Transcription
So most people think the military changes you by making you disciplined, making you fit, making you strong, and it does, but you know, that's the regular deglas stuff. The real changes are way weirder and they stick with you forever. I'm talking about stuff that happens to your brain that you don't see coming. The weird habits, the way you will confuse the hell out of civilians for the rest of your life, cuz once you serve, you're not the same person. And some of these changes, they just flat out ridiculous.
So, number one, this one is not as weird as as I've mentioned, but it is something that will probably happen. You're going to lose that accent. So, wherever you're from, you could be from like Alabama, you could be from Boston, you could be from Texas, you could be from anywhere, and you're going to lose that accent. And the reason why it's not because you want to, it's kind of like you have to. I remember when I first joined the Air Force, I had a friend, his name is Ricky. He was from Alabama. He had a thick Alabama accent. He was He sounded like that dude off of King of the Hill. be like, you know, got down there. You know what I'm saying? Like like he really talked like that. And I remember when he would talk, I had to like focus. I had to really listen into what he was saying. But he told me himself that he said that that stopped him from opportunities inside of the Air Force. So he had to work on his annunciation so he can start getting those opportunities. He ended up being a recruiter. He ended up killing it out of Virginia. But he used to sound like the dude from King of the Hill. And now, I mean, he still has a southern draw, but it's not as thick as it was when when he first joined. Same thing for myself. I used to have more of like a country accent, but I just realized being in the military over some years, like it's not going to be that beneficial for me to be walking around talking how I used to talk before I joined the Air Force. So, when I go back home and I see some of my friends, they be like, "You sound different." You can say this is a good thing, you can say this is a bad thing. I believe it's a good thing because now I can go into any room like anywhere and I'm not going to be looked at funny because I got this weird accent. Like I'm going to get respect when I talk. Nobody's going to be like where the hell is this dude from? Hopefully.
The number two change that's probably going to happen is you're going to start walking different. When you go through basic training, they teach you how to like walk upright. They teach you how to walk with like proper arm movement. All of this just walking more confident, walking more professional. So you get that just out of basic training. The weirdest part that you don't think is that you've been marching with 50 people for like the last seven and a half weeks. That's Air Force for some of the other basic trainings. I believe Marines is like 13 weeks. You've been marching with them side by side and you have to march in sync. What I mean by that is that basically we take the same steps at the same time and you start using your peripherals to kind of see how they're walking. So you kind of like look off to the side and then you start walking in sync with them. You do this long enough and when you graduate basic training, you no longer have to walk in sync with people. It's crazy. You automatically just start syncing up with people. Like I could tell people who just graduated from like basic training or tech school within like the last two to three years because if you ever see like two people walking down the street who are fresh out of training, they're usually walking in step or walking in sync with each other. But something that makes it even weirder is that like you do it with people that you're not even working with. I be out with my wife sometimes and I catch myself walking in sync with her and I've been in the Air Force 19 years. So it's still something that's like ingrained in you. I don't know how, but it's a thing.
The third thing that might change after serving in the military is your detector becomes like ultra nuclear. Like you do not go for the stories anymore. I'll give you all an example. I was a recruiter in Iowa, right? And as I'm sitting at my little table, I'm at a school or maybe I was at like a ski shooting contest. That's the kind of stuff that happened in Iowa. I don't remember. But I'm at my table and some dude come up to my table and he was like, "Yeah, you know, um, how do I join or whatnot?" And I was like, "Hey, you know, we got some cards on the table. You just fill it out. I get your information. I call you." And he was like, "Yeah, you know, I'm not really concerned about getting shot at and stuff like that. You know what I'm saying? I have been shot at with AKs and stuff before." And I actually been shot. I got a bullet hole in my leg right now. You know what I'm saying? I'm not too scared about getting shot at. And I'm looking at him and I'm like, "Bro, like, one, it's Two, why do you think I'm just sitting here not afraid to be shot at and that's going to make you cool with me?" Like, hell no, bro. I've been in serving 19 years. I still don't want to get shot at. That does not make you cool to me. One, I don't believe you. Two, even if you didn't, something wrong with you. You probably shouldn't serve, bro. It's just probably not a good idea for you. You're not scared of getting shot at. That's a normal human mindset to worried about getting shot at. So, I don't go for it. Most people don't anymore. All the tough guys stories, all that stuff that you hear at bars, it's just not as exciting. Especially once you served a little bit and you start hearing like real stories of people like downfield and things that they went through. All that fake stuff that you hear from people trying to be cool or trying to fit in, it just don't do it. You just be sitting there like, "Uh." Mhm. Okay.
