Right around this time thirty-one years ago today — May 28, 1980 — I was boarding a plane in Hartford, Connecticut, bound for San Antonio, Texas, (with a plane change in Atlanta) to report to United States Air Force Basic Military Training.

I’d graduated from Beaver Local High School in Lisbon, Ohio, in June, 1978.  I attended college full-time, in residence, on loans at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, for one academic year.  That was an adjustment.  I had to learn to study.  On academic probation after the first quarter, I buckled down and learned to study over the next two quarters and left the university in good academic standing, but I was discouraged.  In the late 1970’s, the United States was in times that, frankly, are similar to now.  We were coming out of the Middle East Oil Embargo where gas prices had skyrocketed, and there were lines at gas stations for hours in some cases.  We had a coal miner’s strike, so to preserve electricity, they turned off the lights in my high school classrooms. Jimmy Carter was president, and the United States was not respected around the world.

There were a lot of things I enjoyed about being a full-time student in residence, and frankly. I am sorry I left the university when I did.  But that is hindsight.  At the time, I read about people with PhDs taking jobs at McDonald’s working behind the counter because they couldn’t find work.  (Today, we have the same thing, but they won’t work at McDonald’s, because benefits from unemployment or other social aid pay more — it’s more cost-effective to get food stamps.)  I despaired of my college education ever getting me anything I could use.  Besides, I had that “D” in College Chemistry from my first semester.  How would I ever become a veterinarian? (Ohio State had a forgiveness rule that would have allowed me to overwrite the “D”s in Chemistry and College Alegebra if I’d just retaken the classes and done better, but I must not have been mature enough to sort that out.)  Those were the reasons I decided not to return to the university for my sophomore year — that and needing for find the $600+ per quarter to pay the bills, which I could have done with student loans.

I went back to my parents’ home.  I had a summer job — maybe two of them, I’m not sure.  I needed something for the fall. I’d met a man and become engaged that spring.  He was from Western Massachusetts (it’s like a whole other state from Eastern Massachusetts).  I decided to move there and make toy drums for minimum wage.  I was young and clearly stupid.  But it was a job, and I was on my own (mostly).

There was the two room efficiency apartment.  Then there was the three room unheated cabin with no indoor plumbing and well water that froze in the winter — I lived there in the winter — and there was another apartment after that.  Times were not good.  I knew I would look back on those days and laugh, and I have since then (now, I mostly just shake my head and say, “How could you be so stupid!”).  I had a good boss and good co-workers at Noble and Cooley, Co. (They appear to only make real drums now, and I’m pleased to see that.)  The monotony of assembly line work drove me batty.  I found myself longing to return to school so I would be qualified to do something more intellectually stimulating. Of course, I didn’t make enough money to pay to go to school.  What to do?  My fiance suggested I consider the military.  I was not enthusiastic.  He convinced me to give it a shot.

After a misfire with the Massachusetts Air National Guard, I talked to an Active Duty recruiter who seemed to be a straight shooter.  I took the physical and passed (having to see an optometrist about my eyes and come back the next week (and not eat donuts before being weighed), took the ASVAB test and got scores that qualified me for anything, but nothing guaranteed that was available interested me, so I signed up for “open electronics.”   I signed the contract in April to report to basic training at the end of May.  That one month delayed enlistment earned me time-related pay raises a month and a half earlier than when I actually showed up (a practice they have since discontinued).  My college time earned me the right to enter as an E-3 instead of an E-1.  I signed up for four years.  I had no idea what I wanted to do beyond that, but I hoped I’d come out with a marketable skill and some experience.

The rest, as they say, is history.  Fast forward twenty-eight years to May, 2008, and I officially retired, effective 1 Jun 2008, having progressed through the ranks from Airman First Class, Senior Airman, Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, Technical Sergeant, Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant, Captain, to Major.  During that time, I got a little education — multiple technical schools, experience as a cryptographic maintenance technician, experience as an instructor at the junior college, college, and graduate school levels, and earned three Associates, one Baccalaureate, and a Masters’ degree with post-Masters’ work, one remote tour to Iceland, and two deployments to the Middle East (Kuwait and Bahrain).  There was one really wild assignment where I had to work closely with both US and NATO standards bodies, which required a ton of travel in the States and about one week a month in Europe.  But my favorite assignments were when I was working with the intelligence community.  Many people like to complain about civil servants, but the civil servants I worked with in that community are as dedicated as any I’ve ever known, and they work every day to ensure the safety and security of our nation.  I will always respect and admire them for the jobs they quietly perform out of the spotlight (which is where they need to remain).

Today, three years into retirement, I don’t miss staring another military move in the face.  For once, I look forward to being in the same place for the foreseeable future — possibly the remainder of my life.  I do miss the people I worked with through the years, but by the time one tour was finished, you always had all new people from the ones you started with anyway.

Military service, whether for a few years or for a lifetime, is a good, worthwhile option for young people to consider.  It is what you make of it.  You will get out of it what you put into it (in my case, I think I got a lot more out than I had to put in, but your mileage may vary).  The same could be said for nearly anything else one chooses for their path.  There’s a lot of value to taking the adage to “Bloom where you are planted” to heart and applying it in your everyday life.  In hindsight, had I chosen to remain in college, I probably would have done just fine, but my life would have been very, very different  Not necessarily better or worse, but different.