Category: My Glorious Air Force Career
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trash talk
Here’s a random memory that popped into my head as I was taking out the trash: I used to work with a woman I’ll call Lilly, for the purposes of respecting her privacy. We worked together while I was stationed at RAF Chicksands in central England and, coincidentally, we both went to language school in Read.
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happy in this job
I recently went to a meeting with my supervisor, who was busily working up an e-mail or a memo or something as I walked in. “Give me just a minute,” she said, banging away at the keyboard in a most determined way and I answered, “No problem,” and waited while she finished her thought. When Read.
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briefings
Thirteen years ago today I was one of the newbies on Misawa Air Base. By this time in November I’d been there a little over ten weeks and I’d gone to more mandatory formations in that time than in the rest of my military service. In the Air Force, we called any meeting a ‘formation.’ Read.
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let us spray
Just outside the schoolhouse on the Air Force base where I learned how to do all sorts of technical things there was a fenced-in break area with a soda machine and maybe a couple picnic tables. I think we got one break in the morning and one in the afternoon when we would all go Read.
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superman
England memories: When Tim heard that we were moving into a house on RAF Digby with an upper floor, he asked right away if it had stairs. His eyes lit up like Christmas when I told him it did. “Cool!” he said. I enjoyed his exuberance even though I didn’t fully understand it until the Read.
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Culture shock
I suffered the biggest culture shock of my life when the Air Force transferred me from the peace and quiet of RAF Digby in northern England to the ear-shattering jet noise and chaos of Misawa Air Base in northern Japan. The culture of the Air Force in the two places, and the culture of the Read.
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Thanksgiving
Ten years ago: I got a new computer at my desk. This happened in a really weird way. I was using the old computer a couple days ago when I reached across the desk and spilled a Styrofoam cup of hot tea on the keyboard, which stopped it dead. This was not entirely a bad Read.
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heading home #3
On my emergency trip across the Atlantic during the Thanksgiving weekend I’d had to suffer two broken ATMs to make sure I had no money in my pocket, a lack of places to eat in O’Hare airport except for a tavern serving cold sandwiches, a seat with no floor space next to a guy who Read.
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heading home #2
A transatlantic flight in coach class has to be one of the most miserable ways to travel even under the best of circumstances. I count myself as damn lucky when I can wangle a seat on the aisle so I can hang over the edge a little bit to get some breathing room, and the Read.
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heading home #1
The longest journey ever made in the history of humankind was a trip I took from the small town in Wisconsin where my mother lived to the small town in England where I lived with my family. It wasn’t the longest trip if it were measured in ordinary miles or hours, as most normal trips Read.
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