Interview with Marion “Ben” Nobles conducted by Tara Lokke


TL-Thank you again for participating in Beat Your Gums. Please state that you understand the details about my project and knowing that, you give your consent in participating under the circumstances agreed upon and signed in the consent and release form.


BN- I consent.


TL- Thanks. So I’m going to start with basic details about you and your military background so things like the branch, your company, where you were, super basic military background.


BN- Okay so my name is Marion Nobles I separated staff Sgt. Nobles of the United States Air Force. The entire time I was in, I was stationed at the tenth a sauce at Fort Riley Kansas it is an Army base however my job was the Air Force unit that supports the Army and their specifically the big red one division and for the entirety of my career I never went anywhere else so I supported the big red one entire time.


TL- so next question is about your family past, so things like your hometown and maybe things like your family history.


BN- so I was born in South Carolina only lived there for eight years moved to North Carolina I lived in two different towns there none, both, first one was a small Hot Springs North Carolina was a pretty small town when I was 12 due to some we’ll say family drama not to get too distracted here moved to Greensboro North Carolina where I lived until I was 18 there I joined the military soon after. My, the only family, my stepfather, my mother remarried, was prior Navy he only did three years I want to say and the only other actual expense my family is my grandpa was five years in the Army and I think he had a brother who actually retired Air Force even though I’m not very close with his brother his brother was once again dead before I was born but apparently he served a very long time


TL- Awesome. So what made you interested in joining the Air Force?


BN- For me, my, my interest in the military first started with a love of history when I first started to see the awesome butterfly effect story that history tells and how it affects modern-day I, I started to be more, I really found the military history especially like ancient Roman style history and I, I saw even though soldiers were only you know they be never got a name, but the military had an impact for better or for worse for the future and I knew it was something I wanted to be part of didn’t really know specifically what and then maybe Junior year I decided I wanted to join the military I was leaned Air Force mostly due to high school JROTC which was Air Force and my instructor there he actually started army and then switched to Air Force and told me that I really should shoot for Air Force and I knew that I knew that I wanted to go into something that I couldn't do anywhere else which is different than a lot, a lot of people come from Air Force One to work on some sort of technical skill that they can do it on the outside but I, I kinda went the different route I wanted to do something hard something to prove a test of will power for myself maybe.


TL- So how old were you when you decided to, to do that?


BN- It all started, well it was official up well, all the papers were done when I was 17 but I as I had pretty much dedicate myself to path when I was 16.


TL- If you could change your decision, would you?


BN- no. It’s impossible to tell how my life could have turned out differently for the most part I’d say things turned out well.


TL- Do you have any stories of your time in military that you’d like to share?


BN- Um, I mean I was in six years I’ve got stories for days. Give me more of a prompting. What are you looking for? You looking for something more emotional, something funnier, like uh..


TL- All of the above. (laughter) I am not picky.


