Tag: Air Force

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Ever Feel Like Someone was Trying To Put One Over on You?

The world is plenty tense right now. Sometimes you just need a smile. I didn’t make it as a SERE Specialist (survival instructor) in the Air Force, but I heard some of their fun stories. Here are a few I hope you’ll enjoy.

To become a SERE Specialist, you’ve got to conquer many hardships. Aside from a very vigorous physical training regimen, you endure hunger, thirst, lack of sleep, conditions that are very cold, very hot, very wet, very dry, very demanding, and that require a great deal of perseverance. These people have learned that overcoming obstacles sometimes requires tremendous grit or discomfort, but the prize is worth the struggle. That’s why they get very annoyed when they’re charged with students who whine about having to perform easy tasks out in the wilderness during survival school.

The people attending survival school are people facing an elevated risk of capture. While those in some jobs are more accustomed to dealing with discomfort and challenges than others (Special Operations Forces, for example, tend to whine less than students from other career fields), the instructors at survival school also teach people who have never spent the night outside, or who have never had to face challenges requiring them to dig down deep within themselves to keep going. Other career fields showing up at survival school include pilots, navigators, flight engineers/crew chiefs, airborne linguists, aerial refuelers, door gunners, etc.

Adding to the dynamic is the general “wussification” of training requirements over time. I don’t know how tough things were before I went through, but I know things got easier after I attended the course. Students had to carry less weight, or walk shorter distances, or they received more food, or got more breaks. You can probably start to get a sense of a SERE Specialist’s ire when one or more of the students they’re escorting complains about how tough it is to carry their little 15-pound improvised ruck sack up two hills in a row.

Sometimes the SERE folks like to have a little fun with the students. They’ll mislead them every now and then when the opportunity presents itself. Even though the SERE Specialists are teaching valuable skills like land navigation, fire craft, shelter craft, and pointing out naturally occurring edibles, that doesn’t mean it has to be taught in a dry way. I heard one instructor recount how he was driving in a bus full of students to the wilderness training area when they came across an unusual sight. Loggers had stripped a hilltop bare, and the only feature on the now-naked hillside was a dirt road that encircled it, winding around and around until reaching the top. One student asked about it, and the instructor replied “those are topographic lines. They match the ones on your map. All mountains have them, but these are more obvious because we paid to have all the trees removed so you could see them. They’re not usually that easy to see when you’re navigating out in the field, so you’re going to have to pay close attention out there.”

On a different occasion, a class was making its way on foot from one point to another, building their land navigation skills. Students at this point are usually rationing their food and getting a little hungry, so instructors don’t want to do something blatantly mean, like eat a meatball sub in front of them, but they might have a cheek full of sunflower seeds as they walk along. One particular instructor brought a bunch of peanuts with him, still in the shell, and he ate them as they walked along. While they all stopped for a periodic break, he decided to play a little joke. Most of the time, peanuts still in the shell have a little slit on one end. If you squeeze the shell just right, the slit opens up a little. While the students were drinking water or checking their azimuth, this guy squeezed a bunch of peanut shells and hung them on the branches of a small tree. Then he called everyone over to share in his discovery. “Hey guys, come check this out! Oh, man, did we luck out, we found a peanut tree! We should pick this thing clean, these are hard to find! Everybody get in here, grab what you can, don’t leave anything for anybody coming behind us. Anybody allergic to peanuts?” Some people, of course, got the joke right away, but there are a lot of people out there who don’t know how peanuts grow.

One more. SERE Specialists have to be prepared for all kinds of serious situations in a difficult environment. They need to be prepared to deal with medical emergencies like broken bones, dehydration, heat injuries, allergic reactions, snake bites, puncture wounds, all kinds of stuff like that. In cold weather, the ability to quickly start a fire can mean the difference between life and death. There are all kinds of products available for quickly starting a fire. Out in the wilderness training areas, one of the most versatile is fire paste. Think of a tube of toothpaste, but the stuff you squeeze out of the tube is flammable. It’s great stuff, you can use it in a lot of different scenarios. One instructor used fire paste to try to combat some of the “wussification” I mentioned earlier. On a land nav break, he pulled up a half-buried rock, smeared some fire paste on the bottom of it, then tucked it back in its hole and packed the loose dirt back down so it looked undisturbed. “Hey everybody, get a look at this! Boy, did we luck out! This right here is a fire rock!” Lots of people with confused looks came and gathered around, and to their amazement, when the instructor held a lighter up to the rock, it caught fire. “Oh, man, this is gonna be great! Everybody else is gonna be jealous when you come rolling into camp tonight with fire rocks. You’ll be able to get a fire going in no time, and that’s good news when you’re trying to set up camp in the dark. This whole area’s full of ‘em. Gather up anything you can carry, we’ll use ‘em tonight!”

