Well a lot has changed since the last time I wrote. The guy from Kansas is no longer. I didn't have to see a psychologist, my recruiter or his higher up wrote a waiver for me and sent me back to MEPS June 9-10. It was there that I met the young gentleman I'm seeing now. We just clicked from the moment we met. I got to see him off to basic on July 15th. It was one of the most emotional days ever. He didn't know I was coming to see him off. His family wasn't there and I couldn't not say good bye to the man who's made me feel beautiful and has treated me as a lady for the past month. Spending the day with him, by his side, watching him swear in and then finally having to say goo- bye to him was one of the most rewarding days ever. I tried not to cry when he left my side and boarded the bus that was to take him to the airport. But that didn't happen. I held them at bay, for the most part, until the bus pulled away and I couldn't see him anymore. I patiently await his letters.
I myself am no longer joining the Air Force. I will not be miserable for four years doing a job that I don't particularly want to do. I didn't go through 4 years of college to get a degree in English just to be a mechanic. My recruiter isn't happy with me, telling me that if I walk away I've wasted military funding, and that I should have thought of all this months ago. Months ago the job I wanted to get was still available to me. Months ago I was disqualified for three things that didn't pertain to the job I wanted. I was told, the second time around at MEPS, that I couldn't get the job I wanted because of my eye sight not being correctable to 20/20 with glasses or contacts. So I went to my eye doctors and got the most recent examination papers from them and tried to hand them into my recruiter to send into the SG to approve. Just to be told, by my recruiter, that I should have had this paperwork with me when I went back to MEPS. That there's nothing that can be done now. I went to PT yesterday and my recruiter wanted me to sign my contract locking me into the mechanic job for 4 years. I told him not today. He asked if I was backing out, and I told him yes. That that wasn't a job I really wanted to do. That my father had done that job when he was in the service and I'm going to take his word over a recruiters about what the job entails. My dad has experience in that job, where as a recruiter he did not. He belittled me. Telling me that if I walk out that he'll tell all the other branches that I'm being traitorous, by not upholding my oath. That he doesn't ever want to see me in that office again and that I will never get a job with the military, especially not in the Air Force. He went on to say that my dad might have had a bad experience in the field he was in, but that it didn't mean I would. That I shouldn't take my dad's word over his. That I can cross train into the job I wanted after a year and a half of working the job they gave me. I told him that I could cross train into the job I wanted only if it was available. Why be miserable for a year a half, try to cross train just to find out that the job you wanted to cross train into isn't available? His answer was simply that intelligence is hard to get into that he told me that from the start. I agreed with him, but I also told him that I did qualify for the intelligence job I wanted to get and the only things keeping me from it were my eyes and him. He told me I have until this upcoming Monday by 4pm to make a decision. And that if my decision is to leave I better have a legitimate reason for walking out and I have to write it out in the office. I walked out of the office and drove the hour back home. Half way home, I got a text from my recruiter telling me that it wasn't my eyes that was keeping me out of the intelligence job, but one of my waivers. The waiver in question shouldn't matter on the job I'm trying to get into. It's going to be the same for all the jobs. I'm done with the lies. I'll be content to sit on the side lines and be part of the silent ranks, standing next to my man and supporting him in all that he has to do for the military. My mind is made up. I'm writing that "legitimate" reason down now. I'm not driving an hour there to write for maybe 15 minutes as to why I'm walking away just to have to drive an hour back. It's not worth my time or my gas.
