#hansomejake

I was waiting for the bus heading to the movies to meet a friend, we were going to see Pixar's Brave then sneak into a few other films. In fact I was sitting next to the Brave movie poster at the bus stop thinking to myself, "I'm about to see you in action." Relaxing in the warm SF sun, sporting a Tom Selleck mustache while eating skittles, a small child no older than two appeared out of nowhere and put his little kid hands on my thigh and said, "Hi." I looked at his hands, then my leg, then his eyes..."Sup little buddy, wanna sit down?" He thought for a sec almost as if he was pondering the legitimacy of the situation, "yes," he replied. You know that awkward moment when you're at a bus stop with a two year old stranger who you've just offered a seat to, when you notice he's way to small to get into it himself and he's expecting you to pick him up? Yeah, that's where I was. He lifted his arms and just stared at me, where are this kids parents!!!? I leaned forward, offered him some skittles as I peered around the corner looking for his parental supervision. Two year olds love skittles.

Here's a photo taken later in the day, would you let this dude entertain your kid with candy at a bus stop?

Earlier in training my team and I formed a list of things that we thought would be funny to get away with, these were things that the team couldn’t get mad at you for successfully completing no matter how much trouble it got all of us into; when attempting something on the list you had full support of the team. These were things like: sneaking a girl into your room, hitting on an instructors daughter (bonus points if she was the girl you snuck into your room), or challenging an instructor to a physical challenge and winning. I can’t really remember the entirety of the list, but at this moment, in that pool one item stood out...I was going to moon an instructor.

Luckily, one of our prestigious super hero noncommissioned officers (NCO) was sitting facing my lane line. This situation couldn’t have been better set up if I tried. First thing I had to do was get the attention of my team, again due to being forced to swim on our side using only our legs to propel us through the water, it was pretty simple to use the next 50 meters to let as many as possible know what I was about to attempt.

Checking a list item off wasn’t as simple as saying you did it, you had to get witnesses. For the next 50 meters I was franticly signaling everyone in eyesight to watch the awesome feat that I was about to accomplish. Most of the team slowed down and positioned themselves about five meters or so behind me so they could see our hero of an NCO’s face after I pushed off the wall exposing my pale backside to him. 

I wasn’t even nervous, I think the comfort level that we as a team had established had made me feel invincible at this point. I had no thought of recourse; to be honest the likelihood that he would even look up from his paper seemed like a very small percentage. As I reached the end of a very anticipated 50 meters I grabbed the wall took a deep breath and pushed off the wall as hard as my legs let me, as soon as my speedo slipped back again I made sure my butt was out of the water and in plain sight of our heroic PJ. I slumped my butt back into the water turned to my side and pulled my speedo back up, I kept looking to my team to see their reactions but they were far enough behind me that I could barely see their hands as kicked their way through the water. That was good news to me; nobody was pulled out of the pool, which to me meant that I had gotten away with my mooning escapade.

I was going to have to get to another wall to see their faces; I swam pretty hard that next 25 meters laughing to myself. I was just inches from the wall, inches from turning around and seeing the looks on my teams faces, inches from smiling another 25 meters of a rather long and boring 4000 meter swim; when out of nowhere a hand reached down and yanked me out of the pool. 

This wasn’t just an ordinary grab and pull, this was the sort of yank that Moms do when their child is in trouble, a yank that you read about in comic books or see in super hero movies. It took no time at all for our special forces NCO to pull me from the water. Now my memory is a bit cloudy of this moment in time because I was so shocked, but how I remember it, I was just dangling there as he held me by my wrist with his arm fully extended.

I guess this is as good a time as any to explain our required uniform for this event. I like to think aerodynamics played a role in the intent behind these uniforms but sadly after this story I feel it was a test of willingness to do whatever was asked of you. 

We’ll start at the top and work our way down. Every weekend we had to make sure that we all had the same haircuts at this point in training we each had very short militant haircuts thanks to a few balding team members. We wore diving masks that covered our eyes and noses, Air Force PT shirts whose only requirement besides uniformity among the team was that we couldn’t show our bellybutton. (As ridiculous as that sounds it was necessary to specify, mine was a child’s extra small that one of the bigger guys helped me stretch out to reach the required length below my bellybutton.) We wore black speedos, black diving booties and diving fins. 

