United States Air Force - Tech School

This is part four of a multi-post about my career in the Air Force. Start from the beginning if you like.

In part three I pointed out specific things that happened during basic training and closed with graduation day.

I took a commercial flight out of San Antonio to Biloxi, MS. After I arrived I was transported to Keesler AFB to learn how to do my job. I was taken to a dorm room and told where to meet on Monday morning. It was Friday so I had a couple of days to get acquainted with my room mate and others in the dorm. I was told not to leave the base but everyone in the dorm was going off base for the weekend. They asked if I wanted to go. I did but I was told not to so I wasn't sure what was going on so I said no thanks.

I set up my stereo and played a Pink Floyd cassette I bought before I left Lackland AFB. Pink Floyd is great to listen to for unwinding and de-stressing. While listening, I unpacked the rest of my belongings and then lay down on the bed and relaxed. Except for going to the chow hall, that is what I did for the whole weekend. A lot had happened to me in a month. It was now July and I still felt like it was June. Felt like I missed a month of my life or lost several years of my life. I was still me but different. Actually I felt alive. I was on my own for the first time in my life having to make the grown up decisions instead of relying on family or friends for guidance. It was scary and exciting at the same time. It is kind of like watching your Dad mow the lawn and want to push that machine around the yard yourself only to find you will be stuck doing it for the rest of your childhood. I could never go back to being the shy little boy. I would move forward as a young man.

Monday morning arrived and I got dressed in my "blues" and marched to the school. All of what I learned is a bit fuzzy now but I learned to disseminate instructions to different entities on a base. How to follow a checklist during in-flight emergencies (when aircraft land at the base I work at and it has a malfunction). In this job, I would know every aircraft on base, where it came from, and where it was destined for. Of course there was a lot more to it but this is what I would be learning about during my stay here.

Each day was filled with eight hours of school and after school we would exercise. I'm pretty sure everyone in tech school was out there at the end of each day. We filled up an entire field and did jumping jacks, push-ups, and running. I don't mention the chow hall but it was visited frequently during the day. After exercising and eating, the rest of the day you were on your own to do what you liked. Studying what you learned that day was encouraged, especially if you had a test the next day.

It's sad really, I am the kind of person who stays to himself. It is very hard to make friends like that. Basically it takes someone extroverted to approach me before I get a new friend. You will notice that I have not mentioned anyone's name I roomed with in basic training and I will not mention any names from tech school either. That is not to say I wasn't liked or talked to but no friendships developed.

The second weekend arrived and the guys left the base again. They asked if I wanted to go but I still felt I better not since I was told not to. I started thinking it was pretty unfair for them to be able to go out and not me though. By the third weekend, I decided I would go with them. We went into Biloxi and it was late. I was in a car, in casual clothes. If it were not for the absence of hair, we might have looked like non-military people. Another reason I had not left the base was because I was told the military people were not liked everywhere. We never encountered anyone that openly disliked us while in the city though. We got to our destination, a club of some sort, and went in. As we walked in it was dark and there were tables and chairs to sit in. In the back, there was a stage and the area around it was empty, probably for dancing I thought. We sat and a guy came out on stage. Have you watched the movie, "Rocky Horror Picture Show"? This guy was dressed like one of the characters. I had never watched the movie myself but I was about to know all there was about it. The guy up front asked if there were any virgins in the audience. I was like why did he just ask that? The guys asked if I had ever seen the movie and I said I had not so they pushed me up on stage. I guess I was a virgin in that I had not watched the movie. They had the virgins hold an apple or some kind of fruit with their necks and pass it to the person next to them so that it got to the far end of the stage. I was lucky in that I was next to a young woman. We worked together passing along the fruit and I couldn't help notice how close our bodies were. When we were done with the induction, I went back and sat with the guys and we watched actors on stage act out the whole movie. We had a great time and got back on base real late.

When I joined the Air Force, I was asked where I would like to be stationed. I was asked for a dream base and several alternate bases I would like to be. I picked Hawaii and then all bases very close to Texas. At the end of my class, we were given our orders to where we would start our career. My orders said I would be going to Iceland. Iceland?? This is not where I asked to go. Quite the opposite, I wanted someplace hot. If I knew where I was headed, I would have kept these orders though. A guy had orders he didn't like and asked if anyone wanted to exchange. I asked where his orders were and he replied Altus AFB in Oklahoma. That was close to home and I jumped on it. Though I'm getting ahead of myself, this base is where I spend the rest of my four years in the Air Force. It is in the middle of nowhere. I was relieved I was not headed to Iceland and he was happy not to be going to Altus.

After I graduated the class, I was shipped home before I would go to Altus AFB. The flight from Biloxi to Houston was the worst flying experience I have ever had. My ears hurt the entire flight and I was miserable. I complained about it and someone told me to chew gum while in the air. So I did that on the flight from Houston to Dallas and it helped. My Mom picked me up in Dallas and we traveled to Lake Tawakoni where I was able to spend a few days with family and friends. I went straight to my girlfriends house and picked her up but I could tell my absence took its toll on our relationship. We broke it off before I went to Altus. I didn't date anyone for a couple of years after that.

In my next post, I tell the story of my career in the Air Force.