You know, the world has been dealing with a lot of serious stuff lately, so here’s an entry that has no point other than to entertain you.
In Air Force Basic Training, you’re part of a “flight” of anywhere between probably 40-60 people. In my particular flight, we probably had 45-50 guys that all showed up from across America and got thrown together to live in two giant rooms for the duration of Basic Training.
In Basic, we had to travel all over the base on foot. Imagine mass-processing people off the street and turning them into professional Airmen. In order to do this on an industrial scale, there are facilities set up exactly for this purpose. Getting clothing issued, haircuts, physical training, vaccinations, eating three times a day, going to medical appointments, getting financial accounts established, talking to counselors about your career choice and their additional requirements…it all needs to happen in an orderly fashion, and the Air Force has become pretty good at it.
To get anywhere, our instructors needed to march us between locations. I hated marching. Flights would march four trainees abreast and the column would extend as far back as it needed in order to include the entire flight. The tallest people would be in the front, decreasing in height the further back you go in the column. As one of the tallest guys in my flight, I was always very near the front of the group anytime we’d be marching anywhere. That’s fine, except you need to be paying close attention to the instructor’s commands to turn left or right, because you’ll have less time to react than if you’re in the back.
I don’t know what it is about Basic Training, but it has a way of making people that are ordinarily smart into…well…people that aren’t smart. Honest, most of the time I’m a smart guy. Put me in Basic Training, though, and I overthink things, question myself, stumble over my words, and agonize over whether I sufficiently folded my socks. Things that are not normally a big deal become obsessions. I hated Basic.
I don’t remember where we were coming from, but one day we were on our way to lunch. It was old hat for us at this point. Our flight usually got “parked” outside the door while we awaited our turn to go in. As we arrived we could see the “parking space” where our instructor was going to put us, but we needed to do a pair of turns to end up there. This is where I almost got myself into trouble.
To end up in our spot, we could either turn left and then right, or right and then left. I’m not sure what happened, but I somehow got it into my head that our instructor told us to turn right, but the flight of trainees had started turning left. I could have just gone along with everyone else, but in my sleep-deprived state I must have decided that no, we were all going to be punished somehow for not paying attention to the instructor’s verbal commands. Well not this guy!
In a rare flash of independent thought at Basic Training, I decided to strike out on my own and break away from the pack. When the entire column of men in my flight turned left, I turned right.
This was an absurd sight. Hopefully there were no cameras that caught this moment. If there were, I imagine it got lots of air time in the instructors’ lounge. I marched at the same cadence as everyone else, but in the opposite direction. Our instructor either didn’t notice or pretended not to see me. He gave the command for the second turn, and I don’t know which direction he said, but I didn’t care anymore, and took the opportunity to start moving back to rejoin the flight. I met back up perfectly with the group and slipped right back into the spot I had just left.
I don’t think anyone ever said anything to me, and to this day I honestly don’t know who was right (though I tend to believe the massive group of people who turned left probably outweighs the single schmuck who turned right and was out there marching around on his own).
I guess it’s true what they say…I’ve always marched to the beat of my own drum. Thankfully it didn’t land me in hot water this time!
Hey, don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself. It’s rough out there these days, but things are looking up. Wash your hands and avoid groups of people, but if you think you can make someone smile with something as dumb as a story like this, go for it. We could all use a smile right now.