Ladder 49; only a few more months.

There are several things I like about the movie; it had subtlety, finesse and depth. Aspects of the way they talk about the job remind me of the military. Mostly these days I empathize with the conversation that Travolta had with Joaquin in the bar, where he says (and pardon the vagaries of my memory), "You still love the job, but you don't love it the way you used to."

I've discussed aspects of this with some folks over the past few months. I was talking with one of my airmen on his first deployment, and he's having fun so far (he even volunteered to extend here). And I said this, "There's a lot I like about deployments. You learn a lot. You get to travel, to see new places and meet new people. You make good friends. The first one is like summer camp. But the thing is, while you are deployed, the rest of your life back in the states is on hold; everything you were working on pauses." But the people you know, the things you were a part of, don't. So you get a little disconnected from them. And the more times you deploy, the more you disconnect. And eventually you begin to realize that this process doesn't end. You will deploy again, and again, and again. And after enough of this you realize that this is your life now. And it's wrong, it's not right, and it's not fair, but that's life. Some people go on honeymoon to Thailand and some people spend their life in the desert and you happen to be in the second category. And so life becomes this for me: typing away into a computer with a slow internet connection in a prefab building in the middle of nowhere, writing about the things I would rather be doing, or trying to explain what this is like to whoever reads this blog, or just record for history what this was like for one military member in the middle of all this craziness.

I was talking with a good friend before this rote. She's the wife of a friend and new to dealing with the military, and she was trying to cheer me up and said, "Well, it's only a few months, you can handle that, can't you?" And truth of it is, yes, it is only a few months; and yes, I can handle it. But you see, I have been telling myself this for five years now. Live your life a few months at at a time and that's all you get. Life is short, time is luck, make the most of it because it doesn't last.

This is bit of a digression; it was not my intention to air my rants about the injustices of the universe. The point, to get back to where I started, is this: It isn't that the little sacrifices, or even the medium sacrifices that get to me. But when you add them all up, they total more than the enjoyment I get from my job. And that's while I'll probably quit as soon as I can (five years from now). And most of the other people I know my age are thinking the same way. That's the point, not whether or not I'm happy with my life, but rather, that the job is driving people out of the service, and at a time when we (as a nation) can't afford it. (And in the midst of this madness, the Air Force is firing people (with a RIF board) and actually *paying pilots to quit* with the VSP program. As you can imagine, this is bad for morale, to know at the end of the day that your organization cares more about the dollars you cost then the service you provide. It also destroys the faith you might still have in your leadership.) I was talking with another friend who's been in about the same length as me. We hadn't spoken in awhile, and when we got out of earshot of his squadmates (It is an interesting unspoken credo in the military that when saying something negative, or even only less than enthusiastic, you keep it quiet, and try to keep it out of your unit), he dropped the trivialities and got to the real stuff. He said, "They always told me, when the job stops being fun, time to get out. Well, the job stopped being fun."

The lesson I heard from a number of generals and colonels over and over and at SOS was, "If you get to the top and your family isn't with you, it wasn't worth it." Well, of course, I have no family of my own to speak of, so getting to the top with or without them isn't even a choice yet. I understand the lesson though: One day, the Air Force will have gotten everything it can from me and it will cut me loose, and when that day comes, I better have more to go home to than what I have now. Despite some decent efforts on my part, I haven't been able to start a family. And I know that's important to me, so the choice for me is between being in the Air Force and living like a monk to do the job, or getting out so I can try to live the normal life I hear about from other people. Well, that choice is no choice at all.

I wish I was as motivated today as I was ten years ago, because in the next decade the Air Force and the government are going to need people to fix all the things that are being broken down right now, and there will be a lot of opportunities to create change. But I'm tired of it all, I can't keep doing this. It isn't worth it to me any more. The Air Force is a terrible organization; there is deception at every level. We spend valuable time on completely useless priorities: New uniforms for everyone! At a time when we are supposed to be cutting costs, we spend the money and time to develop a new uniform to replace one that was working fine "to develop a distinctive look." The new ABU, incidentally, fluoreses under white light and catches on fire when it gets shot, and the shirt is 100% polyester and melts to your skin. What a waste of our energy.

I'm sorry this is so negative. It isn't my desire for this blog to be a rant, or a whine. But this thing, this dissatisfaction, is a big part of the force these days, and trying to tell the story of the military or of deploying without going into it would be a lie. I have been trying to not be a bitterheart over my lot in life, and I think I am getting there. I would hope that this comes off more as righteous anger over some very bad things that are being done...that's my intention, anyway. I will try to make my next entry less of a downer.