SERE Specialists have some unique opportunities to have fun at work. It’s good to be able to enjoy yourself and get paid for doing your job. If you spend a lot of time around the same people (family, colleagues, etc.), try to lighten the mood every once in awhile. There’s no sense trudging through your day with a frown all the time.

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The Good Ol’ Red, White, and Blue

Have you ever met someone that stayed positive and upbeat almost all the time?

Before I get into my story, I have to explain something to the non-military types reading this. When you’re in the military, there’s a lot of misery and generally terrible conditions you have to be prepared to endure. (After all, you don’t normally fight wars in the nice parts of the world.) As part of the coping mechanism, military branches and units try to buck up their troops with camaraderie and esprit de corps. There’s mixed success with this tactic, but it truly does help to know that when you’re trudging through the mud or up a mountain, your fellow troops are right there alongside you, and you’re not miserable alone.

Also, everything in the military is an acronym. Sometimes there are acronyms inside acronyms. It gets a little crazy. Don’t quote me on the history of this next part, but I think it was the Army that came up with the acronym “HUA.” It stands for “heard, understood, acknowledged.” It’s the military version of saying “got it.” It started getting applied in all kinds of situations. “Soldier, I need you to get rounds on that target NOW, do you understand me?!” “HUA!” Or maybe “we’re gonna grab some Chinese, then meet at the theater at 9, hua?” Over time it morphed into having different meanings; it became kind of a greeting, a rallying cry, or just something to say when you don’t have anything else to say. (I know a dude, long since retired from the Army, who couldn’t go more than two sentences without saying it somehow. “Hooah! Beautiful morning!” “Hooah, enjoy your day!”)

Different branches of the military are funny; a lot of times they want to do the same sort of thing but they don’t want to copy anyone, so they modify things a little. “Hoorah!” “Huh!” “Hooah!” “Oorah!” Where I spent time in the Air Force, it was “Hooyah.”

Anyway, all that’s prelude. When I tried out to be a survival specialist, we had to deal with a lot of uncomfortable, miserable, and/or physically arduous tasks. While we were waiting around for class to start, we spent the weeks doing different things like go on ruck marches in the mountains or in state parks with heavy packs, go on mini field trainings for three or four nights (think camping, but not quite as comfortable), and do a ton of physical training.

There was this one guy, Carl, who was relentlessly optimistic. Whenever he walked into the room or area where a bunch of us were, he’d greet us with a “hooyah, team!” He was so upbeat he came across as kinda goofy sometimes (this guy’s not really like this, is he?). If we’re on a ruck march, he’s bouncing back and forth to different groups of us, lifting our spirits. If we’re getting smoked during PT, he’s the one asking for more and encouraging the rest of us along the way. On one mini field training, when we’d already been out in the woods for a few days without any shower and we smelled like smoke, were tired and irritable from poor sleep and non-stop mosquito bites, and were generally over-tasked with things to do, Carl’s the guy looking for opportunities to goof off in a way that brings a smile to somebody’s face. This picture was one such moment. The other guy was hamming it up a little for the picture, but Carl saw him looking closely at the ground for a piece of gear or something and Carl seized the opportunity for a morale-boosting photo op.

One of Carl’s trademark moves was when we were all assembled at the start of the day. As the American flag was raised each morning to the sound of a bugle call, our formation snapped to attention and saluted for the duration of the music. As soon as the NCO in charge of us gave the call to “order arms” and go to parade rest (stop saluting and return to a more relaxed state), Carl would pipe up with a lone voice and shout “Hooyah, America!” Our instructors liked the sound of it so much that before long, we were all doing it in unison, every duty day.

Today’s our nation’s 248th birthday. That’s a long time for a nation to use a single constitution. We’ve had a lot of ups and downs as a country. Today it seems like the nation is trying to tear itself apart while adversaries band together. I came across the following statement and felt like it resonated with our current times. It applies to both men and women, but I wanted to present the original quote:

“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”

We’ve been through some tough times as a nation, and it feels like we’re in one of them now. We can get through this one, but it will require strong people standing up for truth and justice. Hang in there, speak truth to power, and help out a neighbor or someone you see who needs a hand.

Happy Independence Day, and Hooyah, America!

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There’s a Fine Line Between Hooligans and Criminals

Here’s a story that hopefully gives you a chuckle.

Early in my time in the Air Force, I tried out to be a survival instructor. The class only started twice a year at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane, Washington. While waiting around for the next class to start, we did lots of exercising and other physical training to prepare our bodies for the rigors of the upcoming course.

