The one thing I hate most about morning walks...

is not stiff legs, which is an almost daily occurrence.  It's oversleeping.  I want to get my walk in so I have at least an hour to rest and cool down before I shower.  Not going to happen today.

I saw a refrigerator store on my route that I'd never noticed before.  I should speak to the owner of that store about his poor signage, since I've been walking by his location for days and hadn't known he was there.  Now I'm not in the market for a refrigerator, I have a small one in my room. 

Thanks to the 15 of you who read yesterday's entry, or other entries from my little blog.  Feel free, when bored, to wander back through the past year's entries.  Perhaps you'll learn why Allie Brandt is one of my heroes, or why I finally couldn't vote for Senator John Kerry in 2004.

This morning my mind turned for some odd reason to an experience that was going on, on this date 35 years past.  I was going through Air Force Basic Military Training.  What you may not know is that I struggled with the process, being "recycled" twice.  Recycled is their label for when they make you repeat portions of the training.  Normally not because you didn't learn what was taught on those days, but because you've breached discipline, or pissed off your instructors.  My first recycle was seven days (there were 30 days of training, weekdays only, federal holidays not counting) for getting into a 'struggle' with another trainee.  The second was four days because my head instructor was an anti-Semite who was pissed off to all get out when I insisted on going to the commanding officer in order to get his decision that I could not attend services on Rosh Hashonah overridden.  I won with the CO, but I lost with the instructor when he failed me on a subsequent locker inspection.

But fortunately for me, the third and final head instructor I was assigned to was a wise, patient guy, and he sat down with me and determined I wasn't a problem child, just someone who had run afoul of the system.  "Help the other guys with the stuff you have already done, keep your nose clean and you'll do fine."  He was right, and in fact, if it had been possible for someone to get "Honor Graduate" when they'd been recycled, I would have earned that honor.  Sadly, it wasn't possible.

The last day of training, there was one and only one evaluation.  Reporting and saluting eval.  You knock on the instructor's office door, once and only once.  You wait to be summoned inside verbally, with the words "come-in" or "enter".  You open the door, close it behind you, march at attention to a position directly facing the instructor who is seated behind his desk, and stand at attention.  You salute, and while holding the salute say "Airman Basic (Last Name) reports as ordered sir."  Then you're quizzed on what they called memory work.  What was the rank and name of the training center commander?  The base commander?  What regulation covers dress and appearance?  What's the name of your squadron commander?  And so on.

Now we had what's known as a "sister flight".  A flight was a unit of 50 trainees, which would end up being between 36 and 42 due to attrition.  I had a good friend in our sister flight, we'd both been recycled to this squadron on the same day.  For some odd reason, the sister flight's lead instructor wasn't available and the major who was our squadron commander was doing the reporting and saluting evals for the sister flight.

My friend went first.  He reported properly.  He saluted properly.  He promptly answered a bunch of memory work questions.  Then the major said (I was told this story by my sobbing friend later that day) "last question, Airman.  Who is your squadron commander?"

Now the answer is sitting right there in front of him.  The answer was his rank, which was on his uniform shirt in the form of a gold oak leaf signifying a major, and the last name, which was on the name tag above his right shirt pocket.  But my friend brain farted.  Completely.  After a few minutes, he said "Sir, I don't know."

This led to the overreaction of overreactions of all time.  The angry major ordered my friend recycled yet again.  To Day 1 of basic training.  He would have to do it all over again. 

Is there a moral to this story?  Perhaps it is found in the aphorisms of former U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell.  They are as follows:

1.  It ain't as bad as you think.  It will look better in the morning.
2.  Get mad, then get over it.
3.  Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
4.  It can be done!
5.  Be careful whom you choose
6.  Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision
7.  You can't make someone else's decisions.  You shouldn't let someone else make yours.
8.  Check small things! (this is the one my friend blew badly)
9.  Share credit!
10.  Remain calm.  Be kind
11.  Have a vision.  Be demanding
12.  Don't take the counsel of your fears or naysayers.
13.  Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Good rules to manage by and live by.  My friend learned some hard lessons over the next 30 days of training.