AboutJames Bell Expertise I am a retired MSgt (2004) with 24 years experience in the aircrew career field, both as a loadmaster (AFSC 1A2x1) and flight engineer (AFSC 1A1x1). I have been to every continent at one time or another, and regularly flew 300 to 500 hours a year. I have been involved in the operations in Grenada, Panama, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. I can answer most questions you may have about enlisted Air Force life in general, assignments, benefits, and enlisted aircrew operations.
NOTE: If you have specific recruiting and/or medical questions about how to get into this career field as a civilian, they have changed since my time, so that is best answered by a recruiter or MEPS. I can answer questions about military personnel wanting to RETRAIN. If you are asking about being an Air Force pilot, please be advised my area of expertise is ENLISTED aircrew operations, NOT OFFICERS.
Experience Loadmaster (AFSC 1A2x1): 7 years - 2,000 hours - C-5A Galaxy cargo plane. Flight Engineer (AFSC 1A1x1C): 7 years - 2,500 hours - C-141B Starlifter cargo plane, 10 years - 3,800 hours - KC-10A Extender aerial tanker. Served as aircrew Flight Instructor, Flight Evaluator and Training Manager
I am a retired aircrewmember with 4500 flying hours in 24 years. I have noticed how slowly civilians process input out here in society. Driving, social interaction, problem solving, job performance, behavior at the airport, concert, etc.
Inclement weather conditions...hurricanes and other unusual related activity. You probably get my drift. What is your observation about this peculiarity and how did you adjust from the rigors and discipline of flight rules and checklists to the almost non-chalant and carefree lifestyle out here? Maybe I should get some therapy...just kidding. I think I know what your answer will be....I guess I am looking for validation.
Thanks
Answer Rikki -
I will state right off the bat that I switched this from a "private" letter to the public forum. I don't think there is any personal information that would be a problem, but I think this topic is something that would really be beneficial to those who are recently separated or retired that are having the same feelings.
I had a large adjustment to make when I "transitioned" to the civilian side of life. Just like you, I had a very structured, regulated life for 24-years. Now, it seemed that the only structure and regulation deals with various local and state laws that are impossible to locate when you need them.
Having moved from one military housing to another, I grew to expect certain things: The house had been inspected for general cleanliness, and that CE would bring the house up to certain requirements before I moved in: Paint, yard, appliances, bathrooms, fixtures, etc. It may have not always been the most stylish, but it was always serviceable and ready for us to move in. If we had problems, we called CE (or whatever contract agency had taken over those duties).
Now my wife and I purchase our first house. We fork out a lot of money to do so, incurring a 30-year mortgage in the process. There are dead mice in the crawlspace. There is flood damage that soon becomes evident (that was declared NOT to exist). The carpeting had dried dog piss hiding in the padding in just about every square foot. I have cats ... how long do you think it was before they started their own pissing to lay claim to the area as their own? Not long.
Then there was the nicotine all over the walls and every surface of the house. As my wife scrubbed the walls down with cleaner, they literally bled and dripped a nasty brown color.
We have a fireplace that was nowhere near code: It had an unserviceable insert, the chimney had not been cleaned in years, it had cracks in the fire brick. There were GALLONS of years-old paint left in cabinets. I called the previous owner and told him to remove them. He got pissed off at me, thinking he was doing me a favor by leaving the original colors so I could touch-up if needed. I told him that pale yellow and egg-shell white were NOT going to be my two choices when repainting.
He left six gallons of sulfuric acid in the crawlspace ... used as a pH adjuster for the inground pool. The pool was another disaster: We closed and took possession of the house in February ... the pool was still "closed" for the season. It wasn't until mid-April that we pulled back the cover and saw what a mess he had left us. In case you are wondering ... YES, we did have our Realtor provide a house inspection. We found out a few years later that the people we got the house from were flippers. Boy do they know the tricks to paint over, hide and cover defects so it looks good to an inspector. The house seemed like a good investment (and it is) ... a place we can grown old and see our grand children playing in the large back yard and swimming pool. Our son just turned 21 and has no interest in kids at the time ... we just hope we can get the house into a descent shape before he does have kids. We know the house has good potential, it's just turning into more of a fixer-upper than we expected.
There isn't a single room in the house that hasn't had a major makeover. At every turn, our neighbors (who are really good ... save one man on our left) tell us "You're gonna need a permit for that." In the military, if you want guidance, you turn to the regulations. They are organized so you can find what you need and, other than being very dry reading, you can usually find a good explanation for everything you need. But, if you need a permit to install a furnace, replace a kitchen, pull out an old fireplace insert, you first need to find out what days are trash pickup for things like that, what permits are needed, who to go to for fire inspections, etc. Most civilian towns have no central "regulations" place where you can find out this stuff. You have to start making phone calls and hope that the one "expert" you find is actually steering you in the right direction.
All of this ... long as it is ... has only touched upon one aspect of life: Our house. There is so much more. Like me, you are probably used to your neighbors being from a variety of walks of life, from all the far reaches of the country if not internationally. I've had neighbors from just about all 50 states, and most were married in the military, meaning they met their spouse in another state, and he/she was from yet another part of the country. In all my years, I only had ONE set of neighbors who were high school sweethearts that knew each other before the military. My wife and I are like the majority of everyone else. I was born in California (a military brat myself), moved to many states before I settled in Texas. I still consider that my "home state". I was in California again when I met my wife. She had been born in Tennessee and raised in California. We now live in Pennsylvania because I spent the last 10 years stationed in New Jersey. We couldn't stand that state but there was nothing left for us in Texas or California, so we just stayed local.
