It’s been four years now since I retired from the Air Force/Colorado Air National Guard. I often run into airmen I know who are still serving, and they invariably ask me if I miss it. I usually give them the stock and cliched answer “I don’t miss the job, but I miss the people”. Which is true to a point. But for me it’s actually kind of complicated.
Colonel David Hackworth was a decorated Vietnam vet who wrote several books after got out of the Army. (to learn more about this very interesting man checkout his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hackworth). In the Forward to one of his books he wrote (paraphrasing from memory here) “I used to tell people that I loved the Army. I came to realize that I hated the Army, that it was the people I loved”. I can so relate to this.
Mrs. Vintage, the Vintage Daughters and myself at my retirement ceremony. A great but bittersweet day.
There are two aspects of the military life that I do miss. One is obviously the men and women whom I had the honor to serve with. Most of them were hardworking and dedicated troops. Oh sure, there were a handful of douche-bags and morons but the vast majority of my fellow servicemen and women are awesome and they give a shit. And I miss them. Sometimes when I drive on a military installation and see the troops out and about, I actually get a little homesick.
The other aspect I miss a great deal is the sense that what I was doing was important. I never could relate to the whole finding purpose in your job mentality, because I had a sense of purpose. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes the job just flat out sucked and was incredibly stressful, but I always felt a sense of pride on seeing a jet that I had just fixed take of into the sky.
What I don’t miss is the life sucking bullshit that Air Force and the military in general seems to enjoy dishing out. I don’t miss deploying to shitholes like Iraq. I don’t miss being gone for birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. I certainly don’t miss the endless inspections and war-games.
But I do miss my compadres and the sense of purpose I felt.
Every. Damn. Day.
