My Military History

I am about five days from shipping out. I'm in the plush Ayres Hotel in Moreno Valley, Ca. by myself, my family is back in Arizona but are coming out friday to spend the last weekend with me. I have an incredible amount of downtime at the moment, so I'm starting this a little early, I may go do the loser-thing and see a movie by self, maybe Tron Legacy hahaha. But as I was doing my 40 minute jog I began to think about my military career. Funny to think of it as a career but the military has pretty much been a part of all my adult life. How did i get to this point, where at the age of 43, an age most people swap war stories and are long gone from the life, I am about to get deployed to the second most dangerous region on the planet? Well it all started......

....It all started in 1985, I was a senior in high school, not sure what the heck I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to join the air force ROTC to fly, but my grades weren't good enough. I wanted to go to college, but my dad did not have the money, but what I did know was I wanted to get out of Flagstaff. I was giving my buddy a ride when he said, "stop by my Navy recruiter, I want to drop something off." No problem, then he asked to meet him, I said no thanks. Of course he convinced me to do it, and my life was never the same. Those guys are the best salesman, with an array of diagrams, drawings, symbols, and well-placed key-words, I was soon hooked. I signed up to be a Nuclear engineer but then did something stupid, acquiring a criminal ticket, a misdemeanor, but enough to make the Navy say I was no longer eligible for their program. I was offered a few other jobs but they all seemed lame. They offered me a chance to get into a program where I could sign up for an on-the-job training with a skill I found interesting when I reported onboard my ship. The fine print was I would have to serve as a "deck-ape" for 1 1/2 to 2 years before I would get the opportunity. I took it, I blew a golden opportunity but had to make the most out of it. The decision to make the mistake I did changed the entire course of my life. Who knows what my life would've turned out like, I do know the nuclear program was an incredible opportunity. But if I did it I would've never met my wife and had my beautufull daughter, I wouldn't trade those two for any experience in the world.
The Navy was a lot of bad-timing/bad-luck. They stationed me on a ship that did not have the phalanx weapon system, capable of taking out missiles. No phalanx, no gulf travel, no westpacs, and no travelling to exotic places to see. All I could look forward to were trips up and down the west coast. Being a deck-ape was terrible work, we were the janitorial/maintnence version of the navy. We painted, painted, painted, primed, chipped off old paint, eliminate rust from metal, cleaned, sweep, cleaned some more, lifted, moved around, did I say paint? When we were out to see, on top of the work we spent up to 12 hrs per day on lookout watches, searching for ships or other masses that our ship needed to be aware of. We were subjected to incredibly harsh weather at times, I learned a whole new meaning of cold. I was incredibly determined to get the heck out of there. It involved having to do several thick correspondance courses and passing the ensuing tests. I decided to "strike" into being an operations specialist, or "OS". I saw it often in the movie Top Gun, the guys on the radar consiles in combat information center. A lot of technology, alot of excitement. I struck into OS in 14 months, one of the fastest times any deck-ape was ever able to get out of deck division on board the U.S.S. Duncan. Some guys just gave up, the extensive course work proving too much, and just stayed in deck, knowing that when they reached E-4 all they would be doing is bossing younger sailors around. OS soon turned out to be not what I expected. The excitement was few and far between, most of the time I would look at a blank radar screen, trying to stay awake. People didn't believe in second-hand smoke back then, and CIC often looked like a toxic wasteland. When we were in port, it was pretty kickback. Overall it was much better then Deck, but it was a job that would require me to be on a ship most of my career, so I didn't want to go that route. You didn't get to play around with the more high tech equipment until you got higher rank, and I was only an E-4 at the time. Getting higher rank would mean having to re-enlist, something I had no desire doing. For the record, I got to see Ensenada, San diego, San Francisco twice, Portland, Seattle three times, Port Angeles Washington, Victoria Canada,Van Couver Canada three times, Adak Alaska, Japan, Korea, and Hawaii twice. Even at a young age, I made it a point to go see the sights besides the watering hole or night clubs. The only one I didn't was Korea, I know I had fun, I just don't remember too many details, very fuzzy! hahaha. I got to go back there later and saw a lot of the sights it had to offer. Overall I met friends of a lifetime, a lot of learning, a lot of work, and a little fun in-between.
