After a year at my base, I checked into the requirements for becoming an instructor in my career field. They were: one year at present duty station (check), achieve a certain level in the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB; check) and have a cumulative “nine”—the highest possible--on all of the last five Airman Performance Reports (now called Enlisted Performance Reports, the highest cumulative score being “five”).
This last item was something that I was worried about. Oh, I had been a good girl, but it was rumored that the superintendent of maintenance, a senior master sergeant (E-8) rarely endorsed a nine for new airman. My first and only APR was done, but the superintendent hadn’t done the endorsement. Three weeks went by before I checked on it again.
The guy gave me a nine! I don’t whether it was because I was such a great worker or because he was so happy to have a woman in the shop that didn’t do something crazy or get knocked up within a year of being there. I didn’t look a gift horse down its throat. I applied for the instructor position—at Lowry AFB, Colorado—and got it.
Roommate Roulette
In the last memories post, I mentioned getting a roommate, Ms. K. She was a bomb loader also.
One of the facts of life for lower enlisted personnel is room-sharing. You will have a roommate and, most of the time she’ll be okay. Some of the time she’ll have problems, but they can be dealt with. Then there is the small number of times that she will be a skanky, nasty ho and you will stay away from the place you call home as often as possible. My one and only Plattsburg roommate fell into this last category.
Now I don’t mean to throw stones at her. I don’t claim to have been Miss Goodie Two-Shoes either then or now; there are some things that I’ve done of which I’m not proud. And, since I’ve become a Christian there are fewer lines that I would cross than was so before. However, there are certain lines that I would never have crossed, Christian or no.
I found out early in my military career that some are not quite that picky.
Every morning when I came home from work, this chick was laid up with a guy. The identity of the guy changed from week to week. I’d open the door and there they would be. They’d wake up and—tired from working and freezing all night—I’d have to step out for the guy to dress and get going.
Then the time came when I realized just how skuzzy Ms K actually was. After arriving at work, my team was rewarded with the night off. Back to my room I went, dreading what I might find. But no one was there. Cool. So I changed clothes and got up on my bunk (the top one) and read, watched TV or something like that.
After a few hours, in walks Ms. K with a guy. I knew him from our shop and didn’t like him, but I was cordial. I didn’t even tell the little punk—whom I will refer to as Mr. AH-- to bugger himself when he made snide remarks about how skanky the black girls were that he knew in his home state of Florida. And, apparently, Mr. AH knew a skank when he saw one.
After the two cretins got tired of trying to get a rise out of me, they left to go out for the night, or so they said.
So I put on my pajamas and went to sleep. The next thing I remember is being jolted awake by the movement of my rack. Now, being a California girl and being only partially awake, my first thought was: earthquake. Then my awareness of place returned and my sense of hearing picked up.
So did my sense of smell.
Those creatures were screwing on the bottom bunk.
When they finally finished, they had the nerve to utter this dialogue:
Ms. K: "I wonder if she’s awake."
Mr. AH: "Who cares if she is?"
Livid, I replied: “Yes, I’m awake and I’d like to go back to sleep now if the two of you are finished.”
Both were gone when I awakened much later that morning. Later, when I saw the two (separately), they didn’t even have enough sense of decorum to be embarrassed.
One month later, Ms. K moved out. She was getting married to yet another guy and moving off base. Poor sap. Must have been his first one.
Thank Heavens, with there being so few women in my unit, I had no more roommates until I departed for Colorado.
