Instead, the only difference between Air Force basic training and Boy Scout summer camp was that the Boy Scouts had adult supervision. Instead of becoming the airborne commando trained to fight and die for my country, I discovered a world of petty bureaucracy, silly regulations, blind eyes, and pencil whipping. Even worse, I wasn't very good at it. I would have quit too, except the Air Force was my final hope. I had no place else to go, no skills to find a job, no money to go to college, nothing back in Maine except long winters and admitting I had failed.
Tough times make tough people.
While I wish I could share war stories about how, armed only with a rusty pocket knife, I won undying glory against impossible odds by sheer force of right, I can confess only to spending six years doing hard, unglamorous work for low pay under sometimes appalling weather conditions. Yet I treasure my time in the Air Force because it was a tempering process. The Air Force, through the grace of God, helped transform a lazy, insolent, self-oriented young punk into a responsible citizen. Yeah, it was tough, and humbling, and much better to remember than it was to live. But it was necessary.