Straight out of boot camp, with my head still spinning from the nonstop shouting and drills, I got my orders: Naval Air Technical Training Center in Millington, Tennessee. The name itself sounded like a destination that promised technical mastery and discipline, but when I arrived, reality hit like a humid brick wall. Tennessee wasn’t San Diego. It wasn’t Los Angeles. It was an oven disguised as a state. Locusts sang their eerie mating calls from the trees, the air clung to my skin like a second layer, and I couldn’t escape the stifling smell of damp earth. This place wasn’t just foreign—it felt oppressive.
My purpose there was to become an aviation machinist mate, or an AD. It was a respectable trade, one that would keep me close to aircraft and far from the monotony of grunt work. But while the Navy had plans to mold me into a highly skilled mechanic, I had a knack for finding detours. Almost immediately, I fell in with a group of guys who had a different take on what it meant to serve. If trouble was a magnet, I was the iron it pulled.
It didn’t take long for them to introduce me to tequila. I’d just turned 18, barely old enough to vote, and here I was getting my first real taste of manhood. It wasn’t a gentle initiation, either—this wasn’t some light beer to ease me into the world of alcohol. This was tequila: raw, punishing, and unapologetic. The night was a blur of bad decisions and hazy memories, but the morning was crystal clear. I woke up in a panic, drenched in sweat, the unmistakable stench of booze clinging to me like shame.
When I realized I was late, the fear hit hard. The Navy doesn’t do late. Scrambling to clean myself up, I barely made it to the commander’s office, where I stood at attention, trying to mask my hangover. The commander didn’t shout or berate me. His calm, piercing words were worse: “Don’t screw this up. I can already tell you’re the type to ruin a good opportunity. Prove me wrong.”
Those words stayed with me, a constant hum of anxiety in the back of my mind. I was already struggling to grasp the math involved in power theory. Jet engines operate on principles that require an understanding of equations I could barely comprehend. It felt like I was drowning, the weight of failure pressing down on me.
One day, I swallowed my pride and asked a classmate for help. He was one of those annoyingly cheerful types—always smiling, always eager. I told him I was struggling, that I didn’t get the math, and that I needed help before I sank completely. To my surprise, he agreed without hesitation. We started studying together, joined by another guy from class who was also struggling. Slowly, things began to click. The numbers stopped looking like alien symbols, and I began to understand the language of jet engines.
When the big test came, I nailed it. I went from barely scraping by to earning a B in the section, and I finished the program with an A-. It was a personal victory, a moment where I proved to myself that I could rise above my own chaos. But, of course, nothing in life is free.
My cheerful tutor asked me for one favor in return: go to church with him. I owed him, so I didn’t argue. That Sunday, he showed up at my barracks with matching pink polo shirts for all three of us. Pink. I felt ridiculous, but I wasn’t about to back out. He paid for the taxi, and off we went.
The church wasn’t a modest little chapel. It was a fucken mega-church—a sprawling complex that could have hosted a professional basketball game. Four basketball courts’ worth of polished floors, immaculate and shiny like something out of a dream. Inside, it was even more surreal. The main hall was massive, a coliseum of faith filled with 5,000 people. Cameras were set up to broadcast the service, and the preacher was a charismatic showman who worked the crowd like a seasoned performer.
As he spoke, he asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus as their savior. My tutor nudged me, his eyes practically pleading. I felt the pressure, the weight of my debt to him. Reluctantly, I stood, and the three of us made our way down the center aisle, bathed in TV lights, our pink shirts glowing like neon signs.
When we reached the front, the preacher grabbed my hand and the back of my neck, pulling me into a hug that was far too intimate for my liking. He slobbered words of salvation into my ear as I stood there, red-faced and uncomfortable. They ushered us into a back room, where they asked us questions and prepped us for baptism. When it came time to dunk me, I hesitated. I made up some excuse about not having my ID or not being ready. Whatever I said, they let me off the hook, and I walked away unbaptized, uncommitted, and deeply relieved.
If church was one strange part of my Tennessee experience, the other was my introduction to alcohol. The military didn’t care if you were underage. As long as you were in uniform, bars and stores would serve you without question. At 17, 18, 19, I drank like I’d earned it, like it was my right. It wasn’t fun at first—more of a necessity to fit in—but it grew on me. By the time I left Tennessee, alcohol had become a staple of my life.
But Tennessee wasn’t all booze and awkward religious experiences. It was also where I learned about racism—real, raw racism. I met a girl there, a beautiful, dark-skinned woman who looked like Janet Jackson. She was stunning, fiery, and full of life. She invited me to a concert for my 18th birthday, and I was smitten.
We held hands as we navigated the crowd, her beauty turning heads wherever we went. I felt like I was on top of the world—until I wasn’t. Guys started leaning in, whispering threats. “You need to leave. Now.” Another man said the same thing. I looked at her, confused, and she nodded. “It’s not safe for you here,” she said, her voice tinged with regret.
That night, I learned what it felt like to be hated for the color of my skin. Growing up in Southern California, race wasn’t something I thought much about. But in Tennessee, it was impossible to ignore. For the first time, I was judged not for who I was, but for what I looked like.
Tennessee wasn’t just a chapter in my life—it was a reckoning. It tore through the comfortable naivety I carried growing up in progressive California and forced me to confront the raw, unfiltered reality of human nature. For the first time, I saw how prejudice and hate could cut both ways, not confined to a single race or group.
The most racist people I encountered weren’t the backwoods caricatures I’d been warned about—they were people of color also known as Bblacks. Their justification? A backward narrative that because they’d been wronged a century ago, their hate was somehow righteous, their resentment earned. It didn’t make sense to me then, and it doesn’t make sense now. Racism, no matter how you package it, is still the same poison.
Growing up in California, I’d been shielded from this kind of hostility. The state’s melting pot of cultures and open-mindedness gave me a foundation I’m still grateful for. But Tennessee was a different beast. Anything east of Colorado might as well have been another planet to me. Yet, even in the thick of it, my preferences and desires didn’t waver. I still had a taste for the “dark meat,” unapologetically drawn to what I liked, regardless of the judgment or whispers that followed.
I left Tennessee with more questions than answers, and a bitter taste in my mouth from the hypocrisy I’d witnessed. But I also left stronger, a little smarter, and a lot tougher. It was a trial by fire, and though the flames licked at my edges, they didn’t consume me. Instead, they hardened me for the chaos that was still waiting to unfold in the chapters ahead.