Number four is that you're going to become like unbreakable in front of people. Uh like you're going to lose that stage fright. I give you all an example of myself. When I first joined the Air Force, I've always been like charismatic. At least in my mind, I've always been charismatic. I always been somebody who's like good in front of people. I've always been that way like nonofficially, right? So my leaders when I was a young airman in the Air Force, they thought that like they could put me in front of people and I was going to be able to speak. So they told me I had to go read a decoration. Somebody had got a medal and they wanted me to read it. So they give me this piece of paper. I mean like a loose leaf piece of paper. They give it to me. I'm nervous as hell. I'm in front of like 50 people and I'm reading this decoration and the paper is so loose like I'm shaking. It sound like a skeleton shaking. And I'm just up there reading this paper. I can't even see it. like it's shaking so much that the words is blurry. It was bad. It was terrible. And when I finished, my leader said, "Hey, don't ever let him speak again in front of people." But then as your time goes on in the military, you get faced with all kind of opportunities where you're speaking in front of people. They send you through all kinds of different training, different leadership schools where they ingrain public speaking into you. And then over time, it's just not a thing anymore. You're willing to get in front of anybody and start speaking. They even in basic training, they had this thing called childrunner. It's an additional duty for people who are in basic training. And you have to go up and represent your flight in order to get into the dining facility. Basically, you got to go up and be like, "Childrunner, flight 362, ready to enter the dining facility, sir." Something like that. I don't remember. But if it's messed up, like if you do it wrong, they're going to say, "Do it again." And your entire flight's just going to be sitting out there waiting on you to get it right so they can go inside and eat. So even like as early as basic training, they start making you work on your public speaking.
Number five thing is that everybody is a sir and a ma'am. Like before I joined the military, I did not use sir and ma'am like ever. Unless I was like unless my dad was like pissed off then it was like yes sir, sorry sir, no sir, like stuff like that. Beyond that, my southern courtesy I guess I did with like older women, older men, but just daytoday like I didn't use sir or ma'am. Now, when I'm talking to like a 19-year-old kid like at a corner store who's working the cash register, they be like, "Is that all?" I'll be like, "Yes, sir." It's just something that's ingrained into you. I don't know what it is. You just start calling everybody sir and ma'am. And it's normal. When people say, "You don't have to do that." You be like, "Oh, I ain't even do nothing." Like that. That's just the way I interact with people. And they're like, "But you don't have to do that." And you be like, "Yes, sir." Like just one of them things.
The number six thing is your relationship with food. it starts to get really weird is when you go to basic training. At least when I went to basic training back in 2006, I honestly don't even know if this is a thing anymore, but it used to be, so I'm going to tell it anyway. When I went back in ' 06, when you sat down at that table, you only had like a minute or 2 minutes to eat. The training instructors will be lurking throughout the dining facility, and when they see like you sat at that table too long, they trying to get you up and move you out. So, in order to eat, you have to learn how to eat extremely fast. Almost like an animal. Like, you're stuffing your face. You're getting everything you can inside of your mouth so you can try to get something down. I remember I used to love the French toast, but the French toast is hard to get down fast, right? Especially if y'all in a rush and y'all got to go somewhere. So, I got the French toast one morning and I knew I shouldn't have, but I got it. And we only had like a minute. I want this French toast. This French toast is good. I'm trying to eat it and my TI comes over my shoulder like very slow like and he was like, "You're done." But at this time, I got a whole French toast in my mouth. And you can't get up and walk with food in your mouth when you're in basic training. Before you get up, you got to get everything down. I got this big old French toast in my mouth, trying to get it down. He's over my shoulder. Done. But I'm not. I got to get this French toast down. So, I'm sitting there just trying to get it down with water and everything about to choke, trying to get this French toast down. And then after I finally got it down, he said, "You're not going to eat French toast no more." On some real like thug stuff, like basically, you ain't going to eat that no more. And I didn't. But after basic training, like when you don't have to eat fast anymore, it's weird. You continue to do it. Like even now to this day, I have to mentally tell myself, bro, you don't have to eat that fast. Like there's no reason for you to be eating this fast. So like going to restaurants with people, it can get really weird if they if you're just like subconsciously eating. You're going to go through some stuff. So you got to be more aware. You got to be more conscious of eating because you'll go through some stuff real fast after basic training.
