Am I blue?

In Basic Training the goal is to break you down and rebuild, to suit you to the purpose of the military. Some branches are better at it, to the point that members are almost caricatures.
I went through Air Force Basic. The AF is the youngest branch, with few traditions (see also: "drinking and whoring") and relying on Army experience to forge Airmen in less time than the Army gives.
This results in less physically fit members with a stronger sense of independence.
The average Airmen must find his own motivation through basic, having only the most cursory glimpse of patriotism to start them on that road. Most already have some idea (money, travel, girls (or boys), and
that most unlikely of motivators... education). In Basic, if you don't like it, there's always the door. To make it, most
people select "everybody else is doing it" and just keep on chugging along. Most people are, frankly, sheep.
I chose my son. The newborn needed me to insure his future and secure a role model for him, and I'd be damned before letting him down. The grainy polaroids I had got me through the B.S. the military dished out.

The divorce was hard. I watched my wife betray our vows, the military seemed completely unsympathetic, and most of my friends were single guys... unable to grasp what I was going through. The one married
guy I hung out with insisted that what I needed was sex. Lots of it.
I held on, pulled myself up, and slowly burned with determination. A cold fire took hold as I became aware of the one thing, the one important thing before me:
I might lose my son.

Eventually I offered to take the bills and responsibilities and she would take the highway.
She accepted.

But the bitch came back, the very next day...

A minor skirmish occured, and she received a visitation schedule. Ultrason suffered some trauma, threatened suicide, but, in the end, the "experts" said everything was okay.

Now, having offered up evidence that my family should move, that an "A" student seeking further education and employment a mere state away, a present student seeks to escape the
bottom 50% of Colorado and enter the top 1% of Utah, and my wife should be a stay at home mom, we sit in tense wonder of the process, scared out of our minds...

But perhaps me most of all.

I risk losing my son.