I have been meaning to write this for a while now. Here lately, I have been writing a lot in my other blog. Its called Keeping it Real. I talk about Real issues in Christianity that many Churches and dont.
Click here if you are interested in reading it.
This is actually something that I wrote a long time ago. One day, I felt like it was important to write things down. I started as early as I could remember and wrote down everything I could. I actually thought about writing some sort of biography, but I didnt because I wondered if anyone would want to read it. But now, that I have this blog on being an Avoidant, I want to put a portion of it here so others can read it. Maybe others will find similarities in their lives.
Anyway, here we go with my life in the Air Force, that led up to my time in Correctional Custody, which greatly multiplied my condition. Its long. So pull up a chair, get something to drink and hopeful it wont put your to sleep. Unless you want to go to sleep.
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Right after I graduated from High School, I went to work. After a few years of this, I craved something different. One day I heard about the Air Force and it sounded interesting. I would get to travel, see other cultures, and have a new exciting career. At least that it what I thought. I did get at least part of that. Let me back up just a bit to the experience at my recruiter. The recruiter wanted me to go into a field called “Petroleum Oil and Lubricants, which later we came to know as Painting, Odd Jobs and Landscapes.”
All I knew was what the recruiter was telling and it sounded pretty good. Lesson #1: Military Recruiters are like used car salesman. They will tell you anything to get you to buy what they are selling.
Since I had no reason to doubt him at that time, I bought what he told me hook, line, and sinker. I signed up with Uncle Sam for a 6-year hitch. I arrived at Boot Camp in San Antonio, Texas in summer time. Our Drill Instructor met us at the bus and immediately let us know that he was in charge and Uncle Sam now owned us and would do with us whatever he liked. We all began to feel that maybe we had made a mistake. The drill instructor had us line up in neat lines on His pad, which was a bare slab of concrete.
He then marched us straight to the mess hall, (I soon learned why it was called this), where we were to eat supper, since it was already late in the day. We were given specific instructions on how we were to go about eating. Lesson #2; Since Uncle Sam now owned us, he would teach us everything all over again. This was lesson one in how to eat in 5 minutes or less.
We were told that we had 5 minutes to eat and we he would tell us when to start and when to stop. We went through the line and got a plate full of food. The meal that evening was hot links and mashed potatoes. When we all got back to the table, we were given the order to begin to eat.
Exactly 5 minutes later, he yelled out; Ready, Stop!
After throwing away most of what was on our plates, we were marched back to the place where we had unloaded from our bus. At this point we were still carrying our luggage.
While we were still holding our luggage, he had us run in place. Another tactic to let us know that our lives were no longer our own and he could make us do anything that he wanted to. After just a few seconds of this, I could feel those spicy hot links that I had gorged myself on so quickly start to churn. The next thing that I knew those hot links came back up and spewed forth onto
His pad. Our Instructor noticed this and stopped us all from our running, which I am sure that the rest of the group would have thanked me for if they had dared. He yelled at me and said that I had to clean this up while the rest of the group went upstairs to their quarters.
After they left, I was standing there all-alone. I looked around for something to clean this mess up with, but could find nothing. Finally I decided to open my luggage and taking out one of my shirts, proceeded to clean up His pad. After I had gotten it as clean as I could, I went upstairs to join the others. The instructor immediately came over to me and asked me how I had cleaned up the mess. I told him about using one of my shirts, which seemed to impress him. But apparently not enough to get me off the hook for my next mess up.
We were told our locker numbers and told to stand right in front of them, which we did. We were told to open them with our keys, but mine would not work for some reason. The instructor immediately noticed that I had problems with this and came over to help me with a challenge. He put the key on a very short chain, put this chain around my neck He told me to open the locker without removing the key from the chain, the chain from around my neck, and I also could not use my hands. (On a positive note, looking back I actually have to thank this Drill Instructor for my future career. I am convinced now that this was the start of my trouble shooting skills that I would later need.) I thought about this for a few moments. After I finally managed to get the key in my mouth, I somehow got the locker open, which seemed to further impress our instructor.
My Accident
After a very short time in my job, I had a very nasty accident. In order to protect our fuel sites from bomb fragments, it was decided that they should have a barrier of protection around them. So we put 55-gallon drums in a circle around these sites. I England, where I was stationed, it gets very windy (Tractor Trailers are sometimes blown over), so the drums needed to be filled with water so that they would not blow over. We used a fire truck and a fire hose to fill the drums with water. I filled the drums while a friend of mine operated the fire truck and was to make sure that the water pressure was right for the job.
The drums had to be stacked one on top of the other in order to provide the needed protection. I stood on the bottom one, that I had already filled, and began to fill the top on with water. My friend at the fire truck decided that it would be funny to turn up the water pressure and see what happened. Now if you have seen the kind of water pressure that these fire hoses generate, you know that a person can easily be picked up off the round by it. And that’s exactly what happened to me. I was jet propelled off the drum that I was standing on onto the ground. When I came down, by right knee was caught behind me, which I later learned snapped the ligament like a rubber band that had been stretched too far and had broke and snapped back.