BN- Yeah. I’ll start you off with a dramatic story, why not. I, when I was only in the unit maybe, I think at this point it was, I had only been there for maybe a year and my suite mate had recently, this was January at the time frame, my suitemate had recently left on his first deployment to Afghanistan he went with a more seniored individual in our unit because that’s how our job operates, they go out in pairs and stuff and they left and only a month into their deployment I get a call. Coincidentally I was breaking the rules, I was coming back from seeing a girlfriend and I was out of the time hour jurisdiction because we were supposed to be able to come back within 8 hours if out on leave so I was actually flying back when I got a call that we were having a unit recall on a Sunday, which was very odd so I figured someone was in trouble so I was all, “Yeah I’m coming, I’m coming from Saint Louis” when in actuality I was waiting on a flight to come back to the town and I landed when I got a call back saying they already had the meeting, I was late to it, but they said my suitemate was blinded in Afghanistan, was fairly injured, and the other guy he went with was killed, which was only the third death within my career field since the war started and it, it created a wild experience to say the least because while I was still pretty new I wasn’t very close to, I know you’re going to change his name, but I wasn’t very close to B***, he was the individual who died, but soon after that I, I went to his funeral, which was very soon after, which was in Troy, Illinois, we got to meet his parents and that was uh, we got to stay at their house the night before, and that was a wild experience because his parents were very small town, very friendly, polite people and he was kind of like, their golden boy, and almost like the golden boy of the town. It was a very interesting experience because his parents didn’t know how to conduct themselves like, what do you do, right? Um, his funeral probably had about 400 people come out to it, played all the cheesy country songs and stuff like that it was, yeah, it was impossible not to feel sad just from the number of people and the way it was presented. Especially because, stereotypically enough, he actually just had his first, he was 23, he just had a daughter with his 21 year old wife right before he left in standard fashion and this was only his second deployment when he got killed and one of the craziest part about these stories is the night before there was some hodunk bar right next to the hotel that we stayed and in typical war-fighter fashion, I think, I think they literally drank every drop of alcohol in that place and they even went out to like, get emergency alcohol on a Tuesday night to like, feed all these people. And I mean, you want to talk about, I saw a bunch of grown ass adults, war fighters, people who’ve gone over seas and killed people, just break down, like it was, it was a wild scene. I was underage at the time so I don’t mean this to sound derogatory but I was almost cleaning up after people, I wanted to make sure these people made it safely to their rooms and it was rough, I mean, like I mean, people were just like keeling over when they were by themselves, breaking in tears. I saw a grown man fall on his back and start kicking in an elevator, it was, it was a wild experience. (laughter) It did not bring out the best in people, to say the least. My suitemate is doing a lot better now! He’s out of the air force and he’s blinded but he lives in Colorado now and he’s, I still talk to him occasionally. He’s got, he married, he married an individual, her, her husband actually died in the same attack and that’s how he met her. So he married her and he’s father of two step-kids now and his life seems to be going pretty well now. He seems to be taking his injury pretty positively. I got to go to his Bronze Star ceremony and I, we went to like, Outback Steakhouse or something afterwards and his mother actually broke down in tears outside of the place and like, she was thanking us for making fun of her blinded son (laughter), in tears thanking us for making fun of her son, which is uh, one of the weirdest tearful thank you's I’ve ever gotten but.


TL- So what about humorous now? You said you had humorous.


BN- Um, trying to think of a funny one. I don’t know. Most of the time when I tell these funny stories I get reminded of them and that’s the reason I tell them so I think I’m going to do.. I guess one of my personal favorite stories regarding a, a test of will power, we’ll say, like when I prove something to myself. In tech school, um, I can’t remember his name now, one of our instructors, he, for some reason me and him never really got along, I feel like I got targeted a lot by this individual, but he was teaching one of the classroom courses, I can’t remember what it was, it was like, he said something and I can’t remember what it was but it was in classics hours and he said something very derogatory to the class and I said something very smart ass back, some sort of like momma joke back or something like that, so he called be up to the front to like, make a show of me, and he had me get in the Chinese Pushup position, which if, I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but it’s basically like a push up but your hands are a lot closer to your feet, so it’s more of a shoulder exercise and I think his point was just to make me do it till I failed and looked silly but I probably did 70 Chinese pushups because I was not going to let this asshole embarrass me and it got to the point where he was tired of counting and he just told me to sit down and it was painful because my shoulders were just busted for a week. I have never been so sore in my shoulders, but I feel pretty proud of myself and then when I graduated I remember he was, you know he was shaking everybody’s hands and he shook mine and he was like, “Well Nobles, I didn’t think you’d make it but I guess you did.” And I was like, “Well I couldn’t have done it without your help and (laughter) inspiration, “ and he was like, “alright get out of here.” (laughter).


TL- So you, when you make friends, do you still stay in touch with them? You said you’re in touch with your suitemate but any other friends?


BN- Yeah there’s the, so I’ve been out for two years now and there’s a few I’m still in contact with although that’s, who knows how long that will last because part of the problem is, so one of my better friends, he’s still in, and I usually run into the same problem that you do in any other walk of life, you know, like you’re lives just start diverging because his life’s going deeper, deeper into the military where as mine’s really splitting off so the, the things we have to talk about are starting to divide. I still talk to some of the friends I have at least on Facebook that did get out after their service and, because I definitely found in my career, especially with the TACP career field and the type of people that it brought like, I either got along with some individuals really well and I got along with some individuals really poorly, which might be what inspired my exit in the first place, but I, because honestly the alpha, everything is super competitive atmosphere does get exhausting after a while it’s, it’s even something as simple as going out and having a beer always ends up becoming like a big dick contest like, no matter what you’re doing and at least to me it got overbearing at times.