Number seven is your humor gets really dark. like really dark, like power outage type dark. Like when you're dealing with like stress, you're dealing with like mindnumbing boredom every day. The dark humor, it's not just how you cope, it's how you survive almost. And you shouldn't. Like honestly, I don't even think a lot of the dark humor that military people have is within the legal confines. It probably get most people in trouble, but they have the dark humor anyway, especially like in your maintenance career fields. Oh my god, the dark humor is crazy. The security forces, those career fields, it gets wild. I'm not even going to go into depth about the type of dark humor that goes on, but it happens. So, if you ever join a maintenance career field or security forces career field, one like that, then you're probably going to hear some crazy stuff. If you're going into like intel, you're going into like medical fields where, you know, customer service is priority or it's a more super professional like environment, maybe not so much. But those maintenance career fields that stuff gets wild.
And number eight is that your world like becomes way bigger. And I mean that like in the best way. And what I mean is like your friend group. When I joined the Air Force, my friend group was primarily black. Like I'm going to be honest with you. Like the the people that I hung out with day-to-day was primarily black people. When I joined the Air Force, my group had white, it had Hispanic, it had Asian, it had black, it had everything. And I'm talking like everything. like people who listen to rock, people who listen to country, people who listen to instruments, like everything. Like there was no common ground that we had besides the fact that we just joined the military. We just joined the Air Force. And we made it work. You're my friend now. I'm in the same school as you. We're in the same class. We don't know anybody. You're my buddy. You're going to get to know me. I'm going to tell you all this dumb stuff that I used to do before I joined. And I want to hear all the dumb stuff that you did before you joined. And you know what? I like you. You like me? Let's go get something to eat. Let's kick it. And that becomes normal. The military is like a big melting pot. You get everybody from everywhere. You even get like people from different countries who are coming in on green cards and stuff. You get to hear their backgrounds and their stories and they're part of your friend group as well. I don't believe that there's any other environment that just forces people to come together like that and just accept each other for who they are and become friends. If there is, like, put it in the comments. I'm just trying to think of where it would be like forced. But it's pretty cool though because it makes you more cultured. It makes you more open to meeting new people and nobody cares like your background. Like you could have been like a collegiate athlete, right? Like you were on your way to the NBA or on your way to the NFL and then you join. Like it's cool. Like it's a cool story to hear, but at the end of the day, can you do your job? Can you watch my back? Can I watch your back? Can you make me laugh? Like am I this 8 hour 9 hour shift that we're going to have today? Am I going to have a good time working with you? That's the stuff that matters and that's the people that you're around. And that's why blending with the different type of people that you work with is essential to enjoying your job. You're going to have 18year-old friends. You're going to have 25 year old friends. There's going to be somebody who's like 40 years old who just decided to join at in their 40s and they're going to need somebody to hang out with. So, it's just crazy like how it happens how it works.
So after you join, you're going to spend the rest of your life like talking to civilians and telling them why you like eat fast, why you have dark humor, why you do weird things, why you're friends with people who seem to have nothing in common with you or anybody else in your friend group. But it's pretty cool because you know like you wouldn't change it for anything even if you could because at the end of the day it didn't just change like how you walk. It didn't change how you talk. It just changed the way you see the world. And once you've seen it through like the military eyes, once you've learned to like find family and strangers, strength and like chaos and stuff like that, everything else just seems small. And that's like the real change. But if you haven't joined yet and you're thinking about joining, but you don't know the difference between the active duty, the national guard, the reserve, I got a video on the screen right now breaking it down for the Air Force so you can know the difference. But like I always say, I hope this video brought value to you. Stay beautiful, stay classy, and until next time, check me.