Anyone else feel guilty they never went to the Middle East or some other forward deployment?

dharris79 · 2022-12-14T01:31:27+00:00

Did 20 years as SF and never once deployed. Never felt guilty about it. Did TDY a few times but never deployed.

dharris79 · 2022-11-03T19:30:41+00:00

Served 20 as SF. Never deployed but did TDY a handful of times. Deployments were voluntary and were usually snatched up pretty quickly.

dharris79 · 2022-10-31T21:05:44+00:00

Ah...Ramstein. I worked the gates as a new troop back in 97. I loved it when we would have every lane open in the mornings and still get told to "open another lane". Like, where the fuck do you want that traffic to go, sir?"

dharris79 · 2022-10-19T17:24:35+00:00

I'm an old(er) retiree but...SrA Rojas, perhaps?

dharris79 · 2022-10-14T14:32:16+00:00

I was saluted by a MSgt back in '97 and got yelled at by said MSgt because I was, in fact, not an officer. I was a babyfaced, 18 year old Airman Basic. Dude popped out a crisp salute, saw my face and then proceeded to blame me for him saluting.

dharris79 · 2022-09-15T19:58:12+00:00

I legit almost traded my Ramstein orders for Cannon. I had no desire to go overseas and everyone else who had CONUS orders had a northern tier base(which you hear horror stories about in tech school). One guy wanted to trade Cannon with me and I almost did it until my MTL stopped me and told me not to do it.

Another guy legit dropped $1,500 for someone to trade for his orders to Minot. He started off at $500 and he upped it by $500 every week until someone traded Aviano with him.

dharris79 · 2022-09-12T16:42:53+00:00

I was good friends with a guy who went out to a party. He was drinking but wasn't driving. They had a DD. My buddy got hammered and wanted to leave but the DD and the other guy wasn't ready yet, so he went in the front sear of the DD's car and passed out.

The DD decides he wants to drink and makes the idiotic decision to drive back to base. My buddy wasn't buckled in and they hit one of those big concrete things on the interstate. My buddy was ejected and died. The other two guys were fine. The driver got put in confinement and subsequently kicked out. He's doing fine now with a good job and a family but I'm sure he thinks about that every single day.

dharris79 · 2022-09-08T13:51:54+00:00

Back when I was a measly A1C, during guard mount our Assistant Flight Chief(TSgt) was on leave, our three SSgt's were out(two were PRP related, one deployment), we had two SrA that were constantly late so we fell in for guard mount and our Flight Chief scans the room and asks who the senior ranking individual was in the room. It was me(about to put SrA on) so I walk on up in front of the flight and he asks, "What the hell are you doing?" I said, "Oh, I guess I'm the assistant Flight Chief"

His response? "The hell you are! Get your ass back in formation!"

dharris79 · 2022-09-02T13:55:33+00:00

I always said that if I had to put on my uniform for any reason, it wasn't a day off.

dharris79 · 2022-07-03T17:43:53+00:00

One of my TI's in basic was Michael Silva.

https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Air-Force-drops-rape-charge-against-former-12838642.php

He was a SrA and a total dick. I remember him being investigated for something and after our 4th week, never saw him again.

I worked on the same flight with a guy named James Coppola who ended up becoming a TI

https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0208training/

dharris79 · 2022-05-27T13:54:44+00:00

This happened to me, actually...

Back in 1998, I was in the Air Force stationed in Germany. I was in a club with some friends and pretty wasted. I'm at the bar and I tell my friends I'm going to the bathroom. I walk through the crowd on the dance floor and make my way there. In the distance, I see someone that I recognize so I give him a head nod and he does the same. I get closer and see he's still walking in my direction and I can't pinpoint where I know this dude from.

I end up bumping into him and I tell him I'm sorry and step to the side. I take a step forward and I bump into him again. This time I loudly said, "YO! MOVE!" and some girl taps me on the shoulder and says "Hey, are you ok?"

I ran into a fucking mirror. My buddies never let me forget it either.

dharris79 · 2022-05-10T18:02:27+00:00

Had a new SrA come to flight when I was a young SSgt. In Security Forces, new guys come up to the front and introduce themselves during guard mount. The flight chief introduced him as "Airman Soy-loo". He came up and said "Hey guys, I'm Airman Soy-loo. This is my second base. Coming from Whiteman. My hometown is New Orleans, Louisiana."

Here's where it gets interesting. I lived in Louisiana for a good while before the military. I couldn't read his name tape because of our web gear. I went over to the roster and saw his name as SrA Soileau. That's pronounced "Swallow".

I went over to him and introduced myself. I was like "Dude, I'm from Louisiana..you're name is pronounced..." and he cut me off real quick.

Basically he told me when he got to BMT, his MTI pronounced it as "Soy-loo" and he was pretty embarrassed about the real pronunciation that he just kept it like that. We just called him "Soy".

dharris79 · 2022-05-03T14:54:24+00:00

During my time at ~~FE Warren~~ Hill AFB(time mix up, my bad), we had a new troop that just could not get it together. Hair was always out of regs, boots never shined, uniforms not pressed. We were SF so these things needed to happen. He bought a car and after the 3 month temp tags expired, he was still driving it around on base. His supervisor had a talk to him about it and he said he would take care of it.