Now I’m sure you can imagine a handful of 18-30 year olds running around a military installation wearing such embarrassing uniforms. The best part was, at the time we all thought we looked badass. And to be fair we did, its hard no to look buff when you workout at the gym, pool, and track 50 hours a week for 6 months. No matter what you wear and no matter what hairstyle is forced on you, you just feel confident, misplaced or not, you feel confident. Besides I always have my blue eyes. There were some events in the pool that required us to use snorkels so we always had one close to us, but one wasn’t needed for this two and a half mile swim.

Let me bring you back to the situation, so no kidding there I was in my flattering military/Rocky Horror Picture Show uniform dangling by my left wrist from my instructors raised arm; the fins on my feet barely touching the pool deck. I finally snapped out of the shock and was staring this super hero of an NCO in the eyes and he asked me, “Did you just moon me?” A huge smile broke over my face and I shouted out the standard response for yes in this course...”HOO-YAH SERGEANT!” I could hear my team laughing and shouting back, “HOO-YAH CASTRO!” He didn’t smile; this was the first time that I thought I was going to be murdered, thank God I had so many witnesses. 

He finally let me go and I snapped to attention on the pool deck using the sharpest military movements I could. I think I really caught him off guard; he sat there and thought for a few moments on punishment. (On of the greatest things in this training program was that punishment was meant to make you stronger or embarrass you, not to put any sort of negative marks on your military career.) “Loose the fins, grab a snorkel you’ve got five seconds.” 

Well I didn’t make that timeline. Before I knew it I was doing flutter kicks on the pool deck with a mask full of water making it nearly impossible to breath since my nose was in that mask and my mouth wasn’t. (Like waterboarding but at a kindergartners level.) This wasn’t anything new to me; since we’ve been through this before and I like to think I mastered the art of breathing, staying calm, and counting out loud, as rudimentary as that sounds it’s a tough skill to master. 

My instructor didn’t like that so much, “Castro get up and put your fins on your hands, snorkel in your mouth, mask on and run around the pool quacking like a duck!”

Simple, right? This was going to be one of the easiest forms of punishment I’ve ever had, or so I thought at the time. In retrospect perhaps less smiling and more looks of shame would have been better...but for this stories sake I’m glad I was smiling. After a few laps around the pool quacking like a duck and being laughed at by my teammates, my instructor finally started to find the humor in the event. One more round of flutter kicks on the pool deck with my mask full of water wouldn’t be complete without a Gatorade water cooler full of ice and very little water pored on my chest, that part actually sucked as it took my breath away. “Castro get up!”

He pointed to a basic training chow hall on the other side of a field, instructed me to run through it quacking like a duck. Of course he meant with my fins on my hands, arms flapping, mask on, snorkel in my mouth, skin tight child’s extra small t-shirt, speedo, and booties on. With a smile on my face I sprinted across the field on my way, flapping my arms and quacking like a duck. “Quack, Quack, Quack,” flap, flap, flap (My quacking was severely muffled by the snorkel in my mouth.) I hear my instructor shout, “Hurry and come back!”

When I reached the chow hall there were lines of newly enlisted men and women standing at the position of attention diligently waiting to be called into the building for a warm delicious meal. I flew past them, none of them breaking their composure. I kicked the push handle of the entrance door, it flew open and I ran through the line flapping my arms and quacking like a duck, “Quack, Quack, Quack!” Again nobody took their eyes off the back of the person’s head ahead of them. I made my way to the serving line, turned sideways and wiggled my way into the main dining hall. “Quack, Quack, Quack,” I continued to shout while flapping my arms. As I turned the corner I saw something that I didn’t anticipate. 

The Snake Pit...The Snake Pit was where all the TIs sat and ate their meals; it was also one of the most embarrassing and harassing things about basic training. Everyday they would belittle each person they could. I had been in front of them before when I was in basic training and I knew that I had to pick up the pace and make my way out of there before the proverbial shit hit the fan.

“Quack, Quack, Quack,” flap, flap, flap. About 15 feet from the Snake Pit, a table of the most intimidating military TIs looked up at me. “Quack, Quack, Quack,” flap, flap, flap. To my right was another push door, I looked around to see hundreds of little Airman raising their heads in unison and finally taking notice of my antics. A few tried to maintain “proper military bearing” and not laugh but some couldn’t help it. “Quack, Quack, Quack,” flap, flap, flap. I turned the corner and sprinted for the push door. “Quack, Quack, Quack,” flap, flap, flap. I looked over my shoulder and saw four TIs grabbing their traditional brimmed hats, stumbling over chairs, frantically trying to catch up with me. There was no chance, I was one of the fastest guys on my team, I could run three miles under 18 minutes which I was sure was about five minutes faster than these guys donned in their camouflage uniforms. “Quack, Quack, Quack,” flap, flap, flap. I kicked the push door out; it flew open and this time around the entire group of future Airmen standing outside noticed me, the area erupted in laughter. 

