I Swear to Tell the Truth

This entry was written by a guest blogger, my husband, Dale. He served in the Air Force in 1983 going through Officer Training in San Antonio, Texas, and Flight Training in Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio, TX before leaving shortly before we were married. While I've heard these stories many times (as he begins to tell one of them, I will often tease him by saying something like "story #47), he has written a few of them down with some great application at the end. Be sure to give the man some feedback!

"The US military is still one of our most conservative institutions. You see very little tolerance for personal expression when it comes to appearance while in uniform. During my time in the USAF, I did encounter one occasion though, where exercise of personal expression, and an improbable truth collided. Our morning briefing included a discussion about taking pride in personal appearance, shoe shine, hair cuts, facial hair and all those things that could diminish what the military uniform and the person wearing it represented. A few men pushed that fashion envelope at the time and entered the military with pierced ears. The message was short and simple. Ear rings, for men, while in uniform, were not appropriate. Period. Additionally, if your ears were not already pierced, now was not the time to exercise that option. While this was not presented as an order, we all had a common understanding on this issue.

As one of 2 guys in a 2 bedroom apartment the math worked out fine, but one day a friend approached us with his own housing dilemma. No local apartment openings, he didn’t want to live on base, and no room at the inn with other friends. Seeing this as a financial opportunity the two became three with the understanding that as the last guy in, he would essentially spend an entire year sleeping on a couch. A couple weeks later, in a move which now seems to reflect questionable judgment, we added two ferrets to the already cramped family.

The two little rats were friendly enough and quickly adapted to their new freedom as we frequently gave them extended time outside the cage, to roam the apartment. One day our sleeping and unsuspecting couch dweller surprised the others with a sharp yelp and a few, as Mr. Spock would say, colorful metaphors. Seems one of the ferrets climbed up on the sofa and bit him, on (drum roll please) the ear lobe. Needless to say, two of the three of us found this pretty funny. We were also quick to point out that this was clearly a flagrant violation of the no new ear piercing rule, and that at the next morning briefing, we felt compelled to share this with the other pilots on the flight line. “If you guys do that, I’ll just tell’em the truth” Chuck insisted. Met with a snickering reply of “Let us know how that works out”. The next day played out perfectly, as we quietly shared our roommate's indiscretion with the other pilots. It was fun to watch a grown man trying to explain away a freshly punctured earlobe with the line. “No really, I swear, a ferret bit me.”

I guess one of the things I took away from that day is that sometimes the truth can seem improbable but still be truth; you just have to tell it anyway. With God all things are possible and sometimes even hysterical."