TL- so where do you see yourself going from here? Or after coming back?


BN- Um, I’d like to finish college and open my own business. Part of the inspiration I got in the military learning more about myself is I’m definitely a very independent, I don’t want to say independent thinker, I, I, I’m a very skeptical person and I, I, anytime I hear anything my first thought is why would I do it, why should I do it and there’s a lot of arbitrary-ness to any federal job and part of why I want to be an entrepreneur is because I, I, I want the chance to do that for myself, I want to, I want to make the rules and even if I fail at it, I’d rather fail at my own hands than succeed by someone else’s.


TL- So coming back to civilian life, was it, how was the transition for you?


BN- Mm, I, it, yeah I suppose it’s almost as drastic as going from civilian into military. Well especially at 18, it, it was pretty drastic because I had never been on my own and that kind of thing but as far as now um I mean the nice thing is I, I, I live with my dedicated partner and I, and that’s nice because that definitely gives me a footing that maybe if I was single I wouldn’t have. Um, it was a lot different especially coming to college and interacting with mostly 18-19 year olds and not to say, I mean it’s the same age as my younger, so yeah that’s actually a good way to put it, my younger brother’s 18 right now so it’s a lot like going to school with your younger brother. And that’s not to say that it’s bad or wrong or anything it’s just, it’s a lot different because the life experience we’re on are on a very different level and it’s, it’s, it’s a hard thing, you know it’s not something that they get until they’ll be in my shoes one day and it’s, it’s a lot different. And like, I, I knew I was in a different world when I heard an 18 year old talk about quote, “scoring natty ice” on the weekend and that’s something you only ever hear an 18-19 year old say. And it wasn’t something that I’d, I’d ever expect to hear uttered again but sure enough when it was I was, I just kind of giggled to myself. (laughter)


TL- So what made you come to UCONN from North Carolina, I mean.


BN- Because my partner C******** lives here. That’s why, for the most part.


TL- How did you meet her?


BN- Um, met her through mutual friend. My, so when I got back from Iraq I, we, due to some technical stuff everybody got BH, we all got moved out of the dorms and so I had to immediately come back, while having a busted ACL trying to look for a roommate and I, I found, I actually hunted on Craig’s List because to me I, a lot of people in our unit were roomed together but to me I kind of wanted to have some space that wasn’t military. So I looked for a roommate and I found one, it was a guy who owns a house who’s renting a room out um, individual named Ernie P****, yeah we’re still friends and he’s, his boyfriend, Ryan, um I became friends with as well and then he did a study abroad with Christine when he was in college and she would come visit him every year or so and he introduced us.


TL- So when you were deployed, did you ever get care packages?


BN- I did!


TL- What was your favorite thing to get?


BN- My favorite thing to get… um, any sort of food. Just because you’re very limited. You know I was in Bagdad but I was still very limited to the type of food I would get and it was almost like a, it was almost like the fun of the mystery of it because you never know what it’s going to have. It could have a very poorly spelled cards from children that just say the weirdest things and then, or it could have you know some random candy or I, I had my father in his best interest, he sent me alcohol, which is very much wrong to have because I turned 21 in Iraq and he sent me alcohol hidden in Listerine bottles and while it was a nice gesture, I worked 8 hours a day every day so it’s not like I had time to get drunk like, (laughter). So I, it was a nice gesture but it was not, I couldn’t do anything with it. I didn’t exactly get days off.


TL- Right. So what’d you do for fun when you did have the chance?


BN- In Iraq? I mostly just… ah Bagdad has a huge base so when I would have time I toured the base, it was just really nice, huge, has a lot of stuff to see. Yeah, I worked out a lot, got in great shape because, especially cause the gym was like, right across from me so it was super convenient. Um, played a lot of video games, which was typical. Watched a lot of TV shows.


