Keeping Secrets

This is my personal Military experience – real life events that happened to me.  

Not fiction, not a story, not make believe.   

I kept no journals or diaries during my Enlistment because I was too paranoid about letting slip any information about my various training assignments and risking my Top Secret-Special Compartmentalized Information Security Clearance (TS/SCI). 

I began my Air Force Career with a Secret Clearance. By the time I sewed on my E4 Buck Sargent Stripes, I had cycled through nearly every Clearance Level, finally landing on Top Secret “Eyes Only” Security Clearance. 

From the time I entered Basic Training at Lackland AFB, it was drilled into my head that I was given the highest Security Clearance because I would be handling Top Secret Classified Information during the normal course of my job as a Tactical Aircraft Maintenance Technician, aka Crew Chief.

I learned how to lie in Basic Training, perfected the Art of Deception through Aircraft Maintenance Technical School, and Mastered putting Truth in a Lie on the Flight Line. Lying about the most mundane to the most critical of issues became essential to success and survival.

I have never broken my Promise to the United States, nor my Silence in over 30 years. The only record of my Military  Enlistment is so heavily redacted, and the catastrophic misspelling of both my first and last name in Basic Training Records, that I truly believed as long as I never admitted to anything other than being in the “Military” I would never be found, never run the risk of anyone discovering anything about my Enlisted years. In another layer of false protection, between 2013-2015 I discovered my Military Medical Records were limited to strictly to the Endometriosis Diagnosis and Surgery. But I was very wrong.

For over 15 years, I have been Stalked, Terrorized, Followed, Watched, and Burglarized. After 30 years of complete silence, my life was turned upside down.

This is the Story various Investigators, from various Government Agencies, for various reasons, have been after for over 20 years. This is the Military Trauma rumored about, discussed in hushed tones, and avoided in polite company.  

It is not the story of Tail Hook. While yes, I had my fair share of Tail Hook Temporary Duties, the Scandal began as I was processing out of the Air Force. No, this is a different, much more brutal, far more sinister Military Trauma. 

I kept the secret.

And then I was Betrayed.