One of the things we did on a weekly basis was load up our ruck sacks and go on long hikes in a state park or some weird trail or on public land out in the boonies. The idea was to keep our bodies accustomed to bearing heavy loads for a long time as we moved over miles of terrain, and along the way practice some land navigation. We were fortunate enough to have some pretty relaxed superiors while waiting around for training to start, and since we’re talking the Air Force (not the Army or Marines), they told us “hey, as long as they’re decent, you can wear civilian clothes during this ruck; the only guidelines are that you wear the issued boots you intend to wear during the course and you must bring a loaded ruck.”

Now, when you go for long hikes once a week, it doesn’t take long before you start repeating trails. One of the sergeants in charge of us had an idea to help break up the monotony. He had family an hour or two away from the base; his parents lived in Idaho somewhere, I think. He worked out a plan to have us go for a hike near their location, then we could spend the night at his parents’ house, and we’d come back to base the next morning. As far as training goes, this was very casual and actually a really generous thing for his parents to do. (Would you be willing to host 20-30 very fit and very hungry males with an extra dose of testosterone at your home? I wouldn’t.)

When we went on our hikes, we physically took up a lot of room. There were a lot of us, and we each had a large ruck sack, so we normally took a big bus that was pretty much a navy blue school bus with a very “for official use only” look to it. We piled in, drove off to whatever trail we were going to hit that day, and did our hike.

I don’t remember the details, but for some reason, when we finished our hike and got back to the bus, we needed to kill some time before we could go to the house. We ended up driving into town where a high school baseball game was going on. I think maybe the sergeant wanted to say hi to the coach, who was an old friend or something. We didn’t really know, our attitude was “hey man, I get on the bus when they tell me, I go where it takes me, and I get off the bus when it stops.” Well, they told us to leave our rucks on the bus and come outside to watch the game.

As we spread out on the grass, dozing in the sunshine, shooting the breeze, or watching the game, we looked around and started noticing some of the locals looked uneasy. None of us could figure out why. We hung out for maybe 20 minutes to half an hour, then got back on the bus and rolled out to wherever we were going next. We later found out they thought we were from a nearby prison and were out on a work detail whose very limited supervision was chatting up the baseball team’s coach and not paying much attention to the bunch of rough-looking guys, wearing the same boots, with similar haircuts and no facial hair, all piling off the government-issue bus.

I guess if I had to pick a moral to the story, I’d say even though it might not be your fault, sometimes people are going to make assumptions about you based on how you look or the vibe you give off. Before you get mad at them, don’t be afraid to step back from the situation and maybe even laugh at yourself a little. Cut them some slack. You might’ve jumped to the same conclusion if you were in their shoes. Or boots.

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Only Jagger Moves Like Jagger. Try Moving Like You.

In my early Air Force days, I pursued training to become a survival instructor. The Air Force is the only branch of service where you can spend a whole military career as a Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) Specialist. The other military branches have them, but they’re only temporary assignments, something you do for a few years at most before returning to your regular job. Anyway, that’s free info; now back to my story.

The main SERE school is at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane, Washington. The course all SERE Specialists were required to pass only started twice a year, so folks put together a program to keep us busy and out of trouble while we were waiting around for class to start. We were together just about all the time. Every weekday we worked out in the mornings, and then afternoons varied. One day a week we’d do a full PT test in the morning and a timed 7-mile ruck march after lunch. One afternoon a week we’d have details (more or less do chores, restocking supplies, cleaning up or repairing things around our building). Once a week we’d go to a state park or something similar and go for ruck marches up and over mountains, where we’d practice our land navigation and keep our bodies accustomed to carrying heavy weight for a sustained period. There were lots of other odds and ends to keep us busy while we waited for class to start (help unpack moving vans for the families of students who had started class and were out in the field, help perform maintenance on the equipment getting used by the class ahead of us, etc.).

One of the standard activities we did was to spend time in “the back 40.” The back 40 was a section near us where we went to learn and practice some of the skills we’d need once we started class. Here we learned to sharpen and swing an axe, how to start fires with the stuff around us, how to build a shelter out of parachutes, all kinds of skills you’d need to survive in the wild. The course we wanted to pass had a high failure rate, and the instructors found that this type of orientation helped prepare students for the training, resulting in fewer washouts.

