Call Me Ishmael

Hercules and Cerberus - Peter Paul Rubens
(Source)

From Fort Collins to San Antonio is a trip of roughly 1,000 miles. In order to mentally prepare myself for what was to come, I allowed myself three days for that trip. I spent two nights in motels along the way. The first was in northern New Mexico.

I had arrived there in the dead of night. It was bitter cold with lots of snow on the ground. When I awakened the next day I looked out the window. Flat, featureless, snow to the horizon. Oh boy. Minutes after leaving the motel, somewhere near Clayton, New Mexico, I crossed into the great state of Texas. I'd be there until April Fool's Day, nearly three months later.

It was my first time driving in Texas, lemme tell you, it's a BIG state. I thought crossing Kansas was mind-boggling, that was crossing the freaking street compared to Texas. After what felt like days,but was probably only about eight hours, I decided to hole up for the night. The next day I would report in to Hades Medina Annex.

Bright and early-ish I woke up, showered and shaved and donned my uniform. The uniform I'd worn every Thursday in college. Different from a regular Air Force uniform, this rig had black shoulder boards with two half-inch silver stripes running athwartships (to borrow a nautical term), i.e. side to side (to use a more mundane term). My orders said to report in uniform NLT (no later than) such and such an hour. It might have been 1300, I don't remember.

In the days of my youth...

Yes, I arrived at my destination at 1259 local. I had a minute to spare.

Cerberus was a vicious beast that guarded the entrance to Hades and kept the living from entering the world of the dead. According to Apollodorus, Cerberus was a strange mixture of creatures: he had three heads of wild dogs, a dragon or serpent for a tail, and heads of snakes all over his back. Hesiod, though, says that Cerberus had fifty heads and devoured raw flesh. (Source)

I walked up to a desk which sported two officer trainee types. They also had shoulder boards but there stripes were skinnier and ran fore-and-aft at a rakish diagonal.  So let me rephrase that last bit...

Cerberus was an asshole that guarded the entrance to OTS and kept the unwary from wandering into the world of the lost. According to Old AF Sarge, Cerberus was a strange mixture of creatures: he had two human heads, a noticeable lack of testosterone, and the spine of a jellyfish. Hesiod, though, says that Cerberus had fifty heads (with no brains in any of 'em) and devoured raw flesh.

But Hesiod wasn't there. I was...

"OT, why are you wearing a uniform?" barked one of the heads.

"I'm sorry, apparently you can't read, it says for me to report in uniform. Or did you miss that bit?" spake Your Humble Scribe. (And yes, I was very tired and in no mood for games from a couple of wannabe officers. My ID card indicated that I was a Staff Sergeant, a pox on their "OT" designation.)

"Oh. Yes, it does say in uniform. Sorry."

Blah, blah, blah. A boring welcome to Medina, yada-yada speech followed. After which I was given a room key and directions on how to get there and who to report to when I got there.

So off I went.

Other than that initial encounter, I don't remember much about that first day. Eventually I got a roommate and an introduction to our flight commander, an Air Force captain. The people who would be "guiding" us in our day to day activities were both OTs (Officer Trainees if you haven't figured that out yet). Two fairly decent chaps as I recall, one of whom's last name was Ney. Yes, I asked. The French marshal of Napoleonic fame was a great great uncle or something. I was surprised that he knew that.

Anyhoo.

My roommate was a decent enough kid, right out of college, a chemistry major who couldn't find a job outside of chemical engineering (which he hated), so he turned to Uncle Sam's Aerial Follies. He was, shall we say, rather unsuited for "the life." (No, we didn't call it that. I think that's a hooker term. Oh wait...)

Our flight captain was not a nice person. I will call her Ahab. She had no apparent use for men. She actually announced in class one day that marriage was an "outmoded" institution. She proved, to me anyway, that she was quite unsuited to have anything to do with training aspiring officers. More on that, later.

First day was a weigh in, if you didn't make weight, you were gone. Sent back to wherever you came from, except...

"OT Chunkydude, you are five pounds overweight, go see the airman out front to process out."

"OT Chunkygirl, you are three pounds overweight, you have a week to shed that weight!"

Uh, really, break the rules and you're gone? Not so fast buddy. I smelled a rat.

When this disparity was pointed out, Captain Ahab said, "You have to be five pounds or more over the limit."

"But, the book says..."

"I make the decisions here OT. Get used to it."

No, I did not.

And so it went.

The first two days were a weekend, remember it was Super Bowl weekend, not everyone's cup of tea I know, but, I used to care about that event. Expecting to in-process on Saturday and then, maybe, watch the game on Sunday, we were instead informed that the Officer Training School was on the cusp of a major inspection.