I was taken to the hospital where I was put in a full leg cast,
which encompassed my foot and came all the way up to my hip. I was then given crutches and released! I called my sergeant and asked him what I should do now, thinking that I would be told to go home and take it easy. Wrong! I was told to report back to my job as soon as I could. Now, I need to back up a little and explain to you what was happening at this time. Being overseas, we have what are called Readiness Exercises a lot. In these exercises, we practice being at war and are graded in what we would do in certain situations. For example; some of these inspectors will come into a building and tell us that a bomb just exploded inside it. We might be told that out of the 10 people in the room, 5 are dead, 1 has his leg blown off, 3 have head wounds, and 1 is missing. Then we have to act accordingly figuring out how to handle this situation. We even have processing centers where the dead are processed to either return to this fake battle or are sent home for the day. I always wanted to get killed so I might be sent home for the day, but was never so lucky.
Also in these battles it was determined that any attack could be chemical,
which means that we could have been hit with a toxic or noxious gas of some sort. It was also determined that it could take up to 8 hours to clean up such an attack. So every time that we had ordinance explode, we had to put on our gas masks and because it was determined that it could take up to 8 hours to clean up such a chemical attack, we could be in these gas masks for up to 8 hours.
Well, it just so happened that when I was in the hospital getting my knee taken care of, that the base was entered into one of these exercises. And to make matters even worse, when I called my boss to ask if I could go home, we were right in the middle of one of those suspected chemical explosions, known as “being in a black.”
So when my boss told me to come in to work, that had a worse than Normal significance. That meant that I had to put my chemical suit on over the cast, which was on my right leg, put on my gas mask and with my crutches, hobble into work. And if that wasn’t enough, my car was a stick shift, so I had to figure out a way to work the clutch in order to drive it.
After I finally figured out how to accomplish all this, I made it into work. Now with the exercise that was going on, our normal parking places right in front of the building I worked in was closed, so I had to park some ways away, which was across the flight line. I parked and made my across the runway to the building where I worked. When I finally reported to work. I was told that I was to man the gas station.
I made my way to the gas station
where military personal could come and fill their vehicles, which at least meant that I got to sit. After being here a while, some inspectors showed up and the station and told me that it had been hit by one of these imaginary bombs and I was dead. Praise God, I finally got to go home!
The Military refused to perform the surgery that I needed on my knee in England, so I was put on light duties and odd jobs. There are many days that I would come in to work and do absolutely nothing or shuffle paperwork for the entire day. I didn’t like my job anyway, but this made it even worse. It was because of this that I began to want out of the Air Force. I patiently waited until my 3 years was up so that I could put in for another job. My stretch in England was only 2 years, so by the time I hit my 3 year mark, I was at Dyess Air Force base in Abilene, Texas. My knee still bothered me, so I had to go for rehab every other week. The best facilities for physical rehab were at the now defunct Carswell Air Force base in Fort Worth, Texas. So every other week for a year, I made the 2-hour drive to Fort Worth. Finally after 2 years, the military decided that rehab was not working, so they scheduled me for surgery.
The 5-hour surgery went very well.
My knee functioned normally now with the exception that I could not run or play most sports. About this time is when I hit my 3-year mark, which meant that I could finally put in for reassignment to another job. Although the surgery was successful, I still could not perform my normal job, but had to do other things. I was assigned to a paint detail. For several months, I painted the fuel facilities, fuel lines, and anything else we could find to paint. There were 3 of us on this detail and all of us had the same poor attitude about the Air Force, so we took our time and did only enough work to prove that we were still busy.
I put in for every decent job that I could think of, but they were all turned down. I even went to my commander of the base and explained the situation to him. He gave me a letter recommending that I be reassigned to a different job. Now that I had the base commander’s recommendation, I thought sure that I would be given something else. I put in for job after job, and time after time, I was turned down. Now I was really mad at the Air Force and was willing to do anything to get out.
The painting detail
was going pretty well, though we were usually bored out of our minds. On more than one day, we would run out of paint. When this happened, no matter what time it was, we would simply go home for the day. The person in charge of the detail was a staff sergeant. The next in the chain of command was me and the 3rd person rounded out our little command. We were told that in the event that the leader was not there, that I was in charge. One day that it did happen that the leader was not there. On this particular day we ran out of paint, just like we did on other days. So just like it was our normal practice to do, I told the man under me that due to this lack of paint, that we would go home for the day. Well, it just so happened that after we went home, one of the bosses in our department came looking for us. When he couldn’t find us, he called up the leader at home. He was asked if we had been given permission to go home, to which he said no.
