Day Seventy-six - It's on me

I can't now be sure exactly how this timeline actually played out, but after passing that medical and being given the all clear from the recruitment center, the next step for me would be to to go back to the air force early in the morning, then go to the gear depot where I would be assigned brand new gear, and after that was done I'd have to put on my official military fatigues, with all accompanying regalia and accoutrements, if they were necessary or/and mandatory for what was to follow. And what was to follow was that I'd have to (again) do that whole almost song and dance ritual of officially introducing myself to my C.O., but that went so bad that I had to do the whole bit at least twice. You see, this is nothing more than me performing a series of drill commands, in an automated manner, and by the end of that drill I formally intorduce myself. Now, this was something that I could have done with my eyes closed when I was still in active duty, and I thought that muscle memory would be enough to carry me through. It wasn't... I was actually reprimanded barely minutes into my return to the air force - which, I guess, was to be expected, though part of me also expected some kind of leniency - and I had to do things the proper way. And so I mustered what knowledge I still had, and did my drill command thing again, this time to a satisfactory end, with the C.O. welcoming me back to the fold in earnest.

But I'm not going to be a hypocrite and say that the reprimand didn't sting me a bit. It left a bad taste in my mouth for sure, it soured what I hoped would be a successful come back. And what did I, in fact, expect to find waiting for me? Well, for a start, that sense of camaraderie that I had felt before, though I didn't recognize it at first, and grew to appreciate only when it was too late. All the rest, I think, I already knew what it would be like. But in between me having been transfered to the other air force base, leaving the service, and the length of time I spent in my normie life until returning, a lot had changed... a lot of the people who I best got along with had left the service themselves, and there were a lot of new faces there. Some I knew because they were just getting started as I was being transferred, most were new people who seemed even younger faced than I did when I came in. And that left a gnawing feeling inside me. I mean, I'd just signed up for a three year contract, and I had no way out of that, no way of escaping something that felt more like a nightmare rather than a dream. Despondent, I made my peace with the fact, hoping that things would sort of fall into place in due time. Little did I know that I would be given a way out some three days into my return.