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ROYAL AIR FORCE LAKENHEATH, England – Enlisted Airmen are uneducated, mindlessly-rule-following peons who only perform menial grunt work and are cannon fodder for the battlefield.
As an over-educated civilian who had no ties to the military, I am ashamed to say that I had some very negative, very wrong preconceived notions of what it meant to be an enlisted Airman in the world’s greatest Air Force before I joined two years ago.
These warped ideas had to come from somewhere, but even now as I think back, I can’t quite pinpoint their origin. It could have been from watching too many flawed Hollywood portrayals. It could have been my lack of real-life perspective, since I did not have many military-veteran friends or family members.
Wherever it came from, it was a deep-seeded belief.
At the time, I was sure that if I truly wanted to entertain this nagging notion of joining the military—with my shiny new master’s degree—that becoming an officer was the only path for me.
At 29, as the Officer Training School age cutoff loomed before me, I decided that I’d had enough of teaching in classrooms full of adolescent cherubs. After 15 years of wanting to make the leap, I was finally going to go for it.
As my recruiter helped me wade into the lengthy OTS application, he warned me that the process would take me into the following school year and that I may have to quit mid-year if I earned a commission.
Alternatively, I could quit prematurely at the end of the current academic year and wander through temporary jobs indefinitely, in the hopes my application would be successful.
I found both options unacceptable. I wasn’t going to quit a decent, salaried job for something that might not pan out, and I most definitely was not going to abandon my students mid-year.
Irritated by my stubborn resolve, my recruiter informed me that my only other option was to enlist—an idea I’d never even remotely entertained. I was appalled—why on earth would I enlist, with so much education and work experience under my belt?
But I also knew that I really wanted to serve and that I would regret it for the rest of my life if I never even tried.
After consulting with a friend and former Navy enlistee—who assured me that I was completely off base in my assumptions—I ended up swallowing my pride and enlisting.
To my surprise, walking down the enlisted path ended up being one of the most fortuitous twists on my already interestingly unpredictable life path.
Now, after working with and for my fellow enlistees, I am truly embarrassed to think back on the misconceptions I harbored a mere two years ago. The enlisted men and women I’ve served alongside have been some of the best peers, mentors and supervisors I’ve ever had.
I’ve had tech school instructors without college degrees who have been fantastic teachers—better than many of my college professors with Ph.D.s. I’ve worked alongside 21-year-old Airmen who were born leaders—already better leaders than many people twice their age.
If I had commissioned into the Air Force, there’s a good chance I would have become an officer who didn’t truly appreciate the abilities of the Airmen under her, because it can be much harder to dispel preconceived notions if you’re looking down on your troops, rather than working side-by-side with your peers.
I will become a veteran in a couple of years—civilian life is calling me back—and I am incredibly thankful that I had the opportunity to have my eyes opened and my perspective changed. I am proud that I will end my military career as an enlisted Airman.
| Date Taken: | 12.29.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 12.29.2017 08:06 |
| Story ID: | 260645 |
| Location: | BRANDON, GB |
| Web Views: | 960 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Unraveling my elitist bias, by SrA Abby Richardson, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
