Day Fifty-eight - Banshee

Concurrently to me starting do date Dora, my military life was staring in earnest. As I said before, I had the choice of where I wanted to be stationed, and what would go down between us was ultimately the swing vote for me to choose staying closer to home. However, a part of me wanted to stay even closer, so shortly after I got to my Base, I put in a transfer for another one that was closer to where I lived. And that, as were many of the things I'd unfortunately choose to do during my time in the air force, was a mistake. Never should have done that. But the again, in this particular instance? For sure there were a lot of things I should have never done. So... ok. When I finished my training and got stationed, my life - in the miltary sense - changed a lot. Because I went from being one among many who were basically equal, to being one of the rookies, one of the new guys. And that meant a lot of unpleasant things : there was a lot of hazing (read physycal and psychological abuse), it meant me having to do all the crappy shifts, like going on patrol from two to five a.m., come rain or sun, while the others slept warm in their bunks. It was what it was, and I realize it's part of an ongoing process - the rookies before me went through the same, and so did the ones that came after me. But if I'm being honest, all this made me dislike my early military life a lot. Right then, I had no way of getting out of that contract, and I'd have to wait until it was up to get out of the service. So those first few months were hard for me, and were hard on me. I was asked to trust people - my brothers in arms, really - but they rarely gave me reason to trust me. I got stuff stolen from me, surreptitiously or otherwise, I had to go through the aforementioned abuse, and very few of the people I met there, be they just service-men like me, corporals, sergeants or officers were actually that nice to me. And later, much much later, I realized I shouldn't have expected people to be nice to me - in fact, what I was being given ought to have been enough for me to come to terms with how a beginner's life in the military was. But a very part of me held a grudge for a good, long while, and when the transfer came through, I took it. I said before it was a mistake, and do you want to know why? It was because by the time the transfer was approved I'd actually managed to integrate myself in that military life, with those for whom I felt certain disdain, and even downright hatred in some cases, but who in time I came to respect, and in a few instances, actually like. Having to start that process all over again was a mistake. A stupid, avoidable mistake.