We were all part of a very physical career field, and as a result, it seemed like someone was always heading to the doctor. Although we’d all gather at a certain spot before heading out to the back 40, it became common practice for those returning from appointments to meet up with the group at a certain spot the group passed on their way to the back 40. One day we were all heading out to the back 40 when we saw a guy in the same uniform as us, wearing his ruck sack just like we were, standing motionless and waiting for us at this spot. Someone among us asked “who’s that?” We all took a look up ahead, trying to figure it out. Someone said “he stands like Jones.” A quick look around the group verified that Jones wasn’t among us, and as we got closer, it turned out that it was indeed Jones. We spent so much time together that someone in our group was able to identify someone off in the distance, who was dressed just like us and had the same haircut, simply by the way he stood.

There’s a story in the Old Testament where something similar happened. In 2 Samuel chapter 18, an aging King David was waiting for news from a battle. As he sat near the city gate, the watchman on duty announced two separate men running toward the city. While they waited eagerly for the messengers to arrive, the watchman said in verse 27 “I think the running of the first is like the running of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok.” Here again is someone who’s able to identify another from far off by the individual’s kinesthetics. The way their body moves, or their posture, gives away their identity. Each of us is so different from one another that the way our bodies move gives us away, like a fingerprint.

Of all the people God could’ve chosen to live the life you’re living, He chose you. We’re unique individuals God stitched together, with no two looking, moving, or behaving exactly alike. In all that uniqueness, God prepared challenges for you in this life that you’re superbly qualified for. Other people could do it, but God chose you to do it. Embrace your uniqueness, whatever that looks like, and live the life God’s called you to live. You’re the best person for the job.

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The Difference an Hour can Make

If you weren’t aware, we’re changing the clocks this weekend in the United States. Since we’re “falling back,” it means we gain an hour of sleep on Sunday morning, the sun will be up earlier in the mornings, and it will get dark sooner in the afternoon.

There are some unsung heroes I’d like to remind everyone about.

Military members get paid by the month. That means no matter how many hours they work, they get paid the same; they don’t get overtime pay.

Years ago, when I wore the uniform, I spent a few years doing shift work. In our unit there was always a crew on duty, no matter what time of the day or night or what holiday it was. We worked 12-hour shifts and we changed over at 6 or 7 o’clock, if memory serves. We worked three and a half days, then had three and a half days off.

Twice a year we’d change the clocks. For those lucky folks on duty during the springtime clock change, it meant their 12-hour shift was actually only 11 hours long. The way the rotation fell, I think I was on duty a couple of times for this event. On the flip side of the coin, however, there was a crew right around this time of year that had their 12-hour shift get stretched into 13 hours. I don’t remember ever falling on the wrong side of things for that clock change, but there was always a crew that had to deal with it.

There are lots of people out there who deserve our thanks, not only year-round, but especially this weekend. Hospital workers, police officers, fire fighters, military shift workers, security guards, and all sorts of other people (right down to the gas station and convenience store workers) are pulling an extra hour this weekend to ensure there’s no interruption in service or capability. If you know one or run into one, give them an extra “thank you” in the next few days.

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Don’t Lose Sight of the Big Picture

About 7 months after joining the Air Force, I washed out of SERE Specialist training. My knees couldn’t cope with the physical rigors of the job, and I wasn’t allowed to continue to the next level of training. I’m not gonna lie, it was a rough time for me. It was probably the first real time in my life that I failed to achieve something I’d set out to do.

Fast forward through all the self pity, and I decided to stay in the Air Force but train to do something else. I decided on a role in intelligence. After the paperwork came through, I transferred from Fairchild Air Force Base (AFB) in Washington State to Goodfellow AFB, Texas.

It was a tough adjustment. Everything about the change was difficult. I went from an environment where I had been given a lot of freedom, trust, and responsibility to an environment where I was given virtually none of that. Most of the students at this base were fresh out of Basic Training, and needed a high degree of supervision, whereas I did not. The water in the area (and as a result, everything cooked in or prepared with the water) tasted gross. We were in the middle of two wars at the time, and in order to maintain sufficient student throughput the training programs involved multiple shifts of teaching each day. The base’s population seemed like it was maxed out. There weren’t enough dorms to put all the bodies, so they had to re-open old ones or put off shutting down dorms that were scheduled to be shuttered. Chow halls were open at midnight to accommodate those in class at night (or preparing for class to start). Students were sleeping, exercising, and attending classes at all hours of the day to try to maximize the facilities available.

I eventually adjusted, but it wasn’t a fun place to be. Goodfellow AFB is in a town called San Angelo. This place is about three hours from any big city. It’s a fantastic place to live if you’re raising a young family or enjoy a slower pace of life. Like, no kidding, people just pull out camp chairs and hang out in the Walmart parking lot on Friday nights (or at least they did when I was stationed there). The locals there love the military, and are truly wonderful folks. Most of the Airmen that came to Goodfellow, however, came there because the Air Force sent them there to learn a new job, and most of those people were young, single, and got bored easily. When young single people get bored, it usually leads to trouble. We had people get in trouble for underage drinking, breaking curfew, “inappropriate relations,” leaving base when they weren’t supposed to, and just about anything else you could imagine. One of my classmates even attempted suicide.

