Decisions

Scott’s Sunday Stories

E7 July 16, 2023

Decisions

I graduated high school In 1985. That summer was full of 18 year old independence and fun with friends. However, come September I found myself feeling pretty alone staying at the local community college when most all of my close friends went off to out of town colleges and universities.

That fall I worked for my stepfather at his print shop, which I had been doing for several years during high school, and attended community college classes… it felt like 13th grade to me. I was going to high school football games and hanging out at high school parties all weekend. It did not take too many weeks before I was searching for a way out from under my parent’s home and my unsatisfied life. I knew my potential was greater than what I was experiencing.?

I knew there had to be more to life than sex, drinking and country music.

One afternoon my one friend, who was also left back in our town, and I were driving down Thousand Oaks Blvd and drove past the military recruiters strip mall… of course we knew it was there but something about it stuck out this time.

A few weeks later, without consulting our parents, both of is showed up at the Air Force recruiter to get more information.

That single decision to see the recruiter has changed the course of my life, and may have been one of the single most important decisions I have ever made. Of course none of us gets to find out the alternative story!?

It took several months before I was able to get on a plane to Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio TX. But in March 1986, I made that trek to Basic Training. The decision to do this shocked my parents, but I was 18 and had signed the papers and there was no stopping me. The train of my life was about to leave the station…!

I had NO IDEA what to expect, did my best to start running and exercising, and to somehow STOP taking medicine for lifelong asthma and not need an inhaler, as I had lied to get in… Miraculously, I was able to stop taking any medicine and in fact was able to not only complete basic training but led out in the physical activity portion, calling cadence while running and leading a squad. I turned 19 while in basic training.

Basic training also broke me, several weeks into my time I was called out for some minor infractions and was “recycled” which meant I had to go back and redo one week extending my time in basic training. I will never forget sitting in a bathroom stall balling my eyes out and playing visions of having to return home, tail between my legs and face my failure in front of my parents. That recycled week gave me a renewed sense of what I had to do to finish and move on to my next training. I rose to the occasion, completed basic and went to Colorado for my technical training.

I loved my time in the Air Force, everything about it - the structure, the comrodery, the mission all resonated with me and I was excelling as an Airman.

Three things happened in my second year that have forever marked and changed the future course of my life. One, I began following the Christian faith, two, I met and became engaged to my now wife of 34 years, and three, I was medically discharged from the Air Force. Turns out, spending a lot of time in a small space with photography chemicals is not good for someone with a past of asthma, and the doctor diagnosed me as such when I starting having asthma attacks… of course he didn’t know I had lied to get in, and so I accepted his diagnosis and was medically and honorably discharged.

I do wonder sometimes about the lying to the recruiter, the two years spent in military service, the things that changed me forever and why and how it ever happened the way it did.

My wife and I describe our lives as a “great adventure”. Somehow in God’s redemptive plan, all of this makes sense. I am sorry for having lied, but am grateful for how that time, early in my adult life, marked me for a life that I am so thankful for and appreciate so much.

-Scott