Monday, April 26, 2010

I'm in the Air Force now!

As of Friday morning, I have become an Airman and graduated from Basic Military training. Now, on Monday, I'm on a plane to California to start learning to be a Chinese cryptologic linguist. It's safe to say that this weekend has been one of the craziest ever, on many levels (I also got married, since one transformation wasn't enough [and more to come on that later]), but it was hands-down one of the best.

By now, I've had a little bit of time to reflect on the BMT experience as a whole, not to mention how much it's affected me. For one, I wasn't expecting to be freaked out by traffic, but after two months of only the occasional car stopping to let us cross the street, I had forgotten how fast the interstate can be, especially compared to the speed of a column of 40 girls marching in step.

Overall, though, I don't think I've changed too drastically. I still have my same sense of humor and can loosen up and laugh and play, though I do think I've developed a greater awareness of when playing is appropriate and when it's time to stop and get serious. Or maybe I'm a little too serious now. I guess I'll have to cliche it up and just say that time will tell on that one. I do think that going in a little later in life, rather than straight out of high school, helped a lot, especially since it meant that I'd already developed much of the maturity needed to graduate from basic. We definitely saw the biggest changes in the younger girls. When we first got there, one girl, who was 19, would never stop smiling when we were in formation, which is strictly forbidden. Really, smiling in general, especially in the first few weeks, will earn you a yelling TI, but especially in formation. But whenever a TI or one of us asked her why or told her to stop, she said that she was just a happy person. After a while, she found that balance between her serious game face and her normal happy self, but it took some time and growth.

As far as the BMT experience itself goes, it was about as bad as I had expected it to be; I had not, however, expected it to be as good as it was. The goods really ended up ouweighing the bad, and what "bad" there was I understood were necessary evils. The PT (physical training) sucked about as much as I thought it would, especially since I was stupid enough to do next to nothing to prepare for that before I went in. But, on the flip side of that, I can now run longer than I would have thought possible, I've lost about 12 pounds, and I have reasonable toned abs and thighs, which I think isn't too bad after 8 weeks. And even though I can't say I enjoyed the 45-minute workouts at 5 every morning, and they pretty much always hurt, there was a distinct progression to the intensity of the workouts over the 8 weeks, and no matter what week you were in, even if you only did 10 pushups and they wanted 30, if they saw that you worked for those 10 and weren't just giving up, they didn't give you a hard time. If they saw you being lazy and giving up, then they got angry, but as long as you were trying, they might encourage you to keep pushing yourself, but they would never punish someone for not being able to do something.

Really, that to me was the most surprising thing about BMT. I expected the yelling and the PT and the crazy eating, but what I hadn't expected was how much the TIs were teachers, especially the primary TI in charge of my flight (who I suppose I will very awkwardly call SSgt (staff sergeant) Matt, since so far I haven't used any last names in the interest of this being an open blog accessible to any crazy, and I'd like to protect him and his adorable little girl who came and met us at Easter). We were his first female flight, and the first flight he'd ever run (we call it "pushing a flight") on his own as the teamchief since becoming an MTI. The man truly became a mentor to our entire flight. Any time we needed extra help with anything, whether it was practice marching or setting up our areas for inspection or anything, he always sacrificed time with his family (and he sacrificed a lot of time) to come in early or stay extra late to help us. Whenever we learned something new, he always made sure we knew what we needed to do and how we needed to do it, and was always patient with clarification questions. Any yelling that did happen was only when someone would keep making the same silly mistake to break them of it, and so that the rest of the flight could hear and watch for that mistake themselves. I never felt like I couldn't go to him with a question, even about things like wedding dress options at the BX, and I know a lot of other girls went to him with problems a lot bigger than mine. At one point, we had to march with another instructor giving the commands, and we were getting frustrated because he kept calling them wrong. When we got back to the safety of our own dorm, we were telling SSgt Matt about it, and he leaned back in his chair and said, "Makes you appreciate Daddy, doesn't it?" He said it jokingly, but from then on we thought of him as our surrogate daddy, or in some cases the only father figure some people had ever known. I don't know if it's normal for people to feel about their MTIs the way we did about ours, but I'm pretty certain a lot of us wouldn't have made it without him. I think I probably would have, but I don't think BMT would have been the enjoyable experience it ended up unexpectedly being.

While I can't say it was easy, BMT was definitely a worthwhile experience, and I learned a lot about a lot of different things. Now that I'm on the wY to tech school, I'm back to being nervous like I was on the plane ride to Texas. Just as I had gotten Basic figured out, they send me on. I know Chinese will be incredibly challenging to learn, but based on what I've already accomplished, I think I can handle this. The Air Force seems to think I can. So now as I get ready to enter the operational Air Force, I just have to remember to use what I've learned and make SSgt Matt (and my parents, and my husband, and myself) proud. Off we go, into the wild blue yonder.

3 comments:

  1. Maggie, you are so B.A. I am so proud of the work you have done!! Keep writing and keep reflecting.
    Just another step on the journey. You can do it.

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  2. Congratulations! I look forward to reading of this journey. Both my sons still talk of their TI's at Lackland. Granted some details I will never hear of...and that is fine with me!
    Be proud of yourself. You are a United States Airman!
    Godspeed!
    ~AM

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