T-Tail-Tall-Tail:
Attitude Problem
Mike Novack
In the late 70's I had a severe case of
'I-don't-give-a-shit' going on in
relation to my AF career. At this point in my life,
decades later, it's clear
to me that things were nowhere near as bad as they
seemed at the time. But then, like most
late-20-something know-it-all captains it was clear
to me that I was not going
to make the AF a career.
I planned my exit by getting an MBA via one of the
on-base advanced degree
programs, served my time, got out, went into the
computer biz, and didn't look
back at the AF for a long, long time.
During that final two years one of my best friends
and I were flying quite a
bit together on trip after trip and sort of
developed a secret code between
ourselves that served to reinforce our intentions of
departing the AF when our
commitments were up. When some command post would
try to f**k us over with a crew duty day extension,
a waiver for questionable maintenance problems, when
a
new MAC edict that we didn't agree with would come
down from on high .. when
just about ANYTHING would happen we'd just look at
each other and repeat in
unison "THAT'S JUST ONE MORE REASON!".
To complete the MBA program it was necessary to take
a 'day job' in the
training office which pretty much let me control my
flying schedule so I could
be home for Friday/Saturday/Sunday classes that took
place on base, sometimes
once per month, sometimes every other week,
depending on the class. The
squadron schedulers were very accommodating and
during the entire two years of
the program I don't recall missing a single class.
In January of 1978 I firmed up a Date of Separation
of 15 Oct 78 and started my
countdown calendar. One of the bits of paper I
brought with me from my office
duties was the following:
When people tried to get me to do things in the Training Office I'd show them this letter. It worked most of the time.
The letter above was under the plexiglass on my desk back in the training office at the 8th MAS at McChord. It was too big to carry around with me on my trips all over the world, so on a trip to Yokota I when to one of the little shops at the BX run by the local vendors and had some special calling cards printed up. These worked almost as well as the "I can do anything" letter.
All my bridges were burned! There was no turning back now.