TL-What was your favorite TV show?


BN-What’s my favorite TV show…I mean I want to say I watched Family Guy, but I watch Family Guy a lot so and I want to say I watched an entirety of a series but I don’t think I can remember now. It wasn’t, it wasn’t anything great, it was no Breaking Bad or anything I think I just watched like, it’ll come to me later. Like, I would just try to watch TV shows, as I would get ahold of them. Um, think that I’d watch, even like, one episode of a hospital show or whatever, the um..


TL- Grey’s Anatomy?


BN-Grey’s Anatomy! Yes! I even watched one episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I was like oh don’t think this is for me. (laughter). Because they, those, we even had a dedicated building in our rec, like the TACP hide away. It had just been built up and TACP’s would pile stuff up in there over the years and it was just a huge room just full of books and DVD’s and stuff and it was, and a lot of what is referred to as Hodge DVD’s, which was on base, it was just these stores and it was just a store of bootleg DVD’s. So yeah it was just all kinds of manner of poorly recorded stuff.


TL- So what hobbies do you have or what do you like to do?


BN- Today? Um, today, I’ve, I got a dog now, which is nice. Part of the reason I got out, too, because I wanted to have a dog again. He’s a mutt; he’s all kinds of dog. Primarily German Shepard, but he’s pretty mixed. I still play video games, still watch a lot of, you know, I’ve got the DVR box, I watch a lot more TV. I, I’m a lot more, probably one of the biggest changes, personally while I was in, was I, my religious views changed in that I am no longer religious. And more active in the non-religious movement. Do a lot more, do quite a bit of things with Christine, me and her are both pretty adventurous and so we like to go and try and do things that we find them.


TL- So if you had someone remember one thing about you, like if they, if they meet you once and you never see them again, what would you want them to remember?


BN- I would say I’m, well I could say what I want them to, but it doesn’t matter they’ll remember what they want to, I guess the thing that I always try to expunge is a genuineness. And what I mean by that is I, you know, the person you are talking to now is exactly the same person that my mother talks to or that my grandmother talks to. I don’t, I don’t change my approach with people and it’s ironic that I’m in the business school because that’s part of what they want is that you’re supposed to change your approach with everybody but I, I’m kind of, I take more of an approach of somebody’s either going to like me or they’re not so I’m not going to try to put on a more likeable façade just for their sake. And I feel like, for the most part, it’s worked. I’ve made a lot of good friends that way and I’ve made a lot of people that didn’t like me so it’s, and it’s, you can establish that early, not have to waste your time to put it nicely. And from feedback from other people, I’ve gotten that, especially maybe older individuals, I’ve gotten that at first I can come off quite, quote, “shocking”, but then once they talk to me more it’s like that’s just who he is, it’s not (laughter), like it’s, it’s, I think it does throw some people off because I, I, I don’t sensor myself right off the bat, which I think most people expect people you’ve just met to be censoring.


TL- So you said you want to open up a business or start a business, what kind of business are you thinking?


BN- A kennel actually. I, um, I’ve had a dog most of my life, I’ve, I’m very familiar with dogs, I feel like I handle them pretty well and I, I got inspired by a lot of smaller businesses in Kansas, because where we were it’s pretty insulated and there are not a lot of chains, there was a lot of business owners who were really good at it and I, I got very inspired by how they could connect with the communities and really bring people together and be really social and friendly and there’s actually a kennel in Connecticut that I think they do a wonderful job and they are family owned and I’m kind of inspired to go that route because, you know, it’s also something that’s really important to me is for me, opening a business is not as much about making money, as much as I want to feel like I add value to the community and that’s something I don’t feel like I could get doing like say, you know, no offense to anybody, but accounting or something like that, like I, I don’t want to be the middle man, I don’t want to be a money mover, I want to be somebody that I feel like improves people’s lives directly. And I, I, at least as of right now, I feel like that’ll be the most successful way for me to do that without going broke.


