A Day in the Life: Deployment Edition
What Basically Everyday Has Looked Like for the Past 3 Months
Author's Note: This post was drafted before the recent Israel-Iran conflict seriously escalated, which has lead to a much different day-to-day recently. Regardless, I still felt it was valuable to share and hope you feel the same.
Some Context:
I don't often talk about what I do for a living because other things excite me more to talk about (hence my trail running write ups and podcast), but since 2023 I've been in the Idaho Air National Guard (IDANG) as a A-10 mechanic. Being in the IDANG is kind of like trying the military route out on the side. It can be a full time gig if you want it to be, or it can also be what people think of as a "weekend warrior". I chose the "weekend warrior" route. This means I owe Uncle Sam about 30-40 days a year and that I travel back to Boise most months for 3-5 days at a time.
What is the A-10?
The A-10 is basically huge gatling gun that the military built a plane around. It can do some pretty devastating damage to tanks and anything on the ground but is by no means fast, sleek, or sexy. Every A-10 made was created between 1978-1981, so they're getting quite old. They're a lovely plane when it comes to seeing how everything works mechanically and they have done a lot of damage throughout wars in the middle east when opponents didn’t have many or any anti-aircraft capabilities.
In my civilian life I work as an Instructor Pilot for a program called IFT. I teach Air Force pilots how to fly single engine planes straight out of graduating the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. They learn the fundamentals of aviation from me before they go on to jet trainers and fly bigger, faster, and cooler planes in their Air Force careers. Getting hired at this job is what prompted me to move to Colorado Springs from Boise, Idaho in December of 2023. (In googling IFT for this article, I actually found out they have a wikipedia page that describes the program better than me. So I imagine it’s fine for me to talk about it without getting in too much trouble🤷♀️).
I originally took the position in the IDANG with the intention of applying for a pilot position and wanting to fly the A-10. Taking a job as a mechanic on the A-10 only increased my likelihood of selection and was a lower commitment way (6 year commitment vs 10 year commitment) to see behind the scenes if I really wanted to pursue being a military aviator.
Long story short, I won't be applying for a pilot slot despite being in a competitive position to get one. But I also don't regret having joined the IDANG as it keeps me returning to a city I love a lot (Boise) and helps me to maintain my many wonderful friends there for the next few years.
For the past two months or so I've been deployed. It's been an experience. This is my first time deploying, but certainly not my first time being away from home or out of the country for an extended period of time. The days can blur together and every day feels more or less like groundhog day, but I felt compelled to write about a typical day in my deployment. I've done a terrible job of journaling since I've been here so perhaps I can count this as my first attempt. Here it goes:
11:10 PM
Watch starts buzzing and I roll over as my alarm goes off to wake up. Sometimes I snooze it for ten minutes, sometimes I get right up. I pack my running clothes, take a sip of water as I down my iron, vitamin c, and vitamin d pills. I check on the temps for the day to see just how hot it might get in deciding what clothes to run in. At this point, every day tops out around 100F (38 C for my Euro folks) so it doesn't really matter what I wear-it’s going to be hot.
11:30-11:45 PM
Walk a few minutes to trailers with toilets. Brush teeth. Shave. Go poop. Start ten minute walk to the shop, usually call Kaitlin to check in around her lunch time.
11:55 PM
Arrive at our shop, change into military uniform, see whats happening for the day with regards to maintenance. High five my outgoing coworkers on the opposite shift.
12:05-12:30 AM
Walk to breakfast and eat something. The midnight meal is a combination of one half breakfast and one half whatever they had left from that nights dinner. If the dinner is decent I'll opt for that since the breakfast will be around for the next meal if I want any breakfast items. This leads to some interesting combinations of food on my plate.
12:30-5:00 AM
Some days do lots of maintenance, other days do absolutely nothing. I might scroll mindlessly, work on posts like these, research upcoming trail races for the next podcast, or talk to Kaitlin or other friends/family.
Being deployed is largely an exercise in boredom and one's ability to endure it. I try to be productive as possible but that can often be tough at times. It's kind of like when you're at work just dreaming of all the things you could be doing with a day off, and then once you finally have that much needed day off you do absolutely nothing with it. Like that but imagine weeks in a row feeling that way. There’s so much time that it often just feels like there will always be tomorrow.
