I counted on you and you let me down. You embarrassed me.
Note: This is an excerpt from my upcoming book, “The Adventures of an Air Force Medic.” The story is fiction but based on my two years as a medic at Mather Air Force Base in northern California back in the early eighties.
Picture: That’s my basic training photo. Lackland AFB, San Antonio Texas, Nov 1981.
Our hospital dorm room came equipped with a metal waste paper basket. It’s a critical dorm room inspection item. Here’s how it works, if there’s anything in the waste paper basket during an inspection, you flunk; pretty simple rule, easy to understand. So, I had an approach to handling this dormitory living fact-of-life, keep the waste paper basket empty virtually all the time.
Now, from time to time I’d throw paper into the basket but I’d empty it almost immediately. So, the waste paper basket essentially served as a decoration, not to be used, just there so the air force could say, ‘every dorm room comes with a waste paper basket.’ Maybe the air force has to provide a waste paper basket, but that doesn’t mean they have to let you use it.
I first learned about this amazing air force concept at basic training. It works this way, the air force may be under some obligation to provide something, but they’re under no obligation to let you have it or use it. Our training instructor Technical Sergeant (TSgt) Vogel taught us the lesson one day at the chow hall.
I’ll let you hear the story from the TSgt Vogel himself, “OK ladies (there were no women present), I got to get you to the gun range in twenty minutes. If we eat chow, we won’t make it in time. So, let me tell you how it is. The regulation says I have to take you to the chow hall for the midday meal. But, it doesn’t say anything about letting you eat. So, here’s what you’re going to do. I want you to march into the chow hall and walk through the line. You’ll go to the serving area but don’t none of you touch a tray, don’t none of you get any food, don’t none of you sit down. You walk into the chow hall then you walk out of the chow hall and then you form up right back here. I want you back here formed up in the time it takes you to walk in and walk out. You ain’t back here all formed up in five minutes then we’ll do it again for evening chow. So, you do it right, you miss a meal, you do it wrong, you miss two meals. Got it? Now march.”
That evening back at the barracks we laughed and laughed about it. I don’t ever remember being hungry at basic training, they fed us well. But, I do remember the chow hall being an extremely stressful place. It’s a python pit of crazy Training Instructors (TIs) looking to harass and belittle air force recruits. They’d single out recruits for public humiliation. The unlucky recruit marches to the podium and stands at attention. The TI behind the podium launches into a demented, crazed, abuse shouting diatribe directed at the singled out, attention standing, knee trembling recruit.
Getting called to the podium didn’t require much of a transgression. For instance, looking sideways in the chow line would do it. Or, forgetting to salute in the mirror as you enter the chow line is another way to attract the TI’s attention and get a public take-down tongue lashing.
Bottom line, the basic training chow hall is a stressful place. Therefore, when TSgt Vogel made us skip lunch, it saved us from the python pit, gave us a break from harassing chow hall TIs. Therefore, TSgt Vogel’s punishment – missing lunch – had a silver lining.
And, that’s where I learned the lesson, the air force can giveth, and the air force can taketh away …
Now, I learned the lesson again. This time, instead of lunch, the learning tool involved the humble waste paper basket.
One afternoon, I headed out of the room dressed in my hospital ‘whites’ as usual and noticed a piece of paper on my desk. I’d left my pencil marked math homework scratch sheet lying out and decided to grab it and throw it away. I picked up the scratch paper and crumpled it into a small ball. I walked to the door, stopped, looked down at the empty waste paper basket and had a short discussion with myself, ‘Hey, I could toss this paper into the empty waste paper basket. It’s two in the afternoon, I start work at three, there’s no dorm inspection today, it’s only one little piece of paper, it’s late in the afternoon, nobody’s coming by, it’s all good, I can just toss it in the can and I’ll empty it when I come back from work this evening, I got this covered.’ As soon as my delusional self-talk ended, I had an out of body experience as I watched myself drop the crinkled ball of paper into the pristine, clean, right-off-the-showroom-floor, never been used, waste paper basket. I stared at the lonely and sad piece of paper as it looked back at me with a message as follows: ‘You’ll pay for this. You know better than to leave me here. This will be your undoing.’ I laughed, I knew better, ‘I got this. No way Mr. Crinkled-Up-Paper, no way you can hurt me.’
The next day …
“Sean, what did you do this time, the first shirt called and he wants to see you in his office,” yelled Elen so everyone on the ward could hear it.
I replied, “No idea.”
“Well, get your ass down there. You know it ain’t good. I told you to keep your nose clean, you’re making me look bad,” Elen complained.
I entered Master Sergeant (MSgt) Thompson’s office and he launched, “I counted on you and you let me down. You embarrassed me. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my entire air force career. I figured if I could count on anyone in the dorm, it’s you. But I guess I was wrong. And, I picked a bad day to be wrong.”
My shoulders drooped, I felt despondent. The worst part is I couldn’t figure out what I could have done to cause the first shirt such pain. What did I do? I had no idea. I soon found out.
“We had a general visit the base yesterday. He wanted to see the dorm. He wanted to check out one of the rooms. I picked yours. Your room is always inspection ready. I figured I couldn’t miss. But instead I got embarrassed, right in front of the general. My day to shine and you ruin it. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
“Just one question, what was wrong with the room?”
“Why wasn’t your waste paper basket empty? Why did you have garbage in it? You know it’s supposed to be empty and yet you had trash in it, why?”
“Sorry Sergeant Thompson, I made a mistake. I won’t do that again.”
“You better not. I expect more from you. I expect that from some of the other folks, but not from you. You let me down, don’t ever do it again.”
I gambled with the ‘waste paper basket Gods’ and lost. I thought I could get away with it. No way. I learned my lesson. To this day I won’t put trash in an empty waste paper basket.
