March 30th

Funny how certain dates throughout the year may have a special meaning for you. For me, I'll never forget March 30th because it was that day 4 years ago I was sworn into the Air Force on my way to basic training. Theresa and I had just started dating about 4-5 months prior and there I was off to the military. You could say that wasn't the best of situations for either of us; being apart without me being able to write or call until I had "earned" that right. Something to realize is before I left we pretty much talked to each other all day - every day except while one of us was at work or in class. This was a shocker. Well as Providence would have it I would be diagnosed with Asthma while in basic training and last a mere 22 days. If you have never had an induced asthma attack in a hospital where they then want you to do breathing tests you can't do even when you aren't having an attack you don't know what you are missing. So after 2.5 weeks I was sent to the crazy people squadron. 319...the place where all the run aways, drug test failures, liars, suicidal people and oh yeah, sick people were. What did I do all day everyday during that time? I scrubbed the same stairwell each day with a little hand brush thing then would go and sweep the outside covered areas near the building. The cool thing about this time was since I was "normal" I got to do some neat things like paint an office near the sergeants' meeting room. While we were in there they told us they were not our training sergeants anymore but they were our bosses. So we got to talk to them like normal people, with the obvious courtesies of their higher ranks. We didn't have to adhere to the obnoxious basic training rules, just normal Air Force rules. They even ordered us delivery pizza and gave us each 2 hours in the local mini store. It was nice to be in the crazy squadron and not be crazy, comparatively speaking of course. Oh yeah, while at that mini mall trip, I stuffed my face with junk food and Dr. Pepper for the first time in 3 weeks or so. The next day, I pooped 12 times before lunch! Twas not fun. Luckily I could escape to the restroom without any of the sergeants knowing so they didn't know I was sick. If that was the case my exit papers would have been stalled and I would not have been able to get out as quickly. There were some people who were in 319 waiting for their exit papers to go through and it took many months even over a year in a couple of cases (usually the guys with legal problems like the druggies). The military has a certain way of if you make it mad, they might accidentally move your papers to the bottom. Anyhow, my papers only took a little over a week to process and April 20th I was told I was going home the next day. So April 21st came and there I was back in Bryan. I'm leaving out many fun details, but this is the main idea of what life was like, and why March 30th has a different meaning for me and Theresa. It marks first of many days where two people 3 hours away cried themselves to sleep and one of them prayed every night something would happen that would force me to get discharged and I simply just prayed that I wouldn't die the next day. Luckily, I didn't go crazy and got discharged happily and got to keep my income I had made; unlike the druggies and liars who got to pay the military back! The night I was to return home Theresa and a couple we had come to hang out with once a week or so to play games or eat or whatever were going to be meeting at McAlister's for supper. I called her from the airport and asked if they could push it back to 7 so I could make it. Of course they obliged.