TL- So would it be a dog only or an all-pet kind of-


BN- For now, dog only. Um, and this is mostly from market research in the area that I’m looking at, I mean, people have cats but most cat owners I know, just when they, they don’t daycare their cat, they just leave it at home because it can take care of itself, where as dogs, dogs require a little more direct supervision.


TL- Um-


BN- I’m trying to think of more funny stories for you, because I –


TL- (laughter) Oh what’s your favorite kind of dog?


BN- I don’t have a favorite kind of dog. I, I treat most dogs on an individual basis. A bigger dog, definitely likes bigger dogs over little dogs. I, I find bigger dogs have a lot more personality, whereas little dogs to be very, they’re either lap dogs or annoying as shit (laughter). Doesn’t seem to be much leeway.


TL- So do you have any advise for current or future soldiers?


(Pause)


Or, if you can’t think of any, advise for just future generations of people?


BN- You know I, I tell soldiers when you’re going in, as something that I wish I would have been more aware of going in, you know, when I was going in I was thinking more of like a prove myself will power but I grossly underestimated the networking aspect as far as I feel like I would have had a lot more opportunities while I was in if I was more conscientious of connecting with people I’ve met, connecting with bosses, connecting with people that might have an opening to PCS as a transfer and stuff like that, because you know, I kind of went in with this, I’ll prove myself and then I’ll get it from that attitude and it kinda left, it left me short changed because inevitably there was always a bigger fish and I feel like I could have had an advantage if I would have been more aware of networking. I feel like I could have gotten a lot more opportunities out of the military and um probably a lot more opportunities now if I would have made more of an effort um to network with the people I met. Which is, I mean, and it’s one of those things, it’s not something they even talk about in the military because most 18 year olds aren’t aware of networking and how it’s done. It’s a weird skill I feel like you always learn too late.


TL- Right. Would you go back? If you had the, the option?


BN- To the military?


TL- Yeah.


BN- I’ve thought about it. Especially considering my IR is almost up, Individual Ready Reserve, um, I keep getting bombarded with Air National Guard stuff. I, it’s tempting, and at this point I don’t even know why. I guess it’s, (small laugh) the two big reasons no is um, the first one is I, I kind of got brain washed by my career field in that TAP, Tackler Air Control Party, very much goes with this attitude that we’re better than the rest of the Air Force and especially since we’re separated from the rest of the Air Force, it’s easy to keep that mentality going. And even though I can look at it logically and say it’s crap, like, when I go on and I couldn’t do a TAP job as a guard, um you know I go on and look at the rest of the jobs that the Air Force offers, I uh, I just can’t, something that, it’s this weird brain wash thing that just prevents me from even considering it. It, it’s weird. It’s hard to explain. Um, as far as going back in to be a TAP, no. And that’s, I guess at this point I’m ready to make my life about me. The time I knew I was definitely not going to re-enlist is I had a good friend who’s still in the military, I, I was actually with him when he met his now wife and I was close with both of them for their entire relationship and then, you know, I, I was one of the first to find out they were engaged and I, I was very close to them as a couple and it was, I was supposed to be a groomsman at his wedding, we had it all reserved, and this was supposed to be like, four months before I got out anyway, but then due to a manning short fall, I got forced to go to a National Training Center rotation for the third time out in California and it’s, my, my flight was preparing to deploy and they needed bodies to fill the spaces and even though I wasn’t deploying, even though I would get nothing out of the training because I was getting out soon, they just had to fill the spaces and I, I felt like they robbed me of that opportunity of going to their wedding because I don’t think I’ll ever get the opportunity to be that close to a wedding couple again and I, I feel kind of cheated by that and um and it’s not that I hold a grudge against the military, I mean I understand one of the Tenants is to serve before yourself, but I guess I am late enough in my life now that I want to put, start putting myself first.


TL- So you’ve been to a bunch of different states, where would you, like, if you could choose one to live in where would you want to live in the future?


