When one arrives as a student to Keesler Air Force Base, one is assigned to one of several training squadrons where one sleeps and eats and lives peacefully. The duration of one’s incarceration depends upon the training one requires. My career field, Electronic Warfare, was one of the longest technical schools the Air Force offered. I was imprisoned at Keesler from April 1991 through March 1992. A long f-ing time to be treated like a scofflaw and delinquent.

Other students get shorter sentences. The most illustrious of these people were the administrative support trainees. All the typists and clerks needed to do was pass a typing test and –BAM! – they were graduated and sent to various bases hither and yon to do their finger-stabbing duty. These folks were known as Pop-Tarts; in-process on a Monday, complete their typing test on Tuesday, get out-processed on Wednesday.

And while these b@stards got to get out into the real Air Force, yours truly was stuck in a concrete bunker, both day and night, studying how to connect cables and working B-52 flare systems and watching pop-tart after pop-tart come in and test-out.

Being in the triangle – the student training squadrons are arranged inside a road shaped like a triangle – for almost a year, one actually earns a little sympathy from the permanent-party folks who are there to watch over and help you. We called them Student Training Advisors, but the job description has probably changed since then. One such STA was a female sergeant, an E-5, who watched over us boys like we were her kids. And one day, I didn’t show up for the morning formation, for I was sick.

She knocked on my door, asked if she could come in. I sounded in the affirmative, she entered, I stayed abed, sick.

“You have to go to the infirmary. You can’t just stay here.”

“I am sick. Going to school will expose me to lots of other students. There’s nothing positive at all in that recommendation.”

“Not school; Sick Call. Get up, go see the doctor. Now.”

“Sick Call? Fine.”

She departed, I fell out of bed, rolled over to my bathrobe, donned it with as much decorum as my fever allowed, and stumbled out into the early Mississippi morning.

SLAM! The door at Sick Call shut sickeningly behind me with a finality that said, “Dude, you’re here forever.” And it did seem that way, as the lobby was filled with airmen, both male and female, in various stages of illness. Yet all of them were prominently dressed in their uniforms.

I was rather auspiciously bathrobe’d.

The nurse at the desk raised her finger and pointed at me, with a high degree of probability about to tell me that one did NOT report to Sick Call out of uniform. But she was cut short when the doctor came out to retrieve some paperwork, saw me, gave me an up-n-down inspection, and called me into his office. He told the aghast nurse,

“He’s obviously sicker than everybody else here; he couldn’t even put on his uniform.”

It’s called Respect. EWs get preference over Pop-Tarts. D@mn right I get the head of the line!

So I was hustled into the doctor’s office, examined, pronounced Sick, given an antibiotic, a note for my commander, and sent home with an escort, ‘cause I might fall down or get lost or abducted or something.

We stopped at the commander’s office to give the note to the on-duty sergeant, who just happened to be the female STA who sent me to Sick Call in the first place.

“I’m officially Air Force-sick, ma’am. He’s my note.”

“You didn’t put on your uniform?”

“I’ve never been sick before, and I didn’t know there was a protocol.”

And as she was about to splutter something inane like, “You’re in the military; you go EVERYWHERE in uniform!” the commander, a newly-minted Captain, emerged from his office. The STA turned to him and presented my note.

“Sir, Airman Howell is sick and being confined to quarters for 48 hours.”

“Airman Howell isn’t in uniform; what’s he doing in my office?”

And of course, my mouth began to channel those thoughts one should normally keep locked up.

“Sir, the doctor, a Major, not only had no issue with my appearance, but he stated it was a sign of my vigor and stamina that I was able to get to his office at all, and I should be rewarded with a medal or monetary compensation. As it turned out, I got a shot in the @ss and piece of paper that I don’t even get to keep. Can I go to bed now, sir?”

The commander turned to the STA, “If I acknowledge that commentary, I just might court-martial him. Get him to bed and let’s pretend he was never here.”

“This office or the Air Force, sir?”

“I’ll settle for this office, but I reserve the right to exercise better judgment.”

And before I could launch into a phlegm-filled retort, the woman grabbed me by the arm and whisked me out of the office and towards my dorm room.

“You know, you’re gonna get into a lot of trouble if you talk to officers like that.”

“I plan on keeping my mouth shut for the next three years, if that’s any solace.”

I didn’t even last another week before something else happened.