We left off where I was dropped off at the 319th Training Squadron (TRS) on Wednesday.
I got to the 319th TRS, and I was given a blue armband and a set of sheets for my bed. I was escorted by a disgruntled trainee to my new dorm that I was to stay at for however long I was supposed to be there. I had no idea how long I was to stay at the 319th for. I went to a medical briefing at the 319th, and they basically told me that they will return me to normal training when I heal. And if I don't heal, I get discharged from the Air Force.
Now, allow me to explain what the 319th is all about. The 319th TRS is a place where you go if you get hurt, sick, or a condition comes up that affects your ability to continue training at BMT. While you are at the 319th, time is frozen. What this means is you can be in your 2nd week of training at BMT. You stay at the 319th for 3 months. You return to training, resuming where you left off... at the 2nd week. It sucks. At the 319th, there are 5 categories of people that stay here -- med hold, fever flight, separation, get-fit, and holdover Airmen. For the sake of time, I'll just go over med-hold on this blog entry. I had the blue armband, which meant I was in the med-hold flight. This group of trainees were all on some sort of medical waiver that held them from training in BMT.
People were insane at the 319th. Especially the trainees. After staying at the 319th for 2 months, they were starting to lose it. It was a nuthouse, I swear.
At the 319th, it was extremely depressing. Everybody in the 319th just wanted to go home and be done with the Air Force. And I was surrounded by this depressing atmosphere for 5 days straight. It started to get to me around day 4. Some trainees have been at the 319th for 6 months. That trainee could have done BMT 3 times during his stay here. However, there were a couple of good things that came out of staying at the 319th...
I got to call my family almost every day. We did not have that luxury in BMT. I also wrote a long letter almost every day. We did have that ability in BMT, but we were always too busy to write long letters. In the 319th, all we did was eat and sleep and do a lot of nothing all day. I was on a bed-rest waiver, so I was able to sleep most of of the day away. My waiver also consisted of having to wear tennis shoes in my ABU uniform, and not wearing blousing straps. I guess they wanted circulation to reach my feet so they didn't want me wearing blousing straps. Yay. I got a lot of heat from every MTI on the squadron, so I just learned to carry my waiver around in my hand so I could prove my case. You also got to take more time to eat at the 319th. The MTI's couldn't yell at you as much at the 319th because if you were there for a heart condition and an MTI came up screaming at your face and you got a heart attack, that wouldn't be good.
Oh, speaking of eating, I was elected as the chow-runner for the med-hold dorm. Oh boy. I guess you could say that I enjoyed this responsibility. It gave me something to do while everybody else was sitting around, reading the latest Japanese comic book.
I went to church on Sunday morning with the rest of the med-hold dorm. I saw my old flight in church. They all recognized me. They all said hello to me, asked me how I was. But I didn't have much to say. It was very sad to see my old flight in training while I was sitting around doing nothing.
5 days of this. I went to the doctor on Monday morning, and I convinced him that my foot was fine. I was returned to training on July 19th. However, since I was at the 319th for more than 3 days, I was medically recycled one week into a whole new flight. I went back to the 321st at around noon. And this is where I start a whole new week one, all over again.
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