BN- Well actually, so me and C******** are talking about North Carolina right now and that’s mostly due to I have a lot more family in North Carolina, we’re talking about family planning, which is a scary subject in it’s own but that’s, we both don’t really have any family connections up here. I mean if we could pick any state, actually, I was in Colorado for a little while and I really like Colorado. Um, Washington is a nice state, too, it’s just we’d be without any sort of family connections in any of those other states. Well actually, Florida is really nice, too. I was in the panhandle of Florida for several months and that’s a beautiful area. Hell I’d even move back to Kansas, you know, Kansas kind of grew on me after a while; everybody hates it when they first get there but after a while eh, when you’ve been there a while.


TL- So what’s your, like, oh! What, what did you want to be when you were a kid?


BN- Well how old are we talking?


TL- Your whole childhood!


BN- Um,


TL- All of the changes that may be.


BN- Um, I don’t think I knew. I think even when I was a little kid I wasn’t even sure. It was, I, you know, I was the oldest of two brothers and a sister so I was, I was more focused, I think I viewed myself as more of a guardian or mentor-type things, I think I thought like, teacher and things like that. Hell I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up; it’s just something you figure out as you go. (Laughter).


TL- Would you recommend the military to your siblings?


BN- Um, so they’re all old enough now. My little sister tried to do Army Basic Training. She failed out due to her run time and my little brother is doing Operations Intelligence now. He’s um, 5 months into his training and apparently he’s been doing really good, he’s been acing all his tests! I’ve been telling him he’s doing too well for a federal job because they, the way the Air Force grading system works is you get rated based on how much you’ve improved since your last years rating. So I told him if you’re operating at excellent, you have nowhere to go up so therefore you’re just going to seem average (laughter). He’s gotta pull it back a little. (Laughter). Hey, he got orders to Italy so he’s, he’s got a lot better orders than I did so I’m sure he’s going to love the Air Force.


TL- So how do your parents feel with so many military children?


BN- They like it, um, for them it’s almost less about the military and more about the benefits, especially um, they, they’re not wealthy by any means so it was, if we went to college, we’d have to take the debt route and my, my mother had been fighting and struggling with finances all her life so I guess that was something that was engraved into all of us early, was that, like, debt’s not something you should mess around with and you should avoid it in most cases. And that still sticks with me today and so part of why she told us what we’ve got to do is just to avoid college debt and it was also, you know, an opportunity to gain some life experience before college. And I’m really glad I did because I think I would have been alright in college right out of high school but I, I think I can definitely tell now, like I, I have, I, I learned to enjoy learning while I was in the military that I definitely did not have while I was in high school and I doubt I would have if I went to college right after. And I definitely think I enjoy my classes to a much different level than a lot of the right-out-of-high-school kids that I go to class with.


TL- Oh I had a question. I can’t remember it now. I’ll think about it.


BN- Okay.


TL- Um, it was something good. Oh, what’s your favorite class now?


BN- Favorite class now. Um, so this semester favorite class, the hardest class is definitely German. I, foreign language is, I like to consider myself a smart person but foreign language is just not something that was emphasized or needed for me so this is not something I’ve ever worked on and part of business school is that you have to take the two intermediate levels, which you can’t do unless you take the two beginner levels, so I am, I am just up to my neck in foreign language and I am (laugh) just trying to stay afloat and it’s tough, it’s hard and it’s especially infuriating because I am pretty sure it’s something I’m not going to use after college and so I’m just going to spend all this time learning just to forget but it’s something you’ve got to do in liberal arts and what not. Favorite class, uh, well I’m kind of taking all introductory business classes this semester. I mean I like my marketing class, I like my organizational communication classes, they’re both not really hard and it’s (laugh) marketing is fun just because I’m such a skeptic, you know she talks about, like, oh you know, this is, this is how marketers do it and I’m kind of just sitting there thinking like, is that really how they do it? I feel like they are much more ass holes about it, like, especially what I know about how things are marketed and about how companies behave, but you know, take in strides as both.


TL- Was there a moment in your life that you could remember, like, severely changing who you or how you looked at the world or who you saw yourself as?


