|
Slow Sunday night; usually don’t work them because of that, but occasionally they make for the most interesting evenings. The individuals are out and about on the slow nights. The people who want to be alone. Need to be alone. I’m one myself occasionally as I’m sure I’ve proven here through any number of drunken rants. The last one of which was almost fatal, in DU terms, and I must remind myself of that before we proceed.
The ride begins. A tall young man with a small pony tail approaches my taxi from a convenient store I’m hanging at and asks me the nearly rhetorical question of “Are you on duty?”
If I’m sitting still, hell yes. You could be Chuck Manson and I’d probably give you a deal on a Sunday. Turns out this lad needed to go to his hotel by way of the local Taco Bell drive thru, which usually affords at least ten extra minutes to engage the customer in the small talk, and in this case it was a full cue so that gave us at least fifteen.
He had the misfortune to be friendly and polite so I locked on and proceeded to babble away the boredom of the last few hours. I’m not sure how we got on the subject except we were talking about the area and how everyone is gouging apartment prices due to more brigades coming to our Fort. Everyone is dumping their houses to people 30 States away who have dollar signs in their eyes for the little, about to become much bigger military town. Eventually I mentioned for some reason that I had let my military ID expire on purpose because I couldn’t hear too many more soldier stories for a while. Said he definitely understood and despite his appearance (pony tail) he used to be in the Air Force.
Shadow to DU. Target acquired. Request permission to interview.
Thinking perhaps I may have already crossed a line, because at one point I think I said something like I couldn’t work on the base anymore because I couldn’t bring myself to profit directly from the U.S. Military Industrial Complex any longer in good conscience.
DAMN YOU AL GORE FOR MAKING ME PASSIONATE THIS WEEK!!!!
I switched the conversation instantly to interest in his field and history. Always puts them at ease and this guy was very generous. I admit I sometimes amaze myself how much good talk I can fit into these little pieces of time in my cab but this man spoke volumes.
He was in the Air Force many years before I learned, now an auditor and musician. Brain still chewing on that combination, but I digress. He said he used to be on a C-130 crew stationed in Egypt for the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Mostly doing relief flights at the time I assume. He said he wanted to be a pilot but literally he couldn’t qualify because he was too tall.
“Even in a C-130?” I asked; genuinely surprised; the smaller fighters made sense to me and this guy did go about 6’8 on a good day but I figured the big cargo monsters would allow for some more leg room. He said he could have flown helicopters but he really wanted to be in the fast movers. I asked if it was hard to be just part of a crew and not be able to fly. He seemed content just to be able to work in the sky.
He went on to tell me that he actually got out of the Air Force right before 9/11 happened and he was somewhat glad of that now in light of obvious events. I asked if he had any “Patriotic Pull” to go back in when it happened.
“I did at first. I mean you wanted to punish someone. My fiancé said she didn’t want me to. Time will tell if that decision was the right one or not”
I got the impression that said relationship might not be quite perfect at the moment but I had to say, and did. “Hey man, you’re here and you’re alive. I’d say you’re at least batting .500 so far.”
He agreed. We talked in length about the war and he definitely, never agreed with the Iraq fiasco, another reason he has stayed out. I admitted to originally thinking Afghanistan might be a noble endeavor but with the overt deception of this administration I really didn’t know what the reasoning was.
He agreed and went on to say that he knew the Iraq fiasco was all about money and oil. “The only plan should have been to get Osama Bin Laden. You don’t invade a whole country for that. 9/11 was our fault, we trained them all how to do this. We trained OBL to fight the Russians in Afghanistan”
Nodding my head vigorously now and sharing in his passion I expressed my fear that we would probably end up learning the same hard lessons the Russians did.
“There’s a reason no one has ever been able to occupy that country” I added.
“We’ve bombed the hell out of it. There’s nothing left to it. It’s basically a parking lot, except there are still a lot of very smart mother fuckers in the hills”
The Afghanistan war; going swimmingly.
We talked about a few other things not war related. He was a musician and we had a good mini-debate on file sharing and internet radio and both lamented the state of broadcast today. Over all he seemed like a very progressive young man who definitely contradicts many views of Air Force Personnel I think we get. This man was definitely glad not to be a part of our military any longer at this time despite being very proud, and rightly so, of the service he has given.
“I did my time in the military, four years, served honorably and got out and went to college. What’s going on now isn’t honorable at all anymore.”
The ride ends. He thanked me for the good conversation. “No, thank you.” Always tip your cabbie.
Shadow out
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
