CIVILIAN
Think you're tough stuff because you are joining the Air Force and all
the girls will dig you once you learn how to fly a plane in basic training.
AIRMAN
BASIC
You're shaved bald, given a uniform that is two sizes too big, and have
developed a nervous tic from some T.I. screaming at you all day. You don't
think about the girls at home, but you think that female airman at the
snack bar at the Lackland Chapparell is checking you out. You push up
your government-issue glasses and work up the nerve to ask her to dance.
You don't want to learn how to fly a plane. You want to fly on a plane
home.
AIRMAN
You've graduated basic training AND tech school and you are proud to be
in the military. You think all the chicks dig you AND your one stripe
while you are home on leave. You call everyone, "sir," including veterans,
your mother, and that slightly-masculine looking mail lady. You spend
an hour putting your uniform together at night, using a ruler and level
to make sure your one ribbon signifying basic training graduation is centered
perfectly on your uniform, as if the uniform itself didn't already signify
your graduation from basic training. You obsessively check your name tag
in the mirror because when you breathe in a little too much it looks slightly
uneven. You spend your entire pay on dry cleaning with extra heavy starch
and go through a can of Windex and furniture polish each week on your
corofram shoes. You look sharp.
AIRMAN
1ST CLASS
You are a mentor to all those younger troops, and feel it is your duty
to instill pride as you strive to achieve status as senior airman. You
now call your mother, "mom," you make fun of the slightly masculine mail
lady behind her back and call every enlisted person, with the exception
of chief master sergeants, by their first name. Anyone named Jim is an
automatic, "Jimbo." You've been able to stretch the Windex and furniture
polish to last for an entire month, though you haven't used it in your
dorm room because why clean your room? It's not like there are any inspections
or anything.
SENIOR
AIRMAN
Twelve months after putting on this stripe you think everyone should give
you more respect, because had you been in the service 13 years earlier,
you'd be a buck sergeant by now. You've learned that laying a towel on
the floor is not a good way to iron your shirt, so you buy an ironing
board on you AAFES DPP/Star card, and you think it's a good deal because
you only have to pay $3 a month on it for the next five years - just 30
years less than it will take you to pay off the Hyundai you bought from
the unscrupulous car dealer outside the base when you were a one-striped
airman trying to impress the girls with your stripe AND new car. This
makes no difference because you sold the car for $1,000 before you PCS'd
to Korea two years earlier, and you haven't seen it since.
STAFF
SERGEANT
You realize you need to set an example, so you take your uniforms to the
cleaners once every couple of weeks, then iron it the rest of the time
until it no longer maintains a natural crease. You can't remember which
pants material is authorized because it has changed so often so you just
wear anything blue in your closet and hope no one notices. No one does
notice because they are equally as confused, except maybe the new Airman
in your office
TECHNICAL
SERGEANT
You really should clean off that coffee stain you spilled on your shirt
earlier in the day, but it can wait until you e-mail all your buddies
from your previous six assignments. Those pants are a little snug. Better
cut down to only one box of Girl Scout cookies a night. You grumble with
other NCOs about all these uppity Airmen First Class walking around calling
everybody, "Jimbo." Your can of Windex and furniture polish lasts a good
year unless the kids are spraying it around the house to make it smell
lemony.
MASTER
SERGEANT
Thank goodness you can wear shoulder boards now. No one notices you forgot
how to crease your sleeves and you're tired of paying the AAFES dry cleaner
to do it because it always comes back with double creases, and who needs
that headache? Bitter that your colleagues in the other services make
E-7 within six months of graduating basic training, you obsessively go
over how many days you have until retirement, making sure your figures
haven't changed much since you first start calculating that as a Technical
Sergeant. Good thing AAFES makes those uniform belts with the stretchy
material.
SENIOR
MASTER SERGEANT
You spend your latest pay raise to pay off the Hyundai a couple years
ahead of schedule AND to buy some new uniforms, but refuse to go up in
size as a matter of pride. You take the shirt out of its plastic wrap,
give it a couple good shakes and are impressed with the fact that it sort
of looks like a couple sharp creases from a distance.
CHIEF
MASTER SERGEANT
You walk around all day because it looks good for a Chief to mingle, and
it might help you to pass the yearly bike test. You tend to wear BDUs
more often these days. You are a warrior, after all, and they do have
a slimming effect. As a bonus, you can't even detect the coffee stains.
You put off those retirement plans because suddenly you get more respect
than a four-star general, and you figure this gig ain't so bad after all.
You go through a can of furniture polish each week shining all the wooden
busts of Indian chief heads that you have decorating your office and house.
RETIRED
Now you walk around wondering why nobody pays any attention to you when
you used to be so important. You refer to anyone below the rank of Tech
Sergeant as "kid". It takes months to get an appointment with a doctor
for all those so called service related ailments you sustained but are
really just old age. You don't worry about the shine on your shoes because
you haven't been able to see them since you retired. The only crease you
have is the horizontal one created by your gut hanging over a belt that's
kept too tight. On the good side you get to hear airmen who weren't even
sperm cells when you joined up tell you how you just don't understand
what it's like to be in the military today.
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