New Chapter

So I’d just returned to Las Vegas after living abroad for a year. It only took a few days of being home to feel blood dripping down my nose. I’m willing to bet that few people understand that the extreme dry heat combined with fine dust particles can cause regular nosebleeds – it’s like a metaphorical punch in the face. 

Not everyone that lives in Vegas is fortunate to regularly experience this, but I’ve always been pretty fortunate in life. 

I got a job working in a sweltering hot warehouse moving around furniture, refrigerators and washing machines for ten hours a day. I would ride my bicycle 4 miles (6.4 km) each way to work in the extreme heat because I couldn’t afford to buy a car. I really think this short time back home helped me immensely. It showed me what I didn’t want in my life moving forward, so that I would at least make some change. 

Personally, comfort and complacency cannot be found while spending the majority of my days baking in a giant sauna. 

Getting tired of the references to the hot weather? Me too. We’re about to leave. 

One day I was cycling past a military recruitment center. They were always easy to spot due to a giant American flag patriotically fake-waving on the front of the building. So I rolled up like a boss, determined to join the military, get stationed at an overseas military base, and get back out of the U.S. I knew prior to walking into that building exactly what I wanted most in life, and that was to live abroad again.

Aircraft Mechanic

I took a military job placement exam which qualified me for every position offered except for nuclear maintenance. Which, in retrospect, I’m quite glad wasn’t an option for me. While it may sound like an awesome job to have, in reality it’s quite awful. 

These poor saps are stuck for 12 hours a day in deep underground missile silos doing tests on warheads. Nuclear silos aren’t positioned in populated areas, so they have to live in remote places like North Dakota that have winters surpassing -40 degrees (similar temp in both F and C). 

So how did I actually get into aviation?

When I was joining, the Air Force recruiter tried really hard to push me into a cyber security job due to my work experience with computer networking. I briefly contemplated the idea of being stuck in an office coding all day and it sounded like a sophisticated form of abuse; so I shot that down and jumped on the opportunity to be an aircraft electrician. 

Not really familiar with the job details, I had envisioned working in a comfortable air conditioned hangar repairing top secret planes.

Not remotely close to reality.

I signed a 6 year contract with the Air Force and ended up stationed in Okinawa, Japan maintaining an ancient fleet of KC-135 aerial refueling planes that were built in 1957. They would break down even when sneezed upon. I spent my daylight hours working in the blistering heat and humidity, often inside of a powered-down aircraft that turned into a metal sauna. It was a difficult job at times, but I loved it because no matter how exhausted or sunburnt I became, I always knew that being indoors chained to a cubicle was so much worse.

Working on older planes came with a myriad of challenges, sure, but it also helped to mold me into a solid mechanic. KC-135’s aren’t equipped with advanced computers that are able to diagnose different aircraft systems (which help with troubleshooting and finding faults). You have to do everything manually and really dive into the aircraft schematics to find problems. It often included tearing apart entire sections of the plane to chase down a single broken wire or faulty valve. I really refined the foundational electrical and mechanical skills that helped me later in my career when I swapped to several different aircraft (F-16’s, C-17’s, C-5’s, C-130’s).

Incarceration?

Now I did briefly mention about the incarceration bit in the previous post, so I’ll shed some light on that story.

I had been in Japan for about a year by this point. We had received a newer Airmen who didn’t care to, well… work. He would constantly complain, lacked any motivation and preferred to sit around all day. Now, normally I’d have taken the time to teach him step-by-step how to change the auxiliary power unit on the jet and provided adequate encouragement and positive reinforcement. But his voice was really annoying, and it was extremely hot in the aircraft, so my colleague and I decided instead to send him on a harmless, yet lengthy quest to retrieve tools for us.

We gave him a list of items that we needed to complete the job. Some were real, like gaskets, lubricant etc., and others were completely fake items like aquiring a ‘girth spreader’ or ‘K9-P (acronym for dog urine that sounded very official).’ So we called ahead to the crew that would issue tools and parts and told them to send him on a journey around the flightline looking for these ‘important items.’ 

A few glorious hours went by as we worked in relative peace. He would occasionally call on the radio letting us know that he hadn’t found the items, to which we would reply that he should check with another set of mechanics who worked on different planes. A bit of harmless fun that I believe even God would chuckle at. I mean, who doesn’t like a nice evening stroll?

Now, in my defense, I explicitly told him before he left that he was under no circumstances, to cross into any aircraft areas marked by bright red lines. These areas had planes that were classified and had extra security to ensure that no one would approach them. The red lines had motion sensors that would detect anyone who tried to enter the area where they were parked. It was getting a little darker, but the secure areas were always lit with adequate lighting.

What does he do? He crosses the red lines of course. We received a call from the military police that they’d detained our guy, who was apparently traipsing across the restricted area like a deer wandering into ongoing traffic. Instead of just giving him a warning, they arrested him and told us to send someone to go pick him up from the police station. 

