by Daniel W. Holst
My fork did not require any effort to pierce that first chunk of dry, processed, and granulated meat that I had just sliced from a much larger slab. Once in my mouth, my gag reflex fought against my will to restrain it. Then I mustered the force to swallow the meat that tasted like the muddy dirt dug from a dog park seasoned with years-old dust bunnies found behind a couch. At that moment in the dining facility, I realized I was no longer in control of my life, which was ironic considering the day prior I had accepted the epiphany that my life was now my responsibility.
It all began on February 13, 1986, in LeClaire, Iowa. That morning, like all previous seven thousand odd mornings, I woke up in the only home I had ever known. Good things never end; they only change. That was the last time the house was ever my only home. My grandparents arrived, and along with my younger sister, my parents drove us to the Greyhound bus terminal in nearby Davenport. After long hugs, goodbyes, and a few tears by my family, I boarded a bus to the Iowa capital of Des Moines. Years, later, my younger sister told me that she cried that day, “I lost my brother; I lost my brother.”
After the bus departed from the terminal, an unfamiliar realization arose from deep within me. I had always relied upon my dad and mom, not to mention my sisters, grandparents, and a most loving extended family. Now it was just me, and scary. I had to take charge of my life, but I didn’t know if I could trust myself with such a responsibility. I had no choice, and burgeoning tears unleashed a quiet weeping.
I calmed down some time after that catharsis but struggled with my new reality. I had time to think. A friend’s father told me he hated each day he served in the Air Force and separated as soon as he could. I hoped that wouldn’t be my fate. Would I find new friends? What would be my job? I scored in the mid-90s in each of my ASVAB tests, so I hoped for something exciting. I even thought about the possibility of dying during my service or winning the Medal of Honor.
Looking back, those were serious thoughts for a nineteen-year-old kid. Thankfully I found an exciting job maintaining the avionics aboard the F-15 Eagle and Strike Eagle fighter aircraft. Friends came and went, and now all have moved on. Over the years, I met several Airmen who hated their service, but they were an exception to the many awesome people I served alongside. I don’t ever remember a time I hated the Air Force, although many hard and difficult days often pushed me close to that edge.
Honest reflection is important to me. The battle to maintain the hope and excitement I once had is vital to moving forward through the depression and PTSD anxiety that I, and many veterans, continue to fight. I think back to what happened in the hotel I stayed at during my last night as a civilian.
I’d loved to recall tales of girls and sex in an alcohol-laced party sending me off to war. That didn’t happen, at least to me. I met two other guys also enlisting. We shared a carefree evening full of confidence and high expectations. I remember feeling happy and joyful. Perhaps even proud. We discussed many topics from girls—there were a few at the hotel pool—to beginning our lives on our own, everything young, 18–19-year-old, guys talk about. But mostly girls. I went to bed alone, but happy.
Valentine’s Day arrived. I woke up feeling dirty. My acne had broken out and my face felt greasy. Showering didn’t help. Was it my acne or had some insecurity manifested itself physically? Either way, I was scared, again. I don’t recall seeing my two buddies from the previous night. I boarded the bus and arrived at the Military Entrance Processing Station, commonly referred to as MEPS. After stowing my gear as instructed, I became lost. My insecurity must have deafened further instruction, and I began wandering the halls of MEPS. I passed by rooms full of enlistees but didn’t know if they were there for enlistment or getting their full physical like I had months earlier, so I stayed in the hallway.
I paced the halls and returned to the offices where staff sergeants and lieutenants worked. The more I wandered, the more those hallways closed me in. I feared missing my enlistment and getting into fierce trouble. I attempted every branch of hallway hoping to find where I belonged but failed. Finally, a kind lieutenant glanced out his window and saw my desperation. He guided me to where I belonged, one of those rooms with enlistees that I had passed multiple times.
I joined my group, late, but not too late. I completed some paperwork and physical examinations. One such examination, the depth perception test, left me more uneasy. I looked through a scope to see several sets of three vertical bars. I was supposed to identify the left or right bar that was either further back or further front of the center bar. But I identified the bar that was further left or further right from the center bar. Just one of many times, I misinterpreted instructions. Not exactly the auspicious beginning I had hoped for.
We were ushered into another room just big enough for two U.S. flags to frame a small podium and space for about five rows of five to six people each. A few girls joined our formation, then an officer warned us. He was emphatic that once the oath was given, we were military. Similar to the “does anyone object” sequence of a wedding ceremony. He waited one final moment for anyone to back out, but none did. Regardless of my earlier insecurity, I—we—stood proud, and the officer swore us into our respective military branch. This was before the oath offered the choice between “swear” or “affirm,” so we all swore to defend the Constitution of the United States. Perhaps it was, in its own twisted way, a wedding. Unfortunately for the some who gave all, it was the oath of ‘til death do us part. I never served with anybody who died in the line of service, but I had heard stories.
I’d be lying if I believed that my service would never take my life. At times during the Cold War, Kosovo, Operation Southern Watch, and other War on Terror deployments, I felt like I would die there, never to return home. I accepted the possibility of “this is it” when under attack or suffering premonitions from similar situations.
One such fearful time happened in Italy. That wonderful country was not normally a hostile deployment, except in 1999. The Marine pilots who, in 1998, flew under and severed a ski lift cable in Cavalese in the Italian Alps, killing forty-two people, were just acquitted in March 1999. Combined with attacks on Kosovo from Italian bases, anti-American sentiment was extreme. Angry Italians violently protested and hurled Molotov cocktails against the gates at Aviano air base. We had to traverse this volatile environment every day for a few weeks until the Carabinieri controlled the roadways.
