The View From Under The Hat Brim

This post is written specifically for the members of the Facebook page, "USAF Basic Training - What Do You Remember?" This is a page that I recently joined and have had a lot of fun with, but it has occurred to me that most of the people on that page were never MTIs so the only viewpoint they have of BMTS (Basic Military Training School for you civilians) is from when they went through as trainees. Trust me when I tell you that there's a hell of a lot more to it than that, so as a former Military Training Instructor (MTI for you civilians again), I thought I'd write something out to give the members of the page a glimpse into what it was like for the MTI. After all, most of you who went through BMTS only suffered through it for 6, 8, or 12 weeks depending on when you went in, but the MTI suffered through it 52 weeks out of the year for a minimum of 3 years. So I think it's time all of you were given a small idea of what it was like from the "other side" of BMT - or in other words, the view from under the hat brim.

First and foremost, everyone who wears the campaign hat and the "Instructor" badge in BMTS is a volunteer. MTI duty is a special duty assignment, and the selection process is fairly rigorous. When I applied for MTI duty in 1982 you had to have "firewall 5's" on your last 5 APRs, plus a letter of recommendation from your unit commander. You also had to go through a psychological testing at the Base Hospital and an English-language speaking evaluation as well. When all of this was put together in your application package, it was sent down to BMTS where it was screened by a selection board. When I applied in 1982 only 25% of the applications being submitted were approved because BMTS was looking for the "BEST" NCOs in the Air Force - and they were VERY picky. I consider myself damned lucky to have made the cut.

The Military Training Instructor School (or MTIS) in 1982 was 5 weeks long, and contrary to popular belief it wasn't another version of BMTS where the MTIS instructors hollered and yelled at you. It consisted of 8 hours a day, 5 days a week learning how to march a flight and, more importantly, how to master the "5 Step Teaching Format" that BMTS used to teach EVERY classroom lesson in the curriculum. Trust me when I tell you that the 5 Step format is tough to master, but once you do it becomes second nature. You also learned in MTIS to be the picture of military appearance and bearing, and you'd better look like you stepped out of the uniform manual when you showed up for class. It was drilled into your head that you were teaching trainees who knew nothing of the Air Force, and that their first and lasting impressions of the Air Force would be what YOU showed them. For that reason, perfection was the standard in MTIS, and for good reason.

Once you graduated MTIS and got your hat and "cookie" (the Instructor badge), you were assigned to an MTI trainer in your home unit who would continue your training for the next 90 days. At the end of that 90 day period you were evaluated, and if you passed you were "certified" and could train new airman without supervision. Not everyone passed, by the way. The school was one thing, doing it for real in the field was another thing entirely.

Once you were certified you were then permanently assigned to a dorm and a team chief, and began training troops in your own dorm. That's when the fun begins.

What trainees don't realize about their MTI is that from the moment the trainees step off of the bus when they first arrive at Lackland until the moment they get on the bus to leave BMTS, the MTI is responsible for them and everything they do 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the duration of BMT. That means if a trainee goes out and does something stupid, the very first thing that's going to be looked at and questioned is how the airman was trained, and/or what instructions he was given by his MTI in regards to what he did. If the MTI is found to have given faulty training or bad instructions, then he is responsible and the trainee is off the hook.

For that reason, every single man and woman who wears the hat and cookie holds their own career in their hands every single moment of every single day. They volunteer to do this job, the very tough job of taking civilians and turning them into airmen, and they give it their best knowing that all it takes is ONE mistake and their career is over. There are only two ways to get out of BMTS when you're an MTI: either you do your tour without incident and rotate out with an Air Force Achievement Medal, or you screw up and get kicked out of the MTI program. And if THAT happens, you're going to leave with a "3" APR - or worse - which nukes your chances for promotion and/or re-enlistment for SEVEN YEARS. If you REALLY screw up you get court-martialed and end up in Fort Leavenworth - which I saw happen to an MTI in my unit.

As an MTI you are constantly under the gun, constantly under scrutiny, and so is your flight. ANYONE walking past your flight can gripe about you to your squadron, and in BMT you are considered guilty until proven innocent - at least you were in 1982 - 1986 when I was there. There was an old saying among MTIs that I hope is still being used at Lackland - "What goes on outside the dorm is everyone's business, but what goes on INSIDE the dorm is NOBODY'S business." That doesn't mean you broke the rules and regulations on training your troops by any means; what it means is that you could relax to a point and not have to worry about someone who has NO idea what BMT is like hearing something you said, taking it the wrong way, and reporting it to your Squadron Commander. It also means you could swear without getting reported as well.

