Becoming an Airman: The Day Everything Changed

When you think about military service, the word "job" should be the furthest thing from your mind. The military is more than a job; it touches your entire being at every level. The military became my core belief for more than a decade; everything about my life revolved around serving my country. Make no mistake about it: when you join the military, there aren't going to be a lot of personal decisions you make for yourself. The Air Force told me where to live, what to wear to work, when to go to the gym, and many times where to eat. While you take that last statement with a grain of salt, I proudly impart this nugget of information. I can attribute every great thing in my life to the day I enlisted in the Air Force. 

Remember, with all the greatness comes sorrow, heartbreak, and lost friends. When you stay in the service long enough, especially in the aviation communities, it’s when you lose friends, not if you lose friends. Life can be an evil mistress with the sole purpose of introducing struggle and turmoil into your life. It is not about accepting the situation as is, but about changing the narrative to one that suits your objectives. If life were always comfortable, it would turn out to be nothing more than a boring monologue sitting at a coffee table somewhere.

For some, it can be hard to tell when life hits a pivotal moment that changes direction. In many cases, those pivots are a choice among worse, bad, and good enough. In fact, those become the days you wish you could just start over and rewrite the present. Sadly, that is not the reality we live in; sometimes we get to choose between good and bad. Then there are times we get to decide between bad and worse; in the end, the result is shit either way. There are more than enough gut-punching moments in my life to go around. Life-changing events create moments that imprint and ripple through years, even decades, into the future. 

The first life-changing ripple in my life occurred on 11 May 2004, a day that will forever be imprinted on my brain and in my soul. In the late hours under the cover of a dark Texas night, I was one of many packed into one of a dozen buses ushered through the gates of Lackland Air Force Base. As this was my first trip to Texas, let’s just say it wasn’t starting out on the best foot. Some people talk about the memories of being in Texas. My fond memories of Texas are a fog of physical training, marching, and being yelled at in an oddly motivational way.

A unique phenomenon occurs when you are in the middle of basic training, sucking wind and pushing Texas (push-ups). Time moves at the speed of light while you stand perfectly still. Anyone who has experienced a frozen moment in time can attest to that hyper-real feeling. In those seconds and minutes, you experience everything at a factor of 10. I have experienced very few moments like this in my life, but in the ones I have, I've vividly engaged all five senses. I can see all my brothers and sisters in the Army and Marines shaking their heads. The Air Force has a different mission, one that requires less door-kicking in the field and more pushing Air Power down the runway. 

Getting through basic training and technical school is about the daily routine. The easy part is that Uncle Sam has handled the hard stuff. They tell you where to go and when to be there; all you have to do is show up ready to make shit happen. People outside the military would watch in slow motion as their heads exploded in disbelief. Again, it is all routine; basic training is about learning simply how to serve in the Air Force the right way. The rest is built up during tech school, and further at the first duty station.

Through the routine of Basic Training, the person staring at you in the mirror every day starts to evolve for the better. Block by block, we are rebuilt from a person searching for that “something” into an airman with purpose and pride. On day one, the whirlwind of chaos seemed never-ending. Of all the memories of BMT, only two stand out even today. First is standing in formation, dirty, hungry, and tired, waiting to hear the words: “Airman Walton, congratulations,” words signified by the Airman’s coin passed to you by your MTI. Second is the long-awaited day of graduation, the day we marched across the parade ground as a flight, not as individuals, but as a single flight among many, proud to represent our family, friends, and country, Flight 550!!