BN- Yeah! This is one of my favorite stories! It was so absolutely benign. I, I want to say... tenth grade. I was in the cafeteria line and had a piece of gum I was trying to get rid of and I, I saw a trash can that was, was in the kitchen behind the counter and I flicked the piece of gum, trying to get it in the trash can and I missed. And I was like, ah I don’t want to be a dick, I don’t want to just leave a piece of gum out, so I, I walked behind the counter and walked into the kitchen, picked up the gum, threw it in the trash, and like, nobody stopped me, like, there was no lunch ladies back there when I was in there and it was, it was such a benign event but it was one of those, like, like, mirror sharing events. You know, I just looked around and I instantly thought to myself, I bet students never come back here, because we’re not supposed to come back here, and then you know it just started this chain of though like, well, why aren’t we supposed to be back here, and like, what other places am I just not supposed to go and I don’t go even though nobody told me not to go there, it’s just implicitly implied I’m not supposed to go there. And, I remember even that day, like, driving home, like looking at houses and being like, who lives these houses? Like, I pass by these houses every day, like I never see who lives there but you see lights on sometimes, like, what weird life are they living and, you know, like, what’s their perspective on things and that one day, I guess it, it, it kind of made me aware of limits? I guess is the best way to put it? Limits that are put on us and limits we put on ourselves and how it probably eventually lead to my now skepticism and I, I’m very much interested in pushing limits and destroying limits and I feel like they’re arbitrary and not beneficial.


TL- So what’s your favorite memory of you as a kid that you remember as a kid?


BN- (sigh) as a kid… favorite. I mean, I grew up with two brothers and a sister so we had, it was always something going on. I, I, I mean I have a lot of fun memories, I don’t think I can call any of them my favorite. I remember, I remember a funny story, my cousin came to visit us in, and this is when I lived in Hot Springs, North Carolina, it was pretty, it’s a very mountainous area, it’s part of the Appalachian Trail and I, I went exploring with her out in the woods and we were just walking around and we passed a “Caution Bear” sign and I remember shouting like, “oh my god I see a bear!” and then she, I mean, we both start running because I’m like trying to get her going and then I trip, I like, fall on my face, and I’m sitting there like, “Oh Rachel I was just kidding!” And like, I look up and she is just gone, like, she just darted, just left me, (laughter). And then like, you know she was up there for like, Thanksgiving, I think it was, and I walked back to the house and you know, she was just sitting there eating food and I was like, “oh you’re not going to tell anybody? I said there was a bear and you leave me?!” (Laughter) Like, (laughter), like self preservation kicked in I guess (laughter).


TL- You must be very persuasive (laughter).


BN- Yeah I guess I really had her going (laugh). I, um, nah I suppose I don’t have a specific favorite story. I’m sure I had one I just forgot it because life seems to happen. Um, growing up with uh, there was quite a bit of conflict, especially between me and the next oldest brother named Brandon, just because he was a lot closer to me in age and would, whenever I was in charge, which was pretty often, we always seemed to get in some kind of conflict and it would, sometimes it would get really wild and sometimes it would get really emotional for no reason, I remember that. I remember, like, we’d both play too many video games, watch too much TV, and like, I remember knives getting pulled at some point and not that it would ever get to that point but it was just like, I had no clue how to enforce authority so I would just make it up as I went (laugh).


TL- Was there any moments during your deployment or during your military experience where you felt like the way that you saw yourself or the world or society of whatever had altered somehow?


BN- (sigh) Maybe, maybe my, my, I don’t know if it was quite as drastic as my previous story, I remember when I was deployed, I, one of the moments I guess kind of made the world a little smaller for me was, we were at a range and we were sitting at the air tower and they were, there were two Iraqis sitting there and they were piping in some sort of, I don’t know what TV station it was, but they were piping in American movies and it was, they were piping in, it was one of the Underworld movies and um, I can’t remember the lead actress name off the top of my head and I remember the Iraqi guys looking at me and I mean, he was just like, “oh my god is she hot or what?” And I just laughed and I was like well I guess, I guess that’s something unites everybody (laughter). Attractive people. Yeah that was a pretty funny moment, especially hearing it come from his broken English but you could, you could especially see it in his face (laughter). Um, I mean, it wasn’t really related to the military, I, I guess when I, the first time I realized that I, I was an NTC and I guess the only time in my life I’ve ever had any sort of religious experience I was at NTC and this is like 5 hours outside of Vegas at Fort Irwin and it was a month long exercise and it was pretty long and boring and I was sitting on a truck of a hum Viet night and there was like, no light pollution because it’s in the middle of the desert, had a pair of NVG’s on because I was bored and I was looking up at the sky and you could see a lot of extra stars and it was pretty nice and then I kind of had a, I mean to me it was like a un-religious moment where I was just looking up and I was like, man there’s definitely no God. We are just tiny insignificant, on a flying rock going through space. Which is, I think the opposite of how some people might have taken that moment but that’s just where my brain took me.


