Today is the 45th anniversary of the day I enlisted in the United States Air Force. Over the next several weeks, I’m going finally write down some of the stories I remember most about that experience and the years I spent in the service of this great country. I hope you’ll enjoy the trip down memory lane as much as I will.
My Air Force journey probably started in my senior year of high school, 1971-1972, when Randy joined the Air Force. Back then, the waning days of the Viet Nam War, men were being drafted. Randy tells the story about getting a high draft number (283) but in his year they decided to call men by working the numbers backward. I always believed that until I did the research for this post. In truth, only numbers 1-95 were drafted into service that year.
Regardless, Randy, who’s always loved flying, enlisted in the Air Force in January 1972. We were friends who met on summer vacation in 1969. We never really dated, and the Air Force seemed to me to be a decent post high school graduation plan. The GI bill and its education benefits was a good incentive to a young middle-class woman whose parents made enough money to disqualify me for any college financial aid (believe me, I applied), but who, with 5 younger than me kids in the family, told me I was on my own for the cost of college.
I took the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test. I remember maxing out (meaning I scored in the 99th percentile of everyone who took the test) 3 of the 4 categories (General, Administrative, Mechanical, Electronics). The Air Force recruiter was delighted that I wanted to enlist but insisted I needed to tell him how often I smoked marijuana. I had never tried marijuana, but he was absolutely convinced (and pretty obnoxious about it) all kids my age had done so. We went round and round about smoking dope until I finally told him I wasn’t going to admit to something I’d never done just to satisfy whatever weird stereotype he had about teen-aged kids.
Besides that, the recruiter was really pushing me toward non-traditional female jobs because my test scores showed I could handle things like electronics technician or jet engine mechanic. I wasn’t interested in jobs like that at all. I wanted a more business-oriented career, like personnel or accounting. He was pretty much a major jerk and we couldn’t come to an agreement about that either. That was the end of my post high school Air Force aspirations.
You might recall that my high school job was working at S.S. Kresge, and for most of my high school years, my life’s ambition was to be the manager of a Kmart store. Since the Air Force thing didn’t work out, I enrolled in the local junior college (in Wisconsin they were called technical schools back then) intent on getting an associate degree in Marketing before moving on to a 4-year college to finish a bachelor’s degree.
I’ve written before of how off track I got that first year after high school due to falling head over heels, as only an 18-year-old can do, with a guy that was no good for me. After picking up the pieces of my broken heart, I reconnected with Randy, and we married three years later. I finally finished my associate degree in marketing while Randy was stationed in Illinois before he got orders to Guam.
We were excited about living on a tropical island in the Pacific, but Guam is awfully small, 30 miles long and 6 miles wide. After working since I was 16, with a fairly fresh associate degree, I really wanted something useful to do to keep me busy. Good jobs for military wives were almost non-existent so I called the military recruiting office and asked if I could work for them as a volunteer. During a casual conversation with this (much nicer) recruiter, I mentioned my previous attempt to get into the Air Force. He asked if I wanted to try again. I wasn’t interested, I told him, if I was going to be forced into a non-traditional female job. He said, “let’s call for your ASVAB scores and see what we can do.”
A week or so later, he told me they couldn’t find my ASVAB scores, and I’d have to retake the test. I’m no dummy so when I sat for the ASVAB the second time I figured that if I deliberately answered every third question wrong on the non-traditional portions, I’d have a better chance of being offered a job I really wanted. Sure enough, that worked pretty well. My highest score was in administration, the recruiter never asked if I used marijuana, and we came to an agreement on a job category I’d like. In addition, because I already had an associate degree, I was able to advance to an E-3 as soon as I finished basic training. I signed on the dotted line.
It was 1980, and the world was relatively peaceful. The United States wasn’t involved in any actual wars at the time. Consequently, military members married to each other, though never guaranteed to be stationed together, often were accommodated by the government. Chances were excellent that I would come right back to Guam after training.
I took my oath of enlistment “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies foreign and domestic,” and boarded a plane bound for the States on April 1, 1980. My ultimate destination was Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas, where I was to spend 6 weeks in Basic Training.
Let me tell you, boarding a plane on April Fool’s Day after enlisting in the Air Force is no joke. But everyone sure did enjoy making a big deal of it. To make matters worse, Guam is one day ahead of the US. Since the trip took longer than a full day, I crossed the International Date Line and had to do a whole ‘nother April Fool’s Day all over again!
As our Basic Training Squadron assembled over the next couple of days, the TIs (Training Instructors) had a field day making fun of our April Fools Squadron. I’m sure they routinely treated all new recruits like fools, but in our case they could openly acknowledge and joke about us. Knowing I came from Guam and had 2 full April Fools Days made me a double fool in their eyes.
Then, too, at 25, I was about the oldest trainee in the squadron. Those 7 years often made me feel like an alien in a different world, and honestly, gave me an advantage that contributed to great success in my time in service. That’s a story I’ll chronicle over the next several weeks. Watch for Friday’s short post!
P.S. Though we heat the pool when we want to swim in the winter, I’ve become climatized to Florida. Swimming in January, even in water heated to 85˚is dang cold because the air isn’t that warm. But yesterday, aaahhh….the air was that warm and thus began the great swimming season in Florida that lasts till early November. I love it!
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