No time to stop now I had some evading to do. “Quack, Quack, Quack,” flap, flap, flap. Finally out of the chow hall I could see the pool, my teammates, and my super hero of an instructor waiting for me at the other side of a field. “Quack, Quack, Quack,” flap, flap, flap. I took another glance over my shoulder to see the TIs were gaining ground on me. I wasted too much time opening the door and consequently it stayed open for them. 

“Quack, Quack, Quack,” flap, flap, flap. Just another 100 yards, I channeled my inner Usain Bolt and ran as fast as I could. “Quack, Quack, Quack,” flap, flap, flap. The mask on my face was forcing me to breath through my mouth, but now my mask was fogging up as I was approaching my instructor.

My instructor had now dawned his Scarlet Beret, (a sign of badassedness in the military, especially the Air Force) and was standing there in his best superman pose with his hands in the shape of fists resting on his hips, his elbows and chest bowed out, and neck extended. 

“Quack, Quack, Quack,” flap, flap, flap. When I got close to him he reached out and pulled me in behind him, in one smooth and swift motion. The same dude who I thought was going to murder me earlier was now here to save my life. I couldn’t help but feel a father son bond with this superman of an NCO, this treatment made me revert to a 10 year old. I’m serious I was standing behind him, peeking around him excited to watch the can of whoop ass about to be unleashed on these TIs. “Quack, Quack, Quack,” flap, flap, flap. “Shut up Castro,” he said. Now that sounds more like something my Dad would say.

The TIs finally caught up, all of them bent over from exhaustion struggling to form a sentence that made some sense, “Speedo, belly shirt, chow hall,” one of them muttered while pointing at me. I swear I thought one of them was going to keel over and die from a heart attack, I don’t think any of these guys have ever ran so hard. If they had I’m sure it wasn’t after an 18 year old kid dressed in a speedo and a belly shirt flapping his arms and quacking like a duck, if it were a Navy base maybe they would have. 

Not so intimidating now, I thought in my head as I looked at the TIs bent over struggling for air.

What happened next is no joke, my Jedi of an NCO took his left hand off his hip, waved his open palm facing them, and said; “He’s with me, carry on with your day.” And like a bunch of Storm Troopers from one of the Star War movies, they said OK and walked away. I think my jaw might have hit the ground; there was no way it could be that simple. I’ve tried the Jedi mind trick countless times since, all of which have been unsuccessful. I’ve come to the conclusion that it was a fluke. There is no way that the Jedi mind trick should have worked there. I wonder if he knew if that would work or not, perhaps it was the confidence that was oozing out of his pores, but that day, at that moment I was saved by a Jedi Knight.

On our way back to join the rest of my team he asked if I’d heard him say, “Hey wait come back.” Suddenly things made more sense, he didn’t yell for me to hurry and come back, he tried stopping me before I made the two of us look like idiots. I just shook my head and said, “No.” We agreed not to tell anybody about the event until both of us were out of that command for obvious reasons.

A couple of months later, after my team and I had graduated, a 100 more recruits had just shown up, and it was my task to show them around the annex we lived on. I had to answer all of their questions and help them settle into a life outside of basic training and into bad ass training.

One of the new recruits kept telling this story of when he was eating lunch one day in basic training, he saw a half naked man running through the main dinning hall shouting, “Fuck, Fuck, Fuck,” all while waving his arms like a crazed maniac. (I’m not sure if he was talking about me or not because he never mentioned seeing beautiful blue eyes.) Later his TIs assured his flight that, that sort of disrespectful behavior had no place in today’s Air Force. That particular maniac will be kicked out of the service and will have such a black mark on his record that no business would ever want to employ such a deviant. Other recruits were chiming in on how they heard that particular “maniac” had to be psychologically evaluated, there were rumors of drug and alcohol use, and even one who believed that it was staged just to instill fear in the newly enlisted men and women of the Air Force.