My colleague felt really bad, he turned to me with guilt written all over his face and told me that we needed to go pick him up. Now… I’m all for camaraderie, but I also knew how the military operated by this point. There’s a saying that’s commonly used in the Air Force, ‘shit only rolls downhill.’ It means that everyone points fingers at someone else to take the blame, and those at the bottom ranks of the military are where the shit lands.

At the time I was very close to the bottom and I knew that I didn’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity of the poop when it started rolling. But… the sad guilt-ridden puppy eyes of my colleague gradually eroded my shield of self preservation, so we hopped in a truck to go pick him up.

Upon arrival, the military police sergeant asked if we were the ones that provided ‘the list,’ which he held up in front of us like it had personally violated him. After a few affirming nods from us he told us to follow him – I could already smell the metaphorical poop approaching. My friend walked in front of me, and we were led into a room with two adjacent prison cells – one was directly in front of the door and the other was further down the hall.

The phrase ‘out of sight, out of mind’ popped into my head at that moment, so I quickly walked past my colleague and took the further jail cell for myself. Divine inspiration? Perhaps. He locked us up and left us in bright white cells with a single concrete bench – they smelled awful by the way. Most of the people that get locked up are drunken offenders – use your imagination. 

During this time we were both quite nervous about what would happen but I also knew that they hadn’t told us that we were officially arrested and why. The U.S. constitution is supposed to protect people who aren’t read their rights or told why they were arrested and given a phone call ect. But I was unsure if this applied because when joining the military you give up civilian rights and no longer fall under constitutional laws. You fall under military law, which is much more stringent and contains less inherent rights. 

About fifteen minutes later the same police sergeant walked through the door, saw my friend who was directly in front of him in the cell facing the door, and ordered him to stand at attention while yelling at him for a solid ten minutes. He droned on in a loud voice about how irresponsible it was to send someone running around the flightline for no reason, about how the cops are tired of arresting stupid people who refuse to distinguish between different colors on the ground, and how we were in deep shit for having caused all of this. 

I listened to his tirade from the anonymity of my adjoining cell. After venting all of his frustration upon my colleague and friend, he left. It’s almost as if he didn’t know I existed, almost as if I were ‘out of site, out of mind.’ We were left for at least an hour and a half – *prison fact, time moves slowly when you’re ‘serving time.’* Now I’m not saying I’m a hardened criminal or anything, but I’ve ‘heard stuff.’ Hah.

He let us out eventually and told us that he held us as reprisal for wasting their time. He got to let off some steam by yelling at us (well, one of us) and leaving us there to worry for a few hours which would serve teach us a small lesson (allegedly).

On a side note, I had to deep clean my uniform to remove the smell. So fair enough, well played good sir. 

Resolution

We were eventually reunited with the felon who caused this entire incident (I still maintain my innocence), he just looked extremely relieved to see us. He told us how when he was arrested they forced him on the ground and ‘felt him up’ which made him feel ‘very uncomfortable.’ They just patted him down for weapons before throwing on hand cuffs.

I don’t feel unsympathetic about the situation, but you have to have known the guy to understand how melodramatic he was about everything. He was the precursor to an overly sensitive woke millennial. 

When we returned to the office and reported to our supervisor, we were called into the commander’s office and were told to stand at attention while I had to listen for a second time that night about how doing these kinds of pranks wouldn’t be tolerated.  Apparently our commander was really annoyed and preferred to give us a slap on the wrist and move on, but the military police officer (not the sergeant that locked us up) was pushing for a serious punishment to really prove a point. He wanted us to both receive a formal reprimand which would be on our official records and seriously harm our chances at promotion.

Now, despite my earlier misgivings about being unsure about the legality of how we were locked up, I started to feel very confident that the cops had illegally held us. I was pretty relaxed about the sergeant getting us back for causing the whole incident but now my career was being threatend.

I managed to keep a smug tone out of my voice (but not the mischievous twinkle in my eyes if you know me well enough to spot it) when I told our supervisors how the police hadn’t read us any rights or told us why we had been held for almost two hours without being able to contact anyone. About how, if they decided to escalate this situation, that I would need to get a military lawyer involved.

There are certain moments in life that just feel good. That was one of them. 

My leadership was really pissed at us for causing this debacle, but they now had ammo to throw back at the military police officer. Needless to say it was all swept under the carpet within a day and we escaped with no punishment because ‘officially’ nothing happened. Innocent until proven guilty is fine with me.

Next Chapter – S. Korea

I really enjoyed my time in Japan, and after two years I left with top marks on all of my military performance reviews. A very fair assessment if I say so myself. 

I was headed off to a remote military base in S. Korea for a year long tour where I’d end up being drug tested almost every month because I refused to spend the weekends on base drinking myself into oblivion like a good little Airmen. I preferred going out rock climbing and practicing yoga in nature with international friends.

I didn’t understand at the time the link between rock climbers and weed. In all fairness, it’s a strong link.

No, I never did partake back then, but that’s another story.