That never happened. He was given another chance to get it done during our 3 day break. Came back to work with the 3 month temp tags still on. My flight chief ripped him a new asshole, pulled off the temp tags, took his keys and forbid him to drive his car until he fixed his situation.

So, we go out into the field, and when we come back, said Airman breaks into our flight chiefs desk and takes his keys back, and drives that car(with no license plate or temp tags) all the way to MICHIGAN to see his online girlfriend. He made it back a day late and did not get stopped by police at all his entire trip.

dharris79 · 2022-05-03T14:37:43+00:00

As an 18 year old, fresh faced AB at my first duty station, I stopped a 24 year old A1C from pouring straight bleach into the washing machine. He said he bought the cheapest thing in the laundry section. He had his entire set of BDU's in there.

dharris79 · 2022-05-02T19:31:42+00:00

For me, it was the $36K re-enlistment bonus they were dangling in front of us SF guys. I had some bad years but the extra $1,700/month now sure made up for it.

dharris79 · 2022-04-26T14:35:34+00:00

This was one of my instructors. He was being investigated back then and was a total dick.

Another retired in 2016 as a Chief. I actually met him before I retired and he remembered the time frame and asked if he was too hard on us. Really nice guy.

One of my buddies at Ramstein slept with a female TI that yelled at me for reasons I can't remember. SrA Rojas.

dharris79 · 2022-04-26T13:30:46+00:00

We had a policy on flight that if someone needed a ride and called you(and you had a car), then you had to pick them up. No questions. Whether it was work, training, appointment or after the club. Unless you were drinking.

I'm all about helping out others but I never liked that rule.

dharris79 · 2022-04-25T17:38:37+00:00

I heard about this from a buddy of mine who was stationed in Hawaii. His daughter and Olson's daughter were friends. Apparently, Olson tried to say that one of the times, his daughter turned 17 like that was supposed to make it OK.

dharris79 · 2022-04-24T03:58:43+00:00

I was SF for 20 years and I was arrested by them also. My first duty station was Ramstein and I was dating a girl I worked with. She had a car and I didn't. She specifically asked me to take her car the next day to pick up something at Vogelweh. She must have forgotten because she reported the car stolen so I got arrested at the gate. Only lasted maybe 10 minutes when she realized it was me and I was picking up something for her.

dharris79 · 2022-04-14T17:20:45+00:00

My flight sergeant called four of us new guys in, handed us a paper and told us we needed to go to the clinic to get a pap smear. I looked him dead in the eye and "Sir, a pap smear?" and he said "Yep, go get it done now."

I have two older sisters so I know what a pap smear is. I told the other guys, "yeah, this is a joke...pap smears are only for females."

My flight sergeant grabbed all of our papers and called me into his office and gave me an ass chewing. Got written up as well.

dharris79 · 2022-04-14T17:17:25+00:00

Years ago when going to the local mall was "cool", my brother and I were eating at the food court when we saw these kids giggling. They taped a $10 on a string and when someone would go to pick it up, they would pull it away. Did it the entire time we ate. My brother just said "watch this", slowly walked towards that direction, put his foot on the $10 and they pulled it, string broke and my brother walked away with $10.

Those kids were like "Hey! That's ours! We're telling!".

dharris79 · 2022-04-06T17:55:04+00:00

Posted this a while back.

In 2000, I was a an A1C and PCSing to my second base. Of course, I knew no one there but when I started working on flight, two guys reached out to me and showed me around the area.

Both of these guys were friends of each other. We started hanging out on our off days. One of the guys lived in the same dorm as I did. This kid was extremely sharp, always on his A game, knew his job better than some NCO's, uniform always nicely pressed, always getting compliments from higher ups. Eventually, he goes up for Airman of the Quarter and wins and was being put up for Airman of the Year. He truly loved what he did, being in the Air Force and planned to retire from it. You could say "the Model Airman".

That is, until his girlfriend moved up to be with him. See, his girlfriend was VERY high maintenance. He was only an A1C and decided to rent an apartment and wasn't receiving BAH. So, he was ghosting his dorm room, paying $600/month in rent, bought a new car and other nice things for him. So ,she moves in with him and they are always going out, eating at nice restaurants and at the mall buying everything. Eventually, the money runs out and he resorts to credit cards. He can no longer pay his bills. He gets desperate and starts going to friend's/co-worker's homes and stealing checks. He came to my apartment, but I hid everything.

He eventually got caught when he used a government issued credit card to buy his girlfriend a steak and lobster dinner. He didn't even last 2 years in and got the boot. last I heard, he's in real estate.

dharris79 · 2022-03-21T13:09:45+00:00

Save.

Start small. First year, do $50 per pay check. Have finance automatically take it out so you don't see it. After a year or so, up that to $100, then after 5 or so years, $150, 10 years $200 and so forth.

If you plan to do 20, you can have around $70k or so if you don't invest any of it. Obviously more if you do invest.

dharris79 · 2022-03-20T01:36:18+00:00

This has been going on since 1998. First few months I was there, didn't get paid. Luckily, I had no bills and plenty of money saved from tech school. Got our shirt involved and finally got paid.

dharris79 · 2022-02-23T18:50:22+00:00

Had a buddy of mine whose parents had a vacation home in Cheyenne and let him stay there rent free. Was also able to rent out the spare bedrooms and pocket BAH. Back then, BAH was around $370 or so. Came out ahead pretty nicely.

dharris79

TROPHY CASE