Another thing about your military neighbors: Everyone spoke a similar language ... that of the military. It often takes many years for our spouses to learn all the lingo, but soon everyone knows about PCS's, TDY's, deployments, CBPO (now MPF), WAPS, PFE, SKT, tech schools, tech orders, AFI's ... the list goes on and on. From wherever we came from, we still speak the same language. It is often difficult to relate to our civilian neighbors (most of whom could never even consider meeting military weight limits) because I have to translate military aviation terms to someone whose only experience with airplanes is seeing them fly overhead.
You and I, as members of the military flying community, are the enforcement arm of International Policy for the United States. When our nation decides to take action in any part of the world as a result of terrorism, international diplomacy, or responding to a natural disaster, we are the ones our nation calls upon. Given that, you and I are keenly aware of what the implications are when we see a story on the national news about troops going to the Middle East, or the impact of nuclear testing in North Korea or Iran. For the majority of my neighbors, it doesn't touch home unless there is the name of a local kid who was killed in Afghanistan or Iraq.
When I hear of a mid-ocean earthquake that starts a tsunami and wipes out coastal populations, I know that very shortly there will be reports of aide being flown in by military aircraft. Those are the crew members that I still consider comrades ... I still know many of them. But to my neighbors, they are just words and pictures on the television, no more real than the fantasies they see at the movies of space ships and aliens. Their lives aren't directly touched by international events, so there is little interest to pay any attention to them. For 24-years, I could directly relate what was going on in my life with at least one of the five top stories on CNN: Terrorism, earthquake, hurricane, tsunami, you name it ... I was doing it. I can't tell you how many times the phone rang hours after an earthquake that I was put on alert to start moving supplies, or moving airplanes in preparation for a hurricane about the hit somewhere. I was stationed just up the road when the Loma Prietta earthquake struck the Bay Area in October of 1989. My wife experienced it ... as always, I was TDY at the time.
As a crew member, you know that failure to react in an emergency could quickly result, not only in your death, but those of everyone else on your aircraft. Your brain has been trained to think ahead and consider different outcomes to any solution. You have a slightly different view of things. Even driving down the road, you see a young kid whipping in and out of traffic, and your mind is already playing the "what if" game: What if he side-swipes another car and they both crash? What if he hits his brakes and you are driving right up his tailpipe? What if there are injuries? Do you know where your exact position is if you need to call 911? Can I reach the fire extinguisher in the trunk fast enough if there is a fire? Can I get people out of their smashed car if need be? All those things are trained into us ... planning ahead, thinking several steps into the future, weighing the outcome and consequences of each course of action.
My wife is still getting used to being a civilian again, and she was never IN the military. She is often hesitant to make permanent changes in our house knowing she would have to "return it to its original condition" upon our departure. She knows the house is ours -- for the rest of our lives -- to do with as we please, but still holds on to that original faucet or toilet seat, just in case we need to use it again.
Validation, you ask: OH YEAH!! You have lots of validation. I think that's why the local VFW has so many members ... it's a place where you can go to chat with someone who speaks the same language, shares the same experiences, has a different outlook on things like patriotism, discipline and how things work in the world. Although we may have worn different colored uniforms from different services, we still have a unique bond that brings us together. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a room at a gathering and found someone with prior military service. We are instant comrades. Even with different backgrounds, life experiences, professions and goals, we have an instant bond that very few civilians can relate to.
Shortly after 9/11, I drove two hours north of our base and stopped in a shopping center. I was chastised by a lady walking in the parking lot because I didn't have an American flag on my car. I noticed many others did. I directed her attention to the DoD sticker on my windshield. I had already served 20 years and had just reenlisted for what would be the last time. I told her that I wear the American flag on the shoulder of my flight suit EVERY DAY, that my patriotism started long before that fateful September morning, and would continue long after the furvor of that time had died down and the anger of what had been done to our country forgotten by most civilians who had not directly lost a loved one.
I flew the American flag outside my military house and I still have one flying outside my new civilian abode. When it gets worn and tattered, I get a new one. Not one of those stamped silk-screened ones: I get one where the stars are sewn into the canton of blue and the stripes are sewn of individual pieces of red and white. I have a Pennsylvania license plate that shows I participated in Operation Enduring Freedom. That plate bears a medal I was never officially issued, because I retired before Congress adopted its design. Yet I earned it with every day I was away from my wife and son.
When I look back on my career, I wonder if I made the right decision to retire. I could have stayed in another two years ... more if I got promoted. But, the time was right. My son was 15, and I had already missed a great deal of his youth and development. As it is, he still goes to my wife when he has a problem or a question on just about everything. And why wouldn't he? She is the one that was ALWAYS there. She homeschooled him, and has been with him every day of his life. I calculate that I missed almost six years of fifteen. That's 40% ... I missed two of every five days of his life. When I was home, we did father/son things ... but he still went to her for problems. I tried to teach some of his school subjects, but my schedule was never consistent enough to stay in a teaching routine.
Do I miss the military? Yes, definitely. I miss the flying, I miss the camaraderie and belonging to something much larger than just myself. I miss waking up in Germany for breakfast, having lunch in England and dinner in the States. I miss having the entire Pacific Ocean as my back yard. But at the same time, I don't miss saying goodbye to my family for yet another deployment, or spending month after month on end in a tent in 130+ degree weather, knowing that going home wouldn't last too long before I said goodbye yet again. The military changed a LOT after 9/11, and it was time to go. I have moved onto another phase of my life. The military is still with me -- every day -- in my general attitude and how I approach life.
I hope this gives you a little validation ... you aren't crazy, you aren't missing things and you don't have a skewed view of civilians. They just don't have those experiences who made you who you are. There is an adjustment period, and I'm still adjusting myself. I've been out five years and every day brings a new forehead slapping adventure in my new role as a civilian.
