Everyone wants a success story. Celebrities publish memoirs every day, it seems, detailing some period of time in their lives when they worked hard and achieved something. They arrived.
I was enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, as any reader who has been with me over the life of my blog will know. When I think of success-story memoirs, and of success stories in general, the words of my Military Training Instructor (MTI) come back to me:
"Never arrive."
Staff Sergeant Massey imparted those words to us as bits of advice on our last day of Basic Military Training (BMT), as we boarded buses to go to our technical training locations. Mine was headed to Wichita Falls, Texas. Just a bus ride from where we were in San Antonio.
He had explained to us that many trainees, upon arriving at their tech school or even their permanent duty station, would feel as though they'd made it, as if they'd arrived. That feeling of arrival was their downfall - they got comfortable, and they made mistakes that proved fatal to their careers.
He told us to never arrive.
So, it never once occurred to me that I should write a memoir - least of all one that would focus on success and achievement. But now I'm in an upper-level English class and the assignment is exactly that.
And here's the thing:
I haven't arrived.
This upper-level English class is part of a program I'm in now to earn my Bachelor's Degree for Exercise, Fitness, and Nutrition Science. Still working, still studying, grinding through every obstacle in my way.
I'm forced to look back on my life. My brain is immediately flooded with the thought: "I'm not ready to write this story. I haven't reached success yet." Upon reflection, I have succeeded in multiple endeavors.
With each achievement, each accomplishment, each "success," I never once felt as though I'd reached the summit, so to speak.
For the purposes of this assignment, I'm looking back on BMT, with MTI Sgt Massey telling us never to arrive. That we should never feel as though we'd completed our journey, never get comfortable.
The advice came at the end of the most arduous and bewildering eight weeks of my life, which started late at night on December 28, 2010.
The first night, we were asked if we had ever played an instrument or had rhythm. Having played clarinet for five years, I naturally raised my hand - and, along with all others who did so, I was sorted into a band flight. There were two of us - a male flight and a female flight.
The first night, I cried when we went to bed, like so many others. I wondered what I'd really gotten myself into - if I could really handle what I'd signed up for.
Basic Military Training was an absolute nightmare in which we lived by the week - Sunday to Sunday. If you go into the military without religion, you find one to join while you're in BMT, just to get out of the barracks and be spoken to like a person rather than low-grade single-use plastic-mixed materials (garbage).
The only days in which I had any sense of bearing were Sundays. Sunday held the illusion of freedom - we had the choice to go to any religious service we wanted. Most weeks, I chose the Wiccan service, but there was one week I chose the Muslim service, and another week I added Bible Study to my week as an excuse to leave the dorm an extra time - only to be totally disappointed by it anyway.
Day-to-day operations were a mysterious fog. We marched from location to location. We went up and down the stairs as fast as possible while making sure to hold the handrail at all times, Trainee! We formed up at the bottom of the stairs outside, under an overhang large enough to conduct drill movements and PT and stay out of any rain.
We had band practice at least a couple times a week. I was assigned cymbals - an instrument I'd never played, but quickly got used to, and for which I credit my rapid improvements with push-ups. We had classes to attend and materials we needed to study.
We had time each week, if not each night, to write letters to people close to us. We had time each week to call someone close to us.
It never clicked to me what our schedule was. Hour to hour, I as clueless as to what the plan for the day was, and only knew the current activity, if not the next activity as well (if I were lucky).
Adding to my bewilderment, I was accused of having no integrity. I was accused of lying. I was berated for "having an attitude" when attempting to add input to a discussion among others in my flight.
When we met our MTI, Staff Sergeant Massey, I was petrified. The fear never went away - not even at the very end after we'd said our good-byes and gone on our ways.
He always said my name wrong. I'm not sure if he ever heard me correct him; he seemed unable to hear me any time I spoke to him, but at the time it felt as though he deliberately ignored what I tried to say - which added up in my mind as a typical experience of BMT that I should grit myself to endure.
Sgt Massey told us early on that his "worst trainees" would always write him letters to tell him how much they appreciated him, and so on.
I'm not sure how accurate my perception is, but I felt as though he disliked me the most in my flight.
Never in my life have I humiliated myself or been humiliated the way I was during BMT. These are details I won't share today because they are still humiliating to air.
Ultimately, I vowed never to be the kind of trainee to write back to my MTI. No, thank you.
I was fired from two important jobs I had been given - and these were humiliating revocations of responsibility. They were things that I had a knack for, and for which I did not fall in line enough when doing. I was even given an opportunity to use my greatest talent and skill - my art - and I fucked it up.
It's amazing I made it through at all.
It's a goddamn miracle I didn't get recycled.
Recycling happened when someone was held back for a week. Essentially, while the rest of their flight would move on to the next week of studies, practices, etc., a trainee would be held back in the same week, if not a previous week, and join another flight at that week's level of training. Some people were recycled two weeks back or more.
I held on. That's it. I held on, and I did my best to keep up and stay on track.
Through sheer grit and perseverance, I made it through. I earned my Airman's coin.
Prior to enlisting in the Air Force, and in fact, prior to high school, I practiced mixed martial arts. It was there that I learned about perseverance and the indomitable spirit. That was what I carried with me to sustain me in BMT. My MTI review at the end was upsetting to me, but I never got sent backwards in training.
My MTI's words stuck with me in tech school and even when I went to my permanent duty station in Germany. "Never arrive." Never get comfortable. It's what had me hitting the ground running, ready to move forward and excel as an Airman.
It's what has me continuing my education and continuing to seek a meaningful and impactful career that will bring me joy as well as enough wealth to thrive.
There is no arrival. There are only stepping stones.