Between my time spent in college and the time I’d already chalked up elsewhere in the military, this was about year number five of dorm life for me, so you can imagine how it was getting old by this time. I figured out early in my stay at San Angelo that my sole purpose, the only reason in the world that Uncle Sam had sent me to this place, was to learn the core skills and knowledge I’d need for doing my job once I got to subsequent duty stations. As far as I was concerned, it was in my own best interest to hunker down, do well in class, and graduate on time. All else was secondary, and graduating was the fastest way to get out of there. I had already done a lot of the growing up that many of my fellow students still needed to do, so I saw things differently than many of them did.

Since the weeks were spent in an oppressive military environment, I spent a lot of time on weekends away from the base, at the nearest skydiving drop zone I could find. The drop zone was about an hour and a half away. Since there wasn’t much else to do except hang out with someone that would probably end up getting in trouble, the long trips weren’t such a bad thing. It would have been easy to just sneak away and not tell anybody what I was doing, but I had seen so many people get in trouble over stupid stuff that I decided it was better to just play by the rules. I went and got permission from our squadron commander to go skydiving. Every Friday before my weekend excursions I would go and get the same stupid safety brief from people that had no idea what kind of safety tips to brief me on when it came to skydiving. I got the dumb paperwork saying that I had received the brief and kept it on file. I did it right.

By the end of my time at Goodfellow, I had numerous classmates that had gotten themselves into some kind of trouble. One had some kind of security violation. Another one got administratively punished for violating something or other. One got pregnant and wasn’t sure for awhile who the father was. Because of my mindset that I was only going to be here for a short time and that the best course of action was to focus on my purpose for being there, I managed to avoid a lot of the headaches and hassles that a lot of other people got caught up in. I forfeited a lot of the “good times” that others took part in, but in hindsight, I really didn’t miss out on much. There was plenty of time for fun stuff after moving on from there.

A lot of Christians remind me of my former classmates in certain ways. They forget why they’re here and start focusing on things that don’t have lasting impact. Being a Christian isn’t just a Sunday morning proposition. After getting saved, we’ve really only got one objective in our lives: glorify God by taking part in the purpose He’s placed us here for and equipped us to do. I know that task often lacks clarity. It usually ends up being a question that takes patience to receive an answer to. That’s why many stop asking.

There are a lot of rules in the Bible (do this, don’t do that, strive for this, etc.), but they’re there for a reason. I’m not advocating for legalism, but if you live according to the way scripture says you should live, you usually lead a life that isn’t full of complications, which enables you to focus on your objective better. It would have been easier for me to just drive off base on Saturday mornings and go skydiving without having to jump through all those administrative hoops, and I probably would’ve gotten away with it most of the time. All it would’ve taken was one time getting caught, and it could have resulted in restriction to base or other privileges being revoked. Those hoops were a headache, but they weren’t hard. Doing the right thing was worth it, because it allowed me to pursue my goals while staying out of trouble.

This life is a flash in the pan. It’s over so fast. I’m not saying you should stay home in a corner praying or only wearing clothes made from camel hair your whole life. Quite the opposite, our joy in Christ is supposed to be evident to all. What I’m saying is that God arranged for your life to be powerful and meaningful in its ability to bring glory to His name, and that it’s up to you how much of that potential you want to fulfill. Use the gifts and talents God’s blessed you with. If you ditch the distractions, you can run your race well and “graduate on time” (hopefully, “with honors”). There will be time for lots of fun and celebration, but that comes after passing the tests and doing the hard work. Don’t be distracted from doing what you were put here to do.

God, it is absolutely unbelievable how You’ve interwoven our lives and how the faithful use of our gifts can impact each other and the world. I know that the vast majority of us won’t live up to our full potential for Christian obedience to Your call, please forgive us for that. Help us be sensitive to the opportunities we still have left to honor Your name, and give us the clarity, wisdom, and boldness to pursue what You’d have us do. I ask these things in Your name, Amen.

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Annual Performance Review: Be an Overcomer

I’m sure it irritates folks that are hostile toward religion, but there are still some things in our culture that stem from Judeo-Christian beliefs. I like that we still have “In God We Trust” on our money, but at this point I think we’re probably kidding ourselves about its accuracy for the nation. Maybe the one that will stick around the longest is a seven-day week. Those aren’t the only examples though.

