If you haven’t read last Tuesday’s post about my enlisting in the Air Force, please detour back to that now. Here’s the link.
The 5th day of Basic Training also happened to be my 26th birthday. Of course, no one knew it was my birthday and I wasn’t about to tell anyone. Honestly, it was the first birthday of my life that wasn’t celebrated. My mom and Randy are really good at that and always, always, made a point of making me feel special. No one makes a big deal of birthdays in military basic training and except for snail mail letters, a new recruit is cut off from communications with the outside world the first few weeks of basic training. I was also still a little shell shocked, and probably physically exhausted.
That day, while I was standing at attention in the chow line, one of the TIs (Training Instructors) barked at me, “Grathen, how old are you?” I burst into tears.
I don’t remember the details, whether I was blubbering, or how astonished she must have been. It was embarrassing as hell. I think I did get to explain, later, why I seemed to have a major meltdown at an exceedingly innocent question.
What I do remember is that, as probably the oldest recruit in the flight, they were considering me for the top student leadership position. Bursting into tears in the chow hall completely disqualified me for that. As it turned out, that was a blessing in disguise. My being a student leader in basic training would have been a disaster waiting to happen. As an experienced military wife, a first-born of 6 siblings, and a more mature woman than most of the 18-year-olds that were in the flight (the group of about 25 women in our training unit) my expectations were probably far above anything reasonable to expect from others early in training.
They did select me for a leadership position one step down from the top though. That allowed me to act more like a mentor than a boss for the women who really were interested in some insider information in how to survive basic training.
More on that in the next, longer post on Tuesday.
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