People say "oh learn a language, or do this, or do that" and I try my best to be productive. I consider my use of time to be more productive than 99% of the people I'm here with (who mostly play video games on expensive gaming laptops or other gaming consoles, mindlessly scroll, or just watch every show on any given streaming platform), but that’s entirely subjective and probably just my overinflated ego talking. What does it mean to be “productive” anyways?
I know this may sound a bit salty, but it's hard not to come across that way when it feels like you're wasting your one and precious life while being away from friends, loved ones, and beloved activities.
5:00-6:30 AM
Time permitting (most days it is), I swap out of my uniform and into my running clothes. I venture out for a run that perfectly coincides with the 30 or so minutes immediately before and after the sunrise. This, in my opinion, is the most beautiful time of my wakeful day (also with the coolest temperature). The run can be anywhere from 5-11 miles and usually takes around and 60-75 minutes.
Sometimes I call Kaitlin on the run if it's an easy one, other times I listen to podcasts about running, Ramit Sethi's Money for Couples podcast, or music. Recently I've been enjoying the Behind the Wall podcast, which interviews musical artists, songwriters, and producers on the process of creating some of the biggest songs the past 20 or so years. I really enjoyed both his interviews with Benny Blanco. It's nuts to see just how many songs he is partially or primarily responsible for creating with so many artists.
If I'm a good boy I might do some foam rolling or preventive foot/ankle strength on my balance board thingie (that my lovely girlfriend Kaitlin sent to me after I voiced concern over possible achilles/plantar fasciitis issues upon my return to home and the mountains). Hopefully the pre-hab a few times a week is mitigating the likelihood of injury and keeping my ligaments happy despite all this pavement-pounding.
6:30-7:00 AM
Change back into uniform. Hang my sweaty clothes on a chainlink fence to dry within minutes. Walk to the flight line chow hall and grab some oatmeal to mix with my chocolate whey protein powder, almond butter, and a banana. Eat breakfast and enjoy the coolest part of the day while it lasts. The morning is a sacred time in my mind.
7:00-11:30 AM
Either continue working or continue doing whatever it was that I was doing before. Change out of work clothes at the end and get ready to swap with the opposite shift.
12:00-2:00 PM
Do a second shorter run or some kind of strength training in the gym. I usually try to get a minimum of an hour of strength training a week-one lower body day and one upper. I add core to the end of each one. Anything else is bonus.
This is also where I try to get a bit of vertical practice either by running on a treadmill at around 15% incline or by using the stair stepper. The gym isn’t really air conditioned because it’s in a tent, so I sweat a lot. The wifi is decent and I can watch Youtube videos while running/hiking though, so that part is nice.
Walk to lunch (dinner for me) and eat my last meal of the day. I always drink chocolate milk with my dinner as a treat. If the dining hall has pudding on offer (typically vanilla, occasionally chocolate, usually out around 2-3 times per week) I always get some, because life's too short to skip dessert and I'm averaging an insane amount of steps per day anyways.
2:00-3:00 PM
Walk to the showers, shower, brush teeth, go pee, and walk back to our room that is a trailer with four doors, each of which has two bunk beds on either side. Lay down and begin reading, try to fall asleep by 3:10PM so that I can wake up in eight hours and do it all over again. (Sidenote: I just finished Feet in the Clouds by Richard Askwith and Run Wild by Boff Whalley, both which I can’t recommend highly enough to my trail running friends who subscribe to this for the love of trail stuff)
This might seem quite underwhelming, and that's because it kind of is. That's the reality of many deployments (from what I can gather but I could be wrong), especially for an America that is not (currently, thankfully) at war or playing an active role in Afghanistan.
The reality of military service is that you spend a lot of time in places you don't want to be doing things you don't want to be doing (namely, a whole lotta nothing much of the time). That’s where the "service" part of serving comes in. It's not glamorous or sexy or heroic. It's just service. Service that I can only hope is making the world a slightly better place to live.
Thanks so much for posting this. Watching 2 little guys growing and changing reminds me every day of 2 other little guys (hazard of being your primary babysitter since you were born💙💙). I often think of sending you a quick text but worry that I’ll wake you up during an important back side of the clock sleep cycle. Im writing an old fashioned snail mail to catch you up so hopefully it will be finished this weekend. Sending hugs, Aunt Mary