Strangely enough, it appears some of our corporate culture is modeled after Jesus Christ’s example.

If you’ve ever spent time in a work role that involves giving or getting formal feedback, you’ve probably seen this firsthand.

If you’ve ever been a supervisor, you’ve probably had to have some uneasy or unpleasant conversations. When I was in the Air Force, practicing this very thing in a class, all of us got to do a hard one. I think I had to sit down with a fake subordinate and let them know that they needed to shower more frequently or something like that. Not such a fun task.

Usually giving feedback isn’t quite so drastic, but there are times when hard conversations need to happen. If you’re dealing with a stellar performer, you want to let them know you see how great a job they’re doing, but you always want to give them some kind of constructive criticism. If you’re dealing with someone that’s barely avoiding a pink slip, the conversation is harder. The model typically followed is:

  1. Start with something positive about their performance.
  2. Call out the ugly.
  3. Chart a path forward for getting back on track.
  4. End on a positive note.

You may ask “this model is in the Bible?” Why yes it is.

The book of Revelation is the last book of the Bible, most famous for its cataclysmic account of history’s culmination. Less flashy is the part early in the book where Christ provides feedback for seven kinds of churches (chapters 2 and 3). These seven churches were actual churches in named cities in the first century, but I imagine most churches that profess Christ as Lord today fall into one of these categories. They are the loveless church, the persecuted church, the church that compromises, the corrupt church, the dead church, the faithful church, and the lukewarm church.

All seven of the churches are initially commended for their works, suggesting that pretty much all churches do stuff that’s looked upon positively. Some of the churches in these two chapters are commended more robustly than others. “I know your works.” “I know your works, tribulation, and poverty.” “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil.”

Five of the seven (not the persecuted or the faithful church), however, have some kind of flaw that needs to be addressed. “Nevertheless I have this against you.” “Nevertheless I have a few things against you.” “But I have a few things against you.”

Then Christ gives instructions for correcting the flaws. “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.” “Repent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth.” “Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.” “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.” Repenting is a common theme. In the modern workplace, it’s akin to the person receiving feedback acknowledging that yes, there is a shortcoming of some sort and a correction needs to take place. This blog post isn’t that long, so it seems like I’m glossing over the whole “hey, get your act together and start performing like you know you should” thing. This is obviously where the hard work begins and where the bulk of the feedback actually occurs.

After that, though, it’s very possible, or even likely, that someone’s on the defensive (or if they’re humble and acknowledge the discrepancy, are saddened) and needs a little encouragement. Finally, the Lord ends each session on a positive note. Listen to the emphasis that’s placed on ‘overcoming’ the challenges of life in these seven passages. It’s as if Christ understood that the Christian life, as hopeful as it is, is a hard thing to lead. “To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.” “He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.” “To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it.” “And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations…” “He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more.” “To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.”

So in all circumstances, you’re facing a charge to correct your actions/thought processes, you’re a little bit broken by the realization of your shortcoming, or you’re gearing up for some challenges ahead. God would have assigned someone else to the task if you couldn’t remain faithful to what you know you’re supposed to do. Don’t be disheartened. Be an overcomer.

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An Apology to the Taxpayers

I’m sure you’ve heard stories of some kind of wasted taxpayer money before. Well I’m sorry to say that some wasteful federal spending once happened because of me (at least on a smallish scale).

This is back in 2004, and the Air Force was paying my salary at the time. I was stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base, near Spokane, Washington. While I was waiting for some paperwork to go through, I supplemented the folks teaching water survival.

It was a cool gig. I don’t remember what happened each day of the week, but one day out of the week was a course where they simulate being in a helicopter that crashes in the water and rolls over as it sinks. Two other days out of the week was a course where they taught students how to signal from the ocean, how to use rescue devices that were dropped from aircraft, how to use radios and distress beacons, and the course culminated in a big production in the indoor pool where the students climbed into a big aircraft simulator that then “crashed” into the ocean. There were two already-inflated life rafts lashed to the side of the pool (with ice water inside). The lights were all shut off, a thunderstorm soundtrack played from enormous speakers up in the rafters, and strobe lights simulated lightning. As the students evacuated the “aircraft” and jumped into the water, my job was to spray them using a fire hose while on a catwalk up above. I’m not gonna lie, it felt crazy to be getting paid for stuff like this.

These courses were pretty messy and took some time to set up. We used the other two days out of the week to clean up all the wet gear and reset it to prepare for the next course. Those were good days to schedule medical/dental appointments and any other type of official errands that Uncle Sam mandated.