And if you think that MTI's don't swear, boy do I have some bad news for you! My personal standard was that when I was training males, pretty much anything went as far as language was concerned; but when I was training females I'd brief them on the very first day that yes, they'd hear me curse from time to time, but they'd NEVER hear me use the word that starts with an "F" and ends with a "UCK" and isn't "FIRETRUCK." I'd tell them that if they ever heard me use that word they'd better get out of my way because I've lost my temper and someone is gonna die. In the 4 years I was down at Lackland I only used that word in the presence of my female flight once, and when I did it was out in the bay during an End of Bed Display inspection. When I dropped that word you'd have thought I tossed a live grenade into the bay - I had females jumping over beds and each other to get the hell away from me! It made me laugh out loud and broke my bad mood, but I worried about a female trainee dropping a critique on me for the next couple of days. Never happened, and I consider myself lucky for that.

Speaking of critiques, let me tell you all about those. The Trainee Critique Form was a piece of paper that a trainee could use to complain about something that was being done in BMTS or about his MTI. They were kept in a box on the wall next to the exit hallway in the Dining Hall, so all a disgruntled trainee had to do was pick one out of the box on his way out of the Dining Hall, fill it out, and put it back in the box the next time he was in the Dining Hall. The MTI never saw or touched the form - the deposit box was locked, and it was checked weekly by a representative from the Basic Military Training School Headquarters. Once the form was received it was logged and a copy of the form was sent down to the unit, and the investigation was on. MTIs in the Dining Hall used to watch that box like a hawk, and all of us dreaded the thought of one of our trainees picking up a form on the way out. Not because we'd done anything wrong, but because 99% of the forms sent in were nothing more than a butthurt trainee who was a foul-up trying to play a game of "catch-up" with his MTI. I was only critiqued once in 4 years, and the complaint was found to be unfounded. End of story.

Did I mention that everything you do and say - and everything your trainees do and say - was watched and evaluated in BMTS? If the Section Supervisor came into your dorm during the duty day and inspected it, if the dorm was fouled up YOU heard about it - not the flight. If one of your trainees was stopped by another MTI somewhere out on the base for having broken a rule, YOU heard about it - not the trainee. You were evaluated on how you talked to your flight in public, how you marched your flight in public, how you wore your uniform, how shiny your shoes were, how clean your hat was, whether or not you had the flight clipboard with you, how well your flight marched, how good the beds looked when they were made - and the list goes on and on. And on top of that, your entire squadron was evaluated yearly by the Standardization and Evaluation Team, or Stan Team. The Stan Team came into your squadron and evaluated every single aspect of the training conducted by the unit as a whole, and this included individual MTI evaluations. Select MTIs in the unit would be picked to teach a dorm lesson (how to make a bed, how to set up an End of Bed Display, etc) and/or a Drill lesson, and they were evaluated on the correct use of the Five Step Teaching Format. Fail a Stan Team Evaluation and your time in BMT was limited.

When a new flight came on board, the regulations required them to have 24/7 supervision for the first 72 hours they were there. That means that an MTI had to spend the night in the dorm sleeping in the Flight Office so the new trainees wouldn't be left unsupervised. This played hell with your married life if you were married, let me tell you. In addition to that, during the 6 weeks of training when I was an MTI there were 15 hours allotted in the training schedule for the teaching of Individual and Flight Drill - but there were 21 movements you had to teach. And since the Five Step Teaching Format said that you could only teach ONE lesson per 40-45 minute class session, that meant you had to come in on the weekends to teach the rest of the drill that was required to be taught.

And I won't even go into the perils and dangers of being a male MTI training a flight full of females. I'll save that for another time.

Believe it or not, all of what I've just laid out is only the tip of the iceberg. I could spend a full 8 hour day telling you all about what it was like to be an MTI, and when it was all over I'd tell you this: being an MTI was the highlight of my 23 years in the Air Force, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It was one of only two places I've ever been while I was in the Air Force where I felt at home, felt like I belonged, and felt like I was accomplishing something important. (The other place was the Persian Gulf during the first Gulf War.) I'm damned proud to have been one of the select few to wear the blue campaign hat of a Military Training Instructor, and the only thing I'm more proud of is that when my son joined the Air Force he also became an MTI.

And I miss it very much. Every single minute of every single day, and I'll miss it until the day I die. Once an MTI, always an MTI.

Deo Vindice.

IHC