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Future Dust
"I'll never look like that!"
I said to myself when we were offloaded
from the Lakeland Air Force Base
Officer Training School bus
and heard the upperclassmen
bark orders at us, the arriving class,
and saw the triple rings under their eyes.
Six weeks later, I looked like that
as I stood at the attention outside my room
on Saturday Morning Inspection
(as one upperclassman stood
outside my room looking at every detail
of my appearance for deviations
"Details will save your life!"
repeated by my teachers so often
it is forever burned into my mind,
and another ran over every detail in my room
from the folds in the mattress
to the spacing between my socks).
I broke after they left
to scan my demerits book
aware that so much depended
on my finally bringing those demerits down:
my graduation, the cohesion of my flight, honor,
the future of the United States of America.
And there it sat, like a turd
the inspector left behind
from his white-gloved hand:
"Future dust."
When the inspector returned
for questioning, I fired it right at him,
"What's 'future dust', Sir!?"
"I'd have had a perfect inspection
but for that demerit."
"Come over here, son."
he said in a thick Southern drawl.
He opened the blinds to let in the sun
and pointed at the air.
"What's that?" he said,
a thin grin opening on his face,
all the muscles in his future fighter pilot's body
preparing to press the red button on the joystick.
"Dust, Sir." I stated.
"Wrong, Officer Candidate Curley!
That's future dust!
In a few minutes it will land
on your desk and you failed to prevent it!
Therefore, you Sir, are guilty!
Guilty of letting down your flight!
Guilty of failing to prevent future dust!"
Three demerits. Good-bye!
As our teachers told us so many times,
they were preparing us for war.
Waging war has rules and surprises,
and surprises repeated often enough
become the rules of warfare.
Like future dust,
Or the future dust of a company
that fails to plan for the next bear market,
or the future dust of a family death,
or the future dust of the lack of preparation
for the next war and the deaths that will result,
or the dust of skyscrapers brought down
"What's 'future dust', Sir!?"
"I'd have had a perfect inspection
but for that demerit."
"Come over here, son."
he said in a thick Southern drawl.
He opened the blinds to let in the sun
and pointed at the air.
"What's that?" he said,
a thin grin opening on his face,
all the muscles in his future fighter pilot's body
preparing to press the red button on the joystick.
"Dust, Sir." I stated.
"Wrong, Officer Candidate Curley!
That's future dust!
In a few minutes it will land
on your desk and you failed to prevent it!
Therefore, you Sir, are guilty!
Guilty of letting down your flight!
Guilty of failing to prevent future dust!"
Three demerits. Good-bye!
As our teachers told us so many times,
they were preparing us for war.
Waging war has rules and surprises,
and surprises repeated often enough
become the rules of warfare.
Like future dust,
Or the future dust of a company
that fails to plan for the next bear market,
or the future dust of a family death,
or the future dust of the lack of preparation
for the next war and the deaths that will result,
or the dust of skyscrapers brought down
by fanatical jihadists,
or the future dust we will find
clogging the oxygen filters
of our interplanetary space ships.
So many years later,
I now know they were right.
We all must be eternally vigilant
to prevent future dust from landing,
if we are to have any chance at all
of a life in the space dust of the future.
clogging the oxygen filters
of our interplanetary space ships.
So many years later,
I now know they were right.
We all must be eternally vigilant
to prevent future dust from landing,
if we are to have any chance at all
of a life in the space dust of the future.