This goober is modeling a pair of fully inflated LPUs

On one of those days, I was at some kind of appointment at the beginning of the day, then returned to the pool to help with prep. As it turned out, while I had been at my appointment, one of the instructors taught my colleague (someone that was supplementing, like me) how to pack LPUs, or Life Preservation Units. An LPU is a piece of survival gear that some aviators wear. When you’re descending toward the water while dangling from a parachute, you can pull the tabs on your LPU and two big high-visibility pontoons will inflate in a flash, providing more than enough buoyancy to keep you afloat.

Well, when I got back to the shop, my colleague showed me how to pack an LPU. Each LPU had two CO2 canisters that, when punctured by pulling the inflation tabs, quickly inflated the pontoons, even if completely submerged. Packing the LPUs meant unscrewing the old canisters, resetting the pull switches, screwing in new canisters, and then folding up the big orange/pink balloons into small compartments that could be easily worn by an aviator.

Packing LPUs

Unfortunately when my buddy showed me how to pack LPUs, he didn’t show me the right way. The two of us packed tons of LPUs and set them on the shelf, thinking they were ready for students in future classes to use. When they got pulled off the shelf and used during an actual lesson, students that ran off the diving board expecting their LPUs to inflate midair had to end up swimming for it.

While that’s obviously embarrassing for the water survival instructors, that’s not the part I owe taxpayers an apology for. The way the LPU puncture mechanism worked, it wasn’t physically possible to properly reset the mechanism without removing the new CO2 cylinders, and it wasn’t possible to remove the unused CO2 canisters without puncturing them. We had to intentionally pull the inflation tabs, knowing it would waste two perfectly good cylinders per LPU. Each cylinder that was improperly installed in an LPU had to be unscrewed and tossed on the floor, shooting all over the place like a corkscrewing balloon while turning ice cold from the sudden expansion of compressed gas.

Considering all the LPUs we packed and a rough guess that each CO2 cylinder cost about $10, we’re talking hundreds of dollars of wasted taxpayer money. It would’ve been far better to each waste a pair of cylinders by doing a quality control test after packing just a pair or two of the LPUs rather than the way we did it.

Yep, they all need to be packed

So for those of you that dutifully paid your taxes back in the 2003/2004 timeframe, I’m sorry I wasted some of your hard-earned money. The Government is funded by the people, and you deserve better than that. I wish I’d known to correct the mistake sooner! It’s been almost 20 years since I’ve been around LPUs, but that lesson has taught me to keep an eye out for ways to head off the wasteful use of resources (even if it’s as simple as making my kids finish the food on their plates before they can be excused).

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Quick Hit: Christmas Carols Can Cause Mental Anguish?

The Christmas season is in full swing. While Christ is, of course, supposed to be front and center, the season has come to be characterized by shopping, hustle and bustle, extra parties, and Christmas carols.

Imagine if, right about now, less than two weeks away from Christmas, you departed for Basic Training?

That’s what I did when I joined. I left for Air Force Basic about 10 days before Christmas. You can imagine how fun the holiday was that year. We didn’t have any decorations or Christmas trees or anything like that, but we were given the opportunity to go to a couple of extra church services.

Part of the services involved singing Christmas carols, which is a nice thought. It turns out that some sadistic weirdo decided to add “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” to the song lineup for those services. For those of you that may not be familiar, the lyrics talk about how wonderful it is to be home for Christmas, and that the people back home can count on the singer(s) being home in time for the celebration. It then abruptly changes direction and decides that, well, it’s looking like it’s not going to be possible to get home in time, so “I’ll be home for Christmas…if only in my dreams.”

What kind of demented sicko adds that to the song lineup to poke at a bunch of miserable, homesick people in the days leading up to Christmas? Somebody who didn’t get enough hugs as a child, that’s who. Parents…hug your kids!

But anyway, to you military folks, you make lots of sacrifices for us all, and we often lose sight of that. We know it’s not always possible for you to be home for holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, or other special occasions. Thanks to all of you for raising your right hand and for doing whatever Uncle Sam asks of you in order to keep us free to celebrate our freedoms. I hope you have a great Christmas wherever you are. You are appreciated!

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The Memorable Events in Your Life May Just be Preparation

Sometime in the spring/summer of 2008, my first-time-pregnant wife came to my place of work to attend a ceremony celebrating the promotion of several people, including me.

Since being pregnant was a new thing for her, there was still a lot she didn’t know about how pregnancy would affect her body. The ceremony was to be held in a conference room that was already in use by someone else, so a crowd of us began gathering outside the door as the start time drew near. There was no place to sit while we were waiting, and my wife started feeling very hot and a little woozy. She told me something felt very wrong, and I was able to be right there to catch her as she fainted.

