Brain Dumps

As you all know I'm in the USAF, and I struggle with something every single day -- is this whole experience worth my time?
A little background -- I'm currently a C-130H Crew Chief, or more commonly known as, in the civilian world, an aircraft mechanic.
This is my plane: Built in 1986. Aircraft 0413 (86-0413).

I am currently stationed in a unit, called the Blue Dragons on Little Rock AFB in Arkansas. This unit has commonly been called the "black hole on the AF", because it destroys nearly everyone's hopes and dreams of doing cool stuff during their enlistment. Before coming here, I heard stories from people, who have been in much longer than I, about traveling the world, deploying, and enjoying their enlistment. All of those things are what I joined to do, and I have done absolutely none of them. My experience in my 3.5 years has been absolute shit. I have never deployed, I sure as hell have not traveled the world, and I'd rate the enjoyment I've gotten out of my enlistment so far as a 2 out of 10. . .I feel as if my whole experience thus far has been a complete, and utter waste of time. Unlike the rest of the AF, my job has absolutely zero instant gratification. Other Crew Chiefs have the satisfaction of knowing they generated an air sortie that medevaced Marines, or other allied countries soldiers, and maybe even delivered cover fire against ISIS/Al Queda. My mission consists of helping train pilots, flight engineers, and load masters. In the grand scope of things, my mission is very important, but the thrill of doing this job isn't there. My plane goes up for a few hours, flies around a flag pole, and comes right down -- what's the fun in that? My unit has no morale, no real mission, and there's next to no way to get out of it. There are very few ways out of my unit which are: separating from the AF, or retraining into a different career field -- I had to do the latter of the two.

 

In January I'll be on my way to Luke AFB, which is in gorgeous Arizona, and I couldn't be more excited about that. There is one downfall however, and that is that I'll be right back in the command I'm in here at Little Rock -- Air Education and Training Command [AETC]. I'll be doing my same job here, with longer hours, faster work, and on a different air frame. The F-16 "Viper", or "Fighting Falcon".

I'm not going to complain about my upcoming assignment, but I wish I were heading to the real Air Force. I wish my plane was dropping warheads on foreheads (humor me here) of terrorists. Knowing that my plane, at the cost of suspected terrorists lives, saved good people. I guess the only good thing I get out of my enlistment (so far) is free school, and that I can't complain about because that is a tremendous opportunity, which I'm grateful for. I wish I deployed like the people that came before me, and most of all I wish my job mattered.

 

This is all stuff I just need to get off of my chest, and possibly discuss with people.

I'm sure a few of you are tired of reading about me getting my eyes corrected by means of a laser. However I've had a few requests to divulge what information I've gathered based on my experiences thus far. I only have knowledge of two forms of refractive surgery, and those are: PRK and LASIK.

Obviously PRK/LASIK are procedures that are done to your eyes, therefore an appointment with your optometrist is needed to figure out if you meet all prerequisites. To even be considered for either surgery, you need to have enough cornea for the laser to remove. The cornea, in layman's, terms is what determines how well you can see. Too much of it and you can't see far, too little of it and you can't see close. Both of these procedures focus on reshaping the cornea just right so you can see better. There is the idea out there that you cannot have an astigmatism if you want to have your eyes corrected, and that is both true and false. It's true because you cannot have too much of an elongated/misshapen cornea, but it is also false because I have an astigmatism but it wasn't severe enough to stop the surgery.


I'll start out explaining the surgery I know the least about solely because I did not go with this choice; however, I was briefed on the pro's and con's of each.

PRK (Photorefractive Keratectomy -- whatever the hell that means...)
Basic procedure steps:

• Numb eyeballs
• Grind down cornea with a 3000 grit sandpaper twirly toothbrush looking thing.
• Brush debris away with a semi-soft brush.
• Slide under the laser that shoots laser pulses onto the cornea to shape it to the correct thickness.

-If I remember correctly, if you have a prescription of 5.25(points) in both of your eyes it takes 2.5 seconds under the laser per 'point' to correct it, so you'd be under the laser for ~13 seconds for each eye.

• After your eyeballs are done being cooked, bandage contacts are placed into your eye(s) to help them heal, and be less susceptible to infection.

LASIK (Laser-Assisted Stromal In-situ Keratomileusis -- who comes up with this shit?)
Basic procedure steps:

• Numb eyeballs
• Be placed under the first laser to cut a corneal flap (almost a 360 degree circle into the cornea of your eyeball) which lasts approximately 14 seconds per eye.
• Countless more numbing drops placed into the eye.
• Move to a separate room with a different type of laser.
• Lay down and have more numbing drops inserted into the eye they're currently operating on.
• The doctor takes a metal poker (looks like a giant metal toothpick) and lifts up that flap they created in the other room.
• Stare at a blinking light for a number of seconds based on prescription (remember that really shitty example I used above?) while the laser reshapes the inside of your cornea.
• The doctor places the flap back down and ensures it is laying in the proper position to reduce any discomfort or chances of ripping/tearing/infection.

Pros / Cons of each procedure:

PRK:
-Pro's

• You can tell all your buddies that a laser hit your eyeballs and you're magically better now? I dunno.
• OH! Less invasive than LASIK.

-Cons

• Super slow and terribly uncomfortable recovery. The pain was described to me as if someone kept throwing sand in your eyes and it never went away. (I had LASIK, went in the day after for the post-op appointment, and PRK people hated their lives while I felt great)
• Will not reach optimal vision for at least 2 months.
• Taking 5 different types of eye drops at least 4 times a day for 6 months.

LASIK:
-Pros

• Much quicker recovery time than PRK. I felt normal after sleeping for 5 hours.
• Vision becomes it's best less than a week after the surgery.
• Eye drops required for less than two weeks after surgery.

-Cons

• More prone for infection if eyes aren't taken care of correctly.
• Much much much more invasive than PRK.
• May result in seeing halos around lights.
• May result in dry eye.

If anyone is interested, and has more questions please feel free to ask. I'm in no way shape or form an expert on either of these subjects, but I can speak about my first and second-hand experiences.



Don't look if you're squeamish.

Caution: These pictures are large and will take up your bandwidth.

The terrible state of Arkansas (pronounced Ark-an-saw) is missing many things like: intelligent people, safe roads and KFC. One thing this state is not lacking is gorgeous views of nature and the opportunity to make great memories with friends. The following are pictures from my hike in the Arkansas Ozarks. Open the spoilers to see some of the great things I witnessed on my first Arkansas Adventure.

My friend Jon playing splishy splashy in the water; quite the character he is.

My tosies were so cold in that last picture!