Premonitions of something wrong elicited thoughts of unease and uncertainty. Similar thoughts preoccupied my mind from MEPS to basic training.
After meetings to select possible jobs and administrative requirements, I was bused to the Des Moines airport. My flights on American Airlines to San Antonio with layover in Dallas were my first. Like any first, my experience of flying was strange, distasteful, and almost fearful, but also full of wonder, surprise, and glory. We always remember our first. I wondered at the feeling of acceleration and speed of travel aboard that airplane. I also remember sleeping on the airport floor with other Airmen traveling to basic training. But considering my experience at MEPS, I feared missing my flight and then facing all the marvelously horrific ramifications. So I rested with one eye open on my fellow travelers. When we arrived, I was tired.
It was late at night when the bus passed the gates of Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX, and arrived at my assigned squadron. A contingent of sharply dressed military training instructors (MTIs) in their light blue shirts and darker pants, wearing perfectly round flat-brimmed instructor hats that sat tight on tightly shaved heads, welcomed us with curses and yelling. They called our names, and I was put into a formation of four columns of about ten men each. That was the easy part. Then this group of tired, unkempt, and scruffy kids had to march as if we knew how to march.
“Left, left . . . left, right, left.” Anyone who mis-stepped was immediately cursed at. Turning in formation was much more difficult and where it all fell apart. The inside column turned immediately; the next column marched forward a few steps while the inside column marched in place. The outer two columns marched further forward and wherever you were in the inside columns, there was some marching in place while the outer columns caught up.
An MTI or two guided each column, not with helpful compassionate instruction, but with angry, incessantly vulgar demands, expecting perfection when perfection hadn’t yet been practiced. Columns broke apart. I was bumped by others while I dodged those in my way. Feet were stepped on. The only perfect performance was the MTIs constant demand of military precision.
Looking back, that scene was ludicrous, but then it was necessary. It was a tactic both to tear us down and to build us up later when we could perform it perfectly. The start of basic seemed chaotic, but everything that occurred that night was intelligently designed. I didn’t know that then; I was tired.
All I wanted was to get to my head-on-pillow that first night. But these tactics hadn’t yet ended. It would be some time before I could rest. Every tactic unleashed was meaningful to me. I remember them vividly, particularly now that I can put meaning into them, even that arrival in darkness.
Darkness is the unknown, a prison, but most importantly, a transition. It is a birthing. As trainees, we were cleaved from the womb of civilian life to our new military life. For the next six weeks military training instructors became the midwives for our journey from child to veteran. With mouths agape in shouts and fury, the MTIs taught us how to stand and walk, be silent and respond properly, how to eat, even how to sleep, bathe, and shave.
Our cadence led us to the dining facility. I stood in line quietly, for talking was quickly cursed and extinguished. Kitchen crew slopped food onto my plate, which I quietly placed on my tray. I grabbed a glass and filled it with water, gathered utensils and napkins and walked quietly to a four-person table. The first to arrive stood silently, eyes forward, behind a chair and held their tray. The second to arrive stood behind the next chair. We waited until the fourth finally came, and only then did we place our trays down, pull out our chairs, and eat in silence. But this meal was different.
The strategy for the first evening was coming to a close, and this meal was on its menu. It wasn’t just meant to feed us. The day’s events had laid the groundwork for breaking our resolve, and this meal was terrible. While the potatoes and veggies were barely edible, the meat was dog-park dirt and old dust bunnies. I could only eat the tiniest portion at one time. I had to empty my plate. We all looked at each other, and through glances, we knew. Not that we could say anything, for speaking was forbidden. Each bite further broke our resolve.
Once our meal was finished, we were led to another line to gather bed linen then to our dormitory and more yelling ensued to instruct us of some basics that would help us as we moved forward in the weeks to come, such as using only one of the six toilet stalls and only one of the several urinals. It’s easier to clean the one opposed to all of them. More yelling and instruction ensued to teach us how to make our beds before my head finally met the pillow.
The day had been terrible, full of the unknown, a terror that slowly yet incessantly drove itself deeper, like a splinter, until I was ready to accept help to remove the pain and the new life I had signed up for. Now, I was responsible for me, and that was a beautiful realization.
Growing up we made home-made ice cream on lazy Midwest summer evenings. A cylindrical container of cream spun inside a larger bucket filled with ice and salt. I learned that if the ice wasn’t crushed first, it didn’t work. Without crushing the ice, the salt could not lower its temperature to freeze the cream. It’s the point where the external force fully transforms the inner nature. At basic, I accepted the crushing of my self to make way for my new journey.
I was ice; the MTIs were the crushers and the salt. In the days to come, they called me—all of my flight—“pickles” to crush our previous civilian nature with newly issued fatigues still missing name and US AIR FORCE tapes. We were freshly shaved kids in green fatigues, just pickles, eager to accept a new identity.
I’ve been retired sixteen years and still miss the youth, the excitement, and the anticipation of a new life. This is my struggle. I’ve often been, and wrongly, critical of veterans who constantly look back to relive the old days. My old days were special, but I also want new days.
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Daniel W. Holst is a twenty-six year veteran of the Armed Forces. He retired from the Air Force after twenty-one years and served five more years leading Army inspection teams around the world. He loves to read and write and acquired his Master’s in English Studies in 2018. His battle with depression leads him to find balance by writing and practicing Tae Kwon Do. Of course, this is all contingent on the time afforded to him by computer games such as Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfield, and Anno.
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