I was ready to ditch the ceremony and take her to the hospital, not knowing what was wrong. A gentle, but decisive old Master Sergeant made his way to us and helped revive my wife. Finding out she was pregnant, he disappeared somewhere else in the building for a few minutes, then returned with a piece of cake on a paper plate. He knew from experience that a mother-to-be’s body has an important relationship with blood sugar, and that skipping meals has a different set of consequences than when not pregnant.

Skip ahead about 14 years. A couple weeks ago our family took a trip to a beach town I’ve been visiting on and off since I was a kid. Part of the draw for that little town is a bakery that produces some great “I’ll eat better when I’m back home” food. My wife, our three kids, and I were milling around inside, each of us choosing something for that morning. The place had a number of customers waiting their turn, and our turn finally came. While my wife was in the middle of placing our family’s order, a man’s voice called out “can somebody dial 911?!” I looked over to see a man holding an unconscious woman, seated in a chair at a table near the window, preventing her from falling over. Her head was bent at an awkward angle, her hair completely covering her face.

I reached for my phone, only to discover that I didn’t have it on me. (I’m on vacation, at the bakery. If you call me here, I’m not answering it.) Both my wife and one of the bakery staff placed the call. I went over and tried to see how I could help. In talking to him, I learned that she was a couple of months pregnant, and I passed the info along to those on the phone with the dispatchers. Though he was obviously well-intentioned, it became pretty apparent that the guy didn’t have a clue what to do. I told him that we needed to get her lowered to the floor. Protective of his girl, and not really willing to comply until he determined that I wasn’t some sort of con man, he asked “are you a doctor or something?”

Now, I’m no doctor. I haven’t been certified in CPR or first aid in over 20 years. A few thoughts flashed through my head, memories of things I could tell him about, and I almost flipped out on the guy about whether or not he was seriously asking me this question while this woman, for all I knew, was choking to death on a bear claw while he tried to establish my credentials. Instead I answered something like “I know a thing or two about this. We need to make sure her airway is clear, and I can’t do it when she’s like this.”

That seemed enough to satisfy him, and the two of us lowered her to the ground so she was seated with her legs out in front of her. Before we could lay her down all the way, she started coming around. The fella held her steady as she groggily started piecing together what happened. During the course of talking with her, it came out that she had skipped having any food so far that morning. At only two months pregnant with a first-time pregnancy, it was still early enough that you’re still kind of finding out the hard way what you can and can’t do. This all started feeling a lot more familiar to me. The bakery worker that had called 911, who I suspect had been through at least one pregnancy of her own, came over and offered an unopened bottle of orange juice. My wife now off the phone with 911, she, too, made the connection, and began telling about her experience 14 years prior.

We spent some time trying to help her not feel so embarrassed, sitting on the bakery floor with everyone staring at her. Right about then I saw a police vehicle arrive and the officer grab a pair of medical bags out of the trunk. Holding the door open for him and seeing that the professional was now on the scene, I turned my attention back to what we’d been doing. My kiddos, on their own, had moved to a part of the store where they’d be out of everyone’s way, and stood quietly waiting for things to play out. It was one of those “Jesus looked at them and loved them” kind of moments.

When our family left the bakery, those two were still being attended to by the police officer. Later that day though, we saw them walking around the town, so things must’ve turned out alright for them.

You’ve almost certainly heard before that God prepares you for the things He places in your path. Sometimes it’s funny how He does it. I certainly didn’t consider my wife’s fainting as a preparatory action, at least at the time. Who knows? Maybe in another 14 years, those two (by that time) well-experienced parents will be helping out another set of parents-to-be.

It’s also important not to get caught up in a “I’m not qualified” mindset (at least for the important things). Sure, we were qualified to call 911. We weren’t really “qualified” for any sort of medical care, but we were the ones to step forward and be there with someone that was going through something scary. It doesn’t take any special training. Often we focus more on the reasons why we shouldn’t step forward than on the reasons we should. If you’ll allow me to push the metaphor a little, I’d say that if you wait until you consider yourself “ready” to jump in and follow God’s call, you’re probably not ever going to do it. God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness, and He wants us to have willing hearts more than properly trained and educated minds. He’s given you different experiences, giftings, and abilities that are intended to be used. Please…use them.

Lord, thank you that this event didn’t seem to be anything serious. Thank you also that You put someone there to help those two get through it. Thank you still that You invited us to be a few of those “someones.” And finally, thank you for all the opportunities You’ll give everyone reading this to be a part of the story You’ve written for their lives; please give us all the courage and preparation we’ll need for those times. In Your name I ask, Amen.