I was to be court martial, charged with abandoning my post. The thought of loosing a court battle and being sentenced to Leavenworth was powerful persuasion to accept non-judicial punishment. For those of you that are not familiar with Leavenworth,
it is a military prison where there is no hope of rehabilitation or mercy. Leavenworth is only concerned with punishment and that punishment takes the form of turning big rocks into small rocks. So, I accepted non-judicial punishment, which meant that instead of going to trial, the Air Force got to hand me my punishment with no questions asked.
My punishment was to be redlined, which meant that I could never be promoted beyond my current rank, and I would have to spend 14 days in Correctional Custody.
Correctional Custody
It just so happened that Dyess Air Force base had the hardest Correctional Custody in the entire Air Force. I packed a bag and reported to the facility. The moment I walked into the door, I knew that that I was in for a hard time. After signing the appropriate paperwork, they began. One of the sergeants yelled for me to stand with my nose against a picture. There were 4 sergeants in total that took places all around me. They started to yell, at the top of their lungs, right in my ear. They told me that I was the scum of the earth. They told me that I would never amount to anything. They told me that I was a disgrace to not only the Air Force, but to everyone. They told me that I couldn’t do anything right. In short, they spent this time telling me how horrible a person I was. It seemed like an eternity that they yelled at me, but in reality, it was probably 20 minutes or so. They yelled horrible things in my ear, all of which was meant to tear me down and make me feel an inch tall. It was so bad, that I started to cry and blubber. Snot was running freely out of my nose and it was all I could do to stand there and take this abuse. They wouldn’t let me have a tissue to clean up my running nose or do anything else to help. My crying only seemed to encourage them to yell louder and yell more and more terrible things. It was like it was there personal goal to make me feel as bad as they could and they wouldn’t stop until I was a complete mess.
When this was over, I was told that I could leave if I wanted to. I was shown the door and told that I could go. I reached for the doorknob, but just as I almost had it in my hand, I was told that as soon as it closed behind me, my next stop would be Leavenworth. Still having that fear that had been planted there of this place, I quickly drew my hand away.
Next I was taken to a side room. The room was filled with about 20 or so people, which was a mixed bag of women and men. I was told to put down the luggage that I was carrying and face them. At this point I was told to remove everything from my luggage for inspection. Next I was told to strip while these men and women looked on. I can only assume that this was another method that they used to degrade and embarrass those in custody.
After this horror was over, I was told to go to my room. I went to cross into the room when I heard them yell stop! I stood awaiting what would happen this time. I was told that I crossed a red line without asking permission. I looked down and sure enough, there was a red line painted in front of the door. One of the sergeants yelled that I had to ask permission to cross this line and enter the room. I was further told that all the doors had such lines at both the entry and exit and I had to ask permission at both. I had to yell this request as loud as I could in the hope that I would be granted this permission. I was even given a specific and exact way in which to ask, which went like this; “Sir, CC Airman Dacus request permission to cross red line and enter (or exit ) the ______(Room) Sir”. Now if they felt like it, they would answer, but if they didn’t, they would have me yell this over and over again until they decided that I could have this permission.
After I got into my room,
I noticed that there were red blocks stacked all around the bed on all sides. I was told that this too was a line that I had to ask permission to enter and exit. If you can imagine all these lines at the entry and exit of all the doors and the beds, you will get an idea of how many times a day I had to yell for this permission.
The room was pretty sparse with bunk beds, lockers to put our clothes in, and drawers to put our things in. It would not have been too bad except for the White Tornadoes. A White Tornado is when the sergeants come into the room and turn it upside down. They would literally turn over everything including the beds. They would pull out all your clothes from the lockers, turn over drawers, and anything else they could find. After they were done with the room, it would literally look like a tornado had come through it.
The sergeants would come in and tear up our rooms every chance they got, which was every time we left our rooms. This could happen 6 or more times a day every single day.
I have to get out of this place!
After I finally got out from Correctional Custody, I was more determined than ever to find a way to get out of the Air Force. The Military had given me a job that I hated (in part because I was unable to do the job due to my knee injury, the AF refused to retrain me into a different job even after the base commander recommended it, Court Martial me, and sent me to a place that was worse than jail where is was humiliated and beat down. Now just before I had gone into Correctional Custody, I had gone to see the base Physcietraist. I went there because I terrified of woman and wanted to get some help. They diagnosed me as an Avoidant Personality. This meant that I avoided social situations because I didn’t know how to handle them.
After I got out, I returned to the Physiatrist to ask if there was anything that they could do to help me get out of the military. I was told that I could live as an Avoidant Personality and they could help me, but if I wanted, they would help me get out of the military. I said; “Yes please” and the process began. After a few short weeks, I was given an honorable discharge with remarks on it and set free.
So there is my story for the world to see.
This is my log of my day to day issues with living to Avoidant Personality Disorder. My hope is that in writing this, it will help myself and perhaps others that are also struggling with this disorder or another like it. I am in the process of creating a web site for Avoidants. I have searched high and low on the internet. There is not much out there that is not way out of date, or just plain abandoned. My hope is that we can all come together and learn from each other. Maybe we can even figure out what causes this and over come it.
