It’s all in a day’s work for military training leaders

Published Feb. 17, 2010
By Staff Sgt. Katherine Blade
332nd Training Squadron

KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Our day begins at 5 a.m. at morning formation. Over 500 Airmen fall out for accountability, 30 are late, and three you physically have to wake up. The Airmen form up into flights and you begin the 20-minute march to the schoolhouse only to come back and take another accountability for the 24 Airmen that are not in school due to test failures, awaiting a new class or anticipating disciplinary action.

Seven o'clock arrives and it's time to check the e-mails that have begun to take over your inbox. This can take a better part of the morning until you get a knock at your door. "Staff Sergeant, we can't find Airman Stokes. Airman Braden said that he hasn't been himself lately." So you begin to locate Airman Stokes. You start with change of quarters -- no luck. No one has seen him. On the way to his room, your heart beats faster. You don't know if he's sleeping behind the dryer to get out of doing details, or the worst ... suicide. Then you get the key into the door, announce yourself as you enter to find him sitting in the middle of the floor crying, unable to cope. His father died while he was en route from basic training and his mom just called to tell him the news.

After you get him to the hospital you realize how hungry you are. It's after lunch. You missed the 10 o'clock meeting and you haven't started the 75 room inspections you have to do. So you scarf down the crackers that came out of the vending machine which took $1.65 of your money. You are still hungry, but don't have any more money.

You're a floor MTL and are responsible for about 75 rooms housing 150 Airmen that need to be inspected every week. You grab an Airman working CQ to take along with you so you have someone else to vouch as to why a room fails in case there is a question or so you don't get accused of eating food out of their refrigerator (yes, it actually happened.) At the 17th room you knock, announce yourself and enter. It's trashed. There are empty pizza boxes and trash everywhere, dirty underwear on the floor, the toilet is disgusting and it looks like they blew up a small animal in the microwave. They have managed to fail every area of the room including security. One wall locker is open and it smells like a foot. You peek inside and ... a pack of cigarettes. You put them in your pocket and find a 341 so you'll remember the Airman's name. You'll get to him later. On with room inspections.

Now it's time to hurry and print a list -- a "hotsheet" -- of all the Airmen you have to see because you have to go pick up them up from the schoolhouse. You give Airmen Palmer who had the tobacco an letter of reprimand and literally run out to physical readiness training. You have to call out the exercises. Up, down, up, down, then hurry and get them all on the starting line for the 30-minute "Keesler shuffle." During the run, Airman Wilson is running backwards to talk to her buddy not thinking about safety, Airman Hamilton is goofing off trying to jump imaginary puddles, Airman Freimann is skipping like a little kid and Airman Holmes complains of everything under the sun to get out of running. Finally the run is over and every Airman sprints the rest of the way to get to their drill pad as quickly as possible, nearly bowling you over in the process. You go in your office and sit down for a breather for what seems like the first time today. Then the line of Airmen begins before you go home.

There are many reasons to see your floor MTL. "I got locked out of my room" and "Can I go home for the weekend?" are common. But sometimes you get the "what the heck??" sort of stuff like "Airmen Kibbe hasn't taken a shower in two weeks," or "Airman Clinton is snorting Tylenol," or even "Airman Wesley had a conversation with Satan dressed as Santa Claus in the briefing room." (Yes, all of these actually happened).

After fielding all the questions and crazy stuff, you head for the door to go home. It's 8 p.m., you are dog tired and you are the MTL on call tonight. It's Friday and you are praying it will be a quiet night. You pick up your two kids from day care, go home to fix dinner, do laundry, bath time, bedtime and deal with the rest of the stresses of adult life.

No such luck for the quiet night. The phone rings at 2:20 a.m. and it's Security Forces telling you they picked up Airman Pate for DUI coming through the gate. So you roll out of bed, put on the nearest clothes, wake up your two children to take with you because you are a single parent and shove everyone into the truck. You get to the cop shop and encounter Airman Pate who is still intoxicated and seems to be very emotional about letting you and the Air Force down. You sympathize because he seems to be remorseful and you tell yourself that everyone makes mistakes. He's crying in the front seat, the kids are quiet listening to all he is saying and hoping they never make the same mistake and then you hear it -- he's vomited in your truck all down the side of the door panel. Wonderful. All you can think is, "I hope the smell comes out by the third shampooing like last time."

You get back to the dorm and give him Phase 1 until the commander can sort out the Article 15. You gather up your children and head for home again. You get settled back into bed, but now you can't sleep. You're deep in thought. You lie there thinking about the day.

You then realize that Airman Peña said "Good Morning, how are you?" and made you smile. You remember that Airman Steele came to you over his concern about Airman Stokes and you think of how the wingman concept worked to maybe save a life that morning. You think about Airman Morris who helped you with room inspections, writing down every discrepancy for you. You think about the talk you had with Airman Palmer about the tobacco in his room, taking the time to mentor him and get him on the right path and how he thanked you and smiled on the way out of your office. During PRT, you kept the Airmen motivated, letting them come up with different strength training exercises. You remember the Airman who ran the mile-and-a-half in 8:41! Very impressive and you were proud that he was in your squadron. Finally, to the Airman with the DUI. You remember the Airmen working CQ when you came back in giggled at what you were wearing. Yeah, you looked like a circus clown. You think of the Airmen and how at the end of the night he was sober and told you how much he appreciated you picking him up, listening to him and being like a second parent to him.

It's all worth it to make a difference in just one Airman. Getting that "Thank you, Sergeant," after they have moved on to the operational side means as much. Then you think ... it's all in a day's work.