In the Air Force that means that if you're one of the peons, you will be mopping, waxing, and buffing for the immediate future. No Super Bowl for you!

So we cleaned everything in sight, all while being hectored by the staff, who were all captains, no lieutenants, no majors, all captains. How many sets of wings did I see on all those O-3 suits?

Not one. For the most part they were all freaking shoe clerks, and seemingly proud of the fact. I had one snarling Asian female captain bark at me, "OT, who the Hell taught you how to mop a floor?"

"Damned if I know captain, I used to fix Phantoms for a living."

"Who do you think you're talking to OT?!?!?"

"Dunno captain, never seen you before today."

Seriously, I thought she was going to stroke out right then and there. I had decided to see just how far I could push back against the chickenshit occurring all around me. Turns out that the opportunities were limitless.

As you might gather, I had "copped an attitude." Missed the Super Bowl so I could mop the same gorram floor three effing times? Seriously, three times.

"Okay, now strip it and do it again!"

The third time I just stood there, as did my flightmates. The O-3 (to differentiate them from the officer grade of "captain") was called away to go bother someone else. We eventually got to stand down.

I did catch a bit of the game on my small portable radio, until the nasty Asian lady told me to put it away.

"Why?"

"Because you're supposed to be cleaning stuff, not listening to the radio!"

"Hhmm, in the enlisted ranks we discovered that it was actually possible to do both."

Again, I thought she was going to stroke out. I was starting to enjoy myself.

Then one of our flight leads (students like us, only further along) asked me, "Don't you want to be an officer?"

"Like her, do you mean?"

"Well no, but..."

"See my point?"

Not sure that he did.

Eventually we actually started classes. For maybe three to four hours a day. The rest of the time was spent "studying," performing mindless duties, or in physical training. I cannot begin to tell you just how boring and mindless it all was.

Now there were three types of officer trainees there: one group were recent college grads who wanted to fly for the Air Force but didn't manage an ROTC scholarship during their college days, another group were similar, but they didn't wish to be pilots, they just couldn't find jobs with their college degrees (Yup, English, history, social sciences, sociology, etc. My roommate was an odd duck, turns out that he could find a job but had decided that he hated chemistry. Odd that.)

The third group were what the staff called "prior enlisted." A term I hated with a passion.

"Why do you keep calling me a "prior"?

"Because you used to be enlisted."

"Am I an officer now?"

"No, not yet."

"Am I a civilian?"

"No, you're an officer trainee."

"My ID card says I'm a staff sergeant."

"Well, everyone gets paid as a staff sergeant while here. Unless you came in at a higher grade, then you keep that pay."

"So I'm still a staff sergeant?"

"Officially, yes, but..."

"Call me OT, or call me staff sergeant, stop calling me prior enlisted."

"But..."

I didn't win that argument, but certain of the staff would no longer speak to me unless they had to. Eventually Captain Ahab called me to her office.

"OT, I don't think you're smart enough to be an officer."

"What makes you say that, captain?"

"Call me ma'am."

"Which is short for madam."

"I don't like you OT."

"The feeling madam, is most assuredly mutual."

"I think you should quit."

"Fire me."

"I can't."

"So why am I in your office?"

"Get out, go back to the barracks."

We had a few conversations like that. I challenged her to tell me what I was doing wrong, well, wrong enough to get thrown out. She couldn't do it. I scored high marks on all of their tests. I knew more about drill and ceremonies than she did. The list of our disagreements was lengthy.

One day, on the drill pad, I had had quite enough.

As we fell in for practice, for we had an evaluation on drill the next day, Ahab showed up late, and in a panic.

"I understand some of you aren't ready for your drill eval."

I had to speak up, of course.

"The eval is tomorrow ma'am. After this practice, we should be good to go."

"No, the eval is today."

" I thought the eval was on the 10th." asked a fellow OT.

"It is, and today is the 10th."

"Uh, no ma'am. Today is the 9th."

Eventually we convinced her that she had the wrong day. It was bloody infuriating. Was she otherwise occupied for most of the day? Was training us her part time job? Who knew, she seemed less than connected on some days, incompetent on most days.

Egad how I despised her and her ilk.

As I have now worked myself into a right fury remembering those days, I think I'll pause for now.

So stay tuned, does Your Humble Scribe get kicked out? Or does he walk on his own terms?

We shall see, we shall see.

We all know by now that I didn't finish, it's only the manner of my departure which you have yet to learn.

All will be revealed, to everything there is a season, etc., etc.

Oh, and lest you think it was all Sturm und Drang down there, think again. I remember some pretty cool folks. One was the most intense fire trucker I have ever met. We called him "Karl." Yes, he hated it. Went on to fly the A-10, very well I might add.

But that's in the "more to come" category



That last bit, that's what ya call a teaser.