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Defining moments - Part 1

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Nathan Allen
  • 19th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
It started like any normal day in the madcap world of public affairs, and after three years being enlisted, I'm starting to get an idea of what normal looks like. I show up for work, put any tasty goodies I may have brought in the fridge, log in, check the required damage control that can be measured with unequal precision by the flood of e-mails in my inbox, give passing greetings to my co-workers as they arrive...and I am completely sucked in to my morning routine. If a defining moment were planning to sneak up on me, that day would have been a great day to do it.

Apparently, for weeks behind the scenes a conspiracy was taking place. In our shop, an Airman who shall not be named (AWSNBN), had been struggling with his fitness. Though he was devoted to exercise whenever our flight did physical training, and despite being a conscientious dieter, he just couldn't manage to slim his weight down. So, like any good Airman with a problem, he sought help. That help was introduced to us in the form of Senior Master Sgt. Terry Ball, the Airman Leadership School commandant.

Sergeant Ball sat us down in a half circle, and did little with his opening statement to answer our question as to why this stranger to our shop could possibly be here.

"Does anybody know why I'm here?" He appropriately asked.

Our eyes darted about searching each other for an. The AWSNBN sat calmly with a relaxed forward look. Perhaps he was preparing himself for the wrath he would deservedly receive later.

"AWSNBN came to me a while ago and said he needed some help with his fitness, so from now on he'll be doing PT with my ALS class. But to help him along, I have a challenge for the rest of you."

My stomach knotted up a little bit as a long pause fell over the room, everyone sensing what was to come.

"In two months, on March 15, there is going to be a half-marathon in Little Rock that I want to challenge you to do. It's a 13.1 mile run. The human body can be pushed pretty far. In fact, I think I could take any one of you and run you six miles right now."

Sergeant Ball's immediate six mile threat temporarily overshadowed the 13.1 mile behemoth in the distance...but only for a moment.

"I've seen my students do incredible things - push themselves beyond what they thought their limits were. I've ran people so hard before they'd puke along the side of the road while they were running and just kept on going, but by the time everyone is finished, there are always a lot of smiles. That's what I'm asking you to do. Push your limits. AWSNBN will run this half marathon. He has no choice."

And now, in effect, we knew that we were all in this together.

Formulating a plan for taking a flight that had just above average fitness scores to surviving 13.1 miles in about eight weeks was no easy task for our flight's PT leaders. However, Sergeant Ball, in his continued graciousness, offered to let us join AWSNBN with his ALS class's PT. For anyone unfamiliar with the PT that ALS does, my co-worker Senior Airman Jim Araos summed it up with this description.

"It was grueling. They made me walk on my hands and turned me into a wheelbarrow and then they flipped me over and turned me into a crab. Yep. That's what they did."

Along with participating in ALS PT, our shop started hitting the pavement. Hard. It started off with two miles Tuesday and Thursday and three miles Friday. The next week we'd increase it to two, three, and then four. As the distance we ran each week grew longer, the time we would start PT in the afternoon curiously became the busiest time of the day for most people. Thankfully everyone still managed to complete the mission and get in a good run fairly consistently.

As time went on, a curious thing happened. We started asking each other questions we'd never asked before - questions like "Does my body get enough nutrients from eating the right foods or should I take vitamins?" "Does the arch of my foot need a stability, neutral or motion control shoe?" and "Am I gonna pass out if I eat fast food on a day which we have to run seven miles?" Something insidious was happening to our brains...we were changing.