Journey Will Call Life

Journey we call Life

PSY 202

Mr. John Webber

Journey we call Life

I. Early child hood

a.) Pre-school

b.) Middle School

c.) High school

1) Working on the farm

2) Deciding to Join the Military

II. Joining the Air Force

a.) Preparing for basic training

b.) Technical training

c.) First duty station

III. The first 8 years of the Air Force

a.) First deployment

b.) New assignment in the Air Force

c.) Instructor Duty for four years

d.) First Permanent change of station

IV. Life after the Military

a.) My next career

b.) Retirement Life

Journey we call Life

You would have never convinced me eight years ago I would be trying to complete my bachelor's degree right now. I had planned on riding out my twenty years in the military and to start my own farming operations when I retired. Little did I know that education plays a huge role in military progression? I had intentions on completing my degree but it wasn't going to be until later on in my military career. So now I'm writing about the "Journey we call Life" to sum up my life. One of the theories is to be goal-oriented so I'm going to follow that trait.

I can remember my early child days when I was growing up. My mother and dad divorced when I was a baby so don't remember much of that. I can remember staying with my grandparents when my mother would work late. She worked very longs days to provide whatever we need for us. I had a close relationship with my dad's parents I called them "mamaw and papaw" it was similar to the ones that Levinson talks about in our text. (Mossler, 2010) Being close to someone that had such an influence on my life was very important in my early development. My dad wasn't really around much until I got in middle school. My mamaw and papaw worked a lot and my other grandparents where retired and live right next door.

My mamaw and papaw would come get me whenever they got off work so I could stay with them until they had to go back to work. They worked three days one week then four days the next. I did a lot of things with them before I started school. We would go on vacation to Florida where my aunt's husband was stationed. My uncle was in the Navy so I got to see firsthand all the military ships and planes at a very young age. I can remember saying that's what I wanted to do when I grew up.

As I got older I started realizing that I could be that person I wanted to be and be like all the military people that I had seen in the past. In middle school I would have pictures of airplanes in my room and I always wanted the cool back packs that had planes on them. I was pretty set on the Air Force at a very young age. I had been on the Navy ships with my uncle and decide that wasn't for me, I would much rather be on land somewhere then in the ocean for six months.

I was active in sports when I was in middle school but I knew I was not going to make it far in sports. I played sports all through middle school until I got in high school. Sports started getting to time consuming for me requiring you to stay after school to practice so after that I just decided to work. I started working on the farm when I was about fifth teen and I absolutely love it. I would work every day after I got out of school and most of the time I would work on Saturday.

My high school years seem like they came and went in a blink of an eye. My last two years of high school I would get out of school early and head straight to the farm. During planting and harvesting time I would work seventy plus hours a week and still go to school. That would explain why the time went by so quick. It didn't take long for me to decide that I was defiantly going to the Air Force. Making a life changing decision at a young age, some people thought I was crazy for joining in a time of war. (Gadassi, Oct 2012)

It was time to go take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test to determine what I was going to do for the Air Force. It was during our busiest time of year on the farm and I was catching so much grief for taking off early for the test. I felt a little guilty for doing it but I knew it would be better for me if I just went ahead and knock it out. It only took a few short weeks after that to receive my score and see what my options were. With the mechanical background I knew what career field I was learning toward. I wasn't real sure what airframe I was going to be on but I knew that aerospace was for me. So just days after my eighteen birthday I was off to the recruiter's office to take the oath of enlistment.

I had about three month to prepare for basic training after I had signed up. I did all the medical in-processing the first month, but I had only one problem. I was about ten pounds shy of the minimum weight for my height. That was going to be the only show stopper for me to join the military. I told myself that I needed to pack on the extra pounds with muscle, not just fat. I started eating healthy and working out. Since I had been working all fall and spring I had enough money saved up that I could join the ymca and stop working on the farm. I started working out and after two months I was right at that minimum weight. It wasn't all muscle like I had hope for but I meet the minimums and that's all that mattered.

I can still remember that September day when my mother and sister took me to Memphis so that I could board the plane for basic military training. (BMT). My mother wasn't too excited about the trip at all but I knew that I was just six weeks away from being an Airman in the United States Air Force. The next day I was boarding the plane headed for Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. I was excited in one sense and nervous in the other. We all stepped off that plane into what