Linkedin Fueled Random Air Force Story

A very strange connection recommendation came across my secondary Linkedin profile today, a name I haven't thought of since December of 1988.  I had to stop and do a double take because I didn't think there was any way possible that guy could still be alive.  By that guy I mean quite possibly one of the creepiest, strangest, and all around disturbing individuals I have ever met...and I have met and kept company with an assortment of strange people in my 43 years. 

I'm not going to mention that guy's name because it is a very unique name.  A quick Google search returned a 'there in one person in the United States named......' and it has to be him.  He hailed from the hinterlands of Wisconsin, somewhere near the Canadian border.  I don't remember the name of the town, and frankly, I don't care to remember.  Somehow he wound up in my Air Force basic training squadron, sleeping in the bunk below me.  That's how I made his most unfortunate acquaintance. 

That guy was the first person to get noticed at boot for all the wrong reasons.  He was tall, gangly, pale, and had these Marty Feldman like bugged out eyes.  His walk was more of a skulking glide and he sort of hunched over.  After he received his standard buzzers with no guide military indoctrination hair cut he resembled Nosferatu.  It was an unnerving resemblance. 

Due to our last names being next to each other alphabetically I had to endure standing next to him in a lot of lines.  He didn't smell right, giving off a sickly sweet odor that was unpleasant.  He didn't speak much, but when he did it was almost a stream of consciousness outburst or non sequiturs such as, 'I like cheese curds from home because it's so quiet there.'  Words fell from his mouth like dead fish being emptied from a net...lifeless and limp. 

During our in processing medical exams the nurse freaked out a bit because that guy's temperature kept reading low.  I think the highest temp reading they were able to get was around 96.5 or so, but a couple came in around 95.8.  That guy was then whisked away for further testing, but he was returned to our squadron by lights out...and then things really got strange.

That guy slept with his eyes about 3/4 of the way open.  The reason I know this is because he scared the living piss out of the poor airman from a more seasoned flight in our training squadron that pulled guard duty our first night.  He was doing his rounds and his flashlight caught that guys pale face with his partially open eyes.  The guard thought he was dead and kind of freaked.  I hopped down from my bunk and took a look at that guy and thought the same...then he made a strange gurgling sound in his throat and woke up and smiled in a manner that can only be described as unholy.  His smile was 80 proof nightmare fuel.  That guy explained to us that he sleept poorly and that his eyes lids fluttered open due to the bugged out nature of his eye balls.  We accepted this explanation, but then I had trouble sleeping knowing that a freak was staring up at me all night through unseeing sleep eyes.  Not. Good. Times.

When reveille played not so bright and early at 4:30 the next morning, that guy did not wake up.  As the rest of the flight scrambled to get uniforms on and bunks squared away, that guy just laid there like a corpse.  One of my fellow trainees asked me to shake him to wake him up, but to be honest I didn't know whether I should shake him or drive a stake through his heart.  I really didn't want to touch or be near him, but he wouldn't move.  Finally, after several pensive and tense moments, I reached out to shake him by the shoulder...but he leaped up before I had a chance to shake him.  He stood up out of his bunk as if nothing was amiss, dressed himself, squared away his stuff, and fell into formation...

The routine above lasted less than a week as that guy washed out in a hurry.  He couldn't do anything right, think Private Pyle from 'Full Metal Jacket', but vampirish and rake thin.  The drill instructors hammered away at him for an entire day, but he was incapable of responding to motivation of any kind.  At one point our DI stepped out of character and attempted to engage that guy person to person, but even that failed to get through to him.  It was the strangest thing I had ever seen.  A sense of relief swept through the flight when the DI announced to us that that guy had washed out.  I believe the DI was relieved as well...

To this day I don't understand how that guy not only got recruited, but passed physicals and MEPS screening.  He had no business joining the Air Force.  One member of our flight had met that guy before at an Air Force recruiting event in Wisconsin and said his impression of him at that time was that he was more or less normal.  What happened to him between that event and when we all were thrown together in San Antonio for boot camp is a mystery.  Perhaps he was stressed beyond belief, causing his blood sugar to plummet.  That might explain the deathly pallor, low body temp, and what not.  Everything else though was all him....

I won't be adding that guy to my Linkedin connections...