Chapter 5: Of Beach Balls and Boats
I grew up playing on the beach. In fact, my grandparent’s property (which is still in the family) is only about a 2-5 minute walk from the beach in Daytona. One of the things I enjoyed the most about going to the beach was taking a large beach-ball, throwing it up in the air, then chasing it with my cousin to try and catch it before it hit the ground. It was fun but also challenging because the sea breeze would always make the ball travel in random ways. No throw was ever the same, and the ball never followed the same path down, it was entirely unpredictable.
As I walked back into my Lieutenant’s office on March 30th, 2022, my career felt a lot like that beach ball. I was moments away from launching it in the air after which I would be able to do nothing but see where the breeze would take it. Of course, I knew that it was far less whimsical than a random breeze. God was in control and He would direct it to go wherever He willed. But when something foundational in your life goes from ordered to completely unpredictable (or, more appropriately, chaos), it takes constant mental energy to keep reminding yourself of that truth.
I sat down back in the oddly comfortable chair after handing my Lieutenant the official paperwork that requested my release from the flight school program. Her demeanor changed from the way it had been on Monday. She was much less sympathetic and a bit more pointed with a flavor of frustration.
“You do know the Navy isn’t just going to release you, right?” She said as she flipped through the paperwork.
“I realize this is not going to be a simple process, Ma’am, but it is something I know beyond a doubt that I need to do.” I responded.
“The Navy will require you to be in for a minimum of 4 years from your commissioning date. It’s not like they’re just going to let you go and do a degree on a whim. If you drop out of flight school now, you’re going to have to let the Navy pick a new job for you and you’ll likely end up stuck on a ship somewhere doing a job nobody else wanted to do. Is that really what you want?”
No… that was certainly not what I wanted. In fact, I hated the idea that that could be a very real possibility. It had been a very hard thing to transition from the Marine Corps into the Navy. Although there were many similarities between the two branches, the culture in the Corps was very different from the culture in the Navy, and I often found myself missing what I had. There was a certain closeness and sense of pride in one’s work that was far more apparent in the mentality of Marines than I had yet seen in the overall culture of the Navy. However, up to this point, my excitement in being a pilot was enough to keep me motivated about having changed branches (as the Navy’s aviation program, in my opinion, was much closer to what I wanted for my career than the Marine Corps had to offer). Because of this, the thought of being placed in a random job in the Navy was hard to stomach.
“I know there is a lot about this transition that I cannot control, and I know how unlikely it is that any of this will go smoothly; however, I cannot in good conscience continue with this career. I know that, if God wills for me to go to seminary now, He will make it happen regardless of what the Navy wants to do. And if it is His will for me to sit on a boat somewhere in a random job for the next 4 years, then I am prepared for that reality as well.” I responded confidently, although the words were just as much spoken to reassure me that it would all be alright as they were for my Lieutenant’s benefit.
“Understand this, Ensign Simmons, you will be in the Navy for at least another 4 years.” She said definitively, “But I will go ahead and file this paperwork initiating your drop from flight school.”
And there it was… the beach ball was in the air. There was no way of knowing for sure how God was going to direct it, but it was now officially out of my hands. It started to sink in at that moment that I had absolutely no idea what to do next. How do I even begin to ask the Navy to let me out? I was not only completely naïve on the process of dropping out of flight school, but I also had no idea how to even try to begin the process of getting out of the Navy.
On top of this, I not only needed to get out of the Navy, but I now had only two and a half months to not only discover how to do it, but also to make it happen. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to make it to the Seminary in time for Summer Greek and I would have to wait another year to begin classes. For those who are familiar with the military bureaucratic system (or any other government agency), you understand that trying to accomplish a task which doesn’t have any formal and well-established route is almost impossible to accomplish in two months. But hey, that was one of those things that was beyond my control at the moment.
I had been given my daily bread and I couldn’t expect God to show me where tomorrow’s bread was going to come from. The only thing I could do was accomplish the tasks set before me for each day and trust Him. If God’s will really was for me to be at seminary this year, He would make it happen regardless of how hopeless it looked from where I stood on the shore as I looked up at my beachball blowing in the breeze.
“You will get a call from the admin office in the next few hours to set up your exit interview with the next levels of the command.” My Lieutenant continued. “You will need to have 3 more interviews before this process is completely finalized and they’ll be scheduled for you over the next two weeks. In the meantime, you also need to start completing your check-out sheet from flight school. I also recommend you set up an appointment to speak with the Chaplain, it’ll be on your check out sheet but he may have some things he wants to add with all of this. Best of luck, Ensign Simmons.”
Her tone was matter of fact if not borderline skeptical, and I couldn’t blame her. She was completely right, I was asking for the Navy to do something for me that was completely unheard of. She had to try and bring me back into the reality of what I was doing, that was her job. In her own way, she was trying to protect me from myself and keep me from throwing a perfectly secured beachball into the air only for it to drop into the waves and be swept out to sea.
I, however, had no other choice. This was my only option. I left her office with empty hands, my dropping out of flight school was officially initiated and the paperwork was turned in. There was no going back. Now I was on my way to the Chaplain’s office, perhaps he would have a different take on the whole situation…
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