When I got out, I still had three years of reserve duty on my contract. I had moved back to Flagstaff with an eventual plan to move to San Diego to attend college. I didn't know how I was going to do my reserve time with the Navy being in Flagstaff-no water!! A buddy of mine told me about the Army National Guard, there was a unit 10 miles from town. I hooked up with a recruiter and he told me I could be a truck driver, ammo specialist or administration specialist. I chose admin, not like it seemed like a great job. I didn't really care, I just wanted to be done with the reserves and put the military behind me forever. It's sad and kindof funny,but I rarely ever remember actually doing my job. It was a joke, a lot of sitting around, a lot of doing other mobilization requirements like M-16 firing/shoot I don't even remember the requirements. Just stupid busy work, a few field excercises which were sometimes cool. It was just a paycheck and a chance to see a few friends. Two opportunities however, stood out, Japan and Germany.
I signed up for the Japan trip in the spring of 92, it was perfect timing, being that I was waiting to get my hair-cutting license to cut hair, I had six weeks to kill. I worked at the post office at the army Base Camp Zama. It was one of the greatest times of my life, to be young, have money, and a lot of free time in Tokyo, one of the biggest cities in the world!
15 months later I went to Germany for three weeks. We were in Kaiserslautern near Ramstein Air Force base. Another vacation pretty much, the unit we were tasked with was not prepared to integrate us into their work schedule. I pretty much did 30 minutes of work per day and read a lot of books. It was a blast, many interesting, quirky adventures but was dampened by a severe lack of finances to really enjoy to the fullest. Germany proved to be a very history-filled, beautiful country.
I got out of the National guard in 1997 because I couldn't get promoted and after Germany, the only places we went to were Fort Huachaca and Flagstaff. Part of the problem with the promotion thingswas I had a six month break in service and a 1 year break in service, I really wish now I would not have done that. Around 2000 I started getting serious about finally completing a degree so I needed some school money. I thought, "I've been in two branches, lets make it three." Thats the beauty once you've been in one branch of service, it's fairly easy to switch around, just signing a bunch of papers. So in the fall I joined the Air Force Reserve. They offered me some real cool jobs, but they all required to attend their schools, which were from 2-10 months. I was cutting hair and had lost my clientelle before, I was not going to go through that garbage of building over because I was gone to a school for months. They had a two week school for a job called Transportation. It had to do with passenger/cargo processing. They joked it was half Southwest/half UPS. It could almost be considered the"deckapes" of the air force. Whatever, it was a check, college money, and the best chance to travel out of all the jobs.
I really wish I considered the Air Force earlier in my career, I would have definitely joined. I would have gone active duty and even did 20 yrs and retired. the facilities are better, the work is easier, and you actually learn how to do a job and how to progress in it. There has been a few bumps along the way, far from perfect, such as I was in Cargo section my first 2 1/2 years and it was fairly boring, and later on I had some issues with a certain supervisor and a certain support staff member that got in the way with my tech sergeant promotion, which then caused me to temporarily withdraw from caring about my job and work on college work during reserve weekends. I finally was promoted to Tech Sergeant in the fall of 2007 and it's been great ever since. I have received a ton of money for college, it has supplemented my limited teachers salary quite nicely, and I have been able to go to Atlanta, San Antonio, Alaska, San Francisco several times, Virginia, Guam, Japan, and Korea twice. I have no complaints but now, unfortunately, I have to pay back to my country the many benefits I have received. This is where I am at, and where I'm going to be soon is at Sather AB in Bagdad Iraq as a night shift supervisior until June. I will be in charge of about 8 people, that I am not afraid of. I have been a supervisor before, a leader many times as a crew leader, teacher, and football coach. I am not a total guru at the job, but it is a job that doesn't require much intellect. I am very detailed oriented and computer savvy so that'll help. I am naturally afraid of being in a place where people want to kill you, even if the majority of the population does not. You will get the opportunity to experience a little of where I'm going to be soon. VERY SOON