asked him. He didn’t hesitate to tell me, he had never turned the shirt in to be laundered. I was instantly angry. I told the guy he was a “Sack of Crap.” Who says that? Well, I did, and I meant it.
Time went on and most of us began to adjust to our new lives. With the exception of “wrinkled shirt guy” who, if I remember correctly, got recycled into another flight so he would have more time to adjust; I hope he did. There’s probably plenty of stories I could share between “Zero Week” and “Sixth Week.” I’ll share one and end this week’s talk.
Marching, as I mentioned in a previous post, was a major part of our Military training. We marched everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. If you were outside the Dorms or Barracks, you marched. I marched fine within a group, but… Well before I go there let me tell you a little about myself. I’m a 6 foot tall White Male who from the age of about 10-20 attended predominately white charismatic churches. I only make that distinction because unlike our wonderful black brothers and sisters, we didn’t have energetic music and certainly didn’t have anybody to teach us about rhythm. In fact, to this day you’ll find it very difficult to clap along in our congregation. It only takes a few beats before nearly the entire church is offbeat. I didn’t know I didn’t have rhythm, but I didn’t. I’ve since attended much more lively upbeat churches and learned to clap along to the beat.
The reason I said all of that is to say this. Marching depends on rhythm. If you can’t keep a beat, you may have trouble marching. If you’ve ever heard the expression “fake it til you make it,” it applied to me while in the group. However, as I mentioned above, I found myself as the Dorm Chief for a short stint. One of my responsibilities was to march the flight from our Dorm to the Chapel for those who wanted to attend. Well, not only did I have 0 practice, but I also had 0 rhythm, making controlling a group of 30 people in a marching formation, nearly impossible. After zigzagging the flight like a snake and then splitting the flight between a pole, I decided on plan B. I broke the flight down to elements, which I gave control of to the element leaders who then marched us in a single file to Chapel. We made it and managed to avoid the watchful eyes of anyone who might want to “chew us out.”