TL- Where is your favorite place that you visited so far or that you’ve been to?


BN- You know I’d really like to go back to Germany one day I, I didn’t get to stay there very long because we were just stopping by on our way back to Iraq but we got laid over and, like an extra long time, so we spent a day in Iraq, and that was a lot of fun, or uh excuse me German, and it seemed like it would be a really fun place to visit, I’ve been trying to talk Christine into it but she, she sees Germany as the place of sauerkraut and beer so it’s, it’s hard to, you know she looks at Italy as like a romantic thing but it’s, Germany doesn’t seem to hold some sort of emotional appeal so, so we’re still working on that, one day.


TL- Do you, can you think of any other stories or do you have anything else you’d like to share and preserve?


BN- Um, maybe throw out here, I, I’ll share some random stories as they come to me, I, basic training is pretty lame and boring in the Air Force and I don’t think I kept in contact with anybody I went to basic training with, but one of my, one of the funniest moments for me was, one of the big parts of Air Force basic training is these ECP drills, um, something controlled positions, and basically you just stand there with a gun and you do these drills where people come at you and you say “Halt” and you authenticate and shit like that and our, this is like the first day doing it and our dorm chief was part of my four man squire and we were doing drills and you know, we were, we were, this has been going on all day so we’re joking and distracting ourselves from the monotony of it and he, you know he stops and goes, “hey guys, I mean, I don’t know about you guys but this is why I joined the Air Force, so take it seriously.” And, I, I go, “man, I know you’re doing something computer related, you’re not going to touch a gun again after we leave basic training, what are you talking about?” and he goes, “yeah but I mean, it’s kinda cool” (laugh). Alright, alright, John Wayne, calm down, like, don’t act like you joined to go you know, slay people or something like that, like that was not what you came to do. (Laughter). Um, I, I, I enjoyed tech school a lot just because I met a lot of great people and met some assholes but I, it was like, my first experience I guess meeting a wider array of people and I met some really good dudes and I met a lot that really inspired and pushed me. There, there was one moment I honestly considered quitting, it was, this was that type of tech school where you could quit and try to do something else, um, our very first ruck, this was my very first attempt at rucking 4 miles in an hour and this was an indi, individual run, and I, I busted my time, I went over by like, two minutes or something small like that and this was, this was after getting what we referred to as “sharked” where we were woken up at 2 in the morning and we PT’ed for six hours and then did the ruck and I busted my time and you’re allowed to bust one time and so of course the instructor, the instructors given me, gave me the demotivational speech and I was pretty, pretty down on myself about it but uh, my fight did a pretty good job at picking up my spirits and I continued from there and did really well with it. Um, let’s, well I, I did survival school after that and I would say I really enjoyed survival school and I don’t think most people could say that because it, I mean, they basically did what I’ve been all my life, like they trained you to be a rebel (laughter), like, and so I was basically in a profess- well that’s a strong word, in an atmosphere I guess, taught to think rebelliously and independently, which is ironic because you, you immediately go and to your band, I mean you immediately go to your unit and whatever but it’s, it’s unfortunately a lot of that school’s secrets so I can’t tell you some of my stories from there but I, I will say, I will say tech school was my first experience with hard core Mormons and I say hard core because they are, they were pretty adamant about their belief to say the least, um, they, they, I mean there was some, some good dudes but I, I remember one man in particular he was a, ah, he was an older guy and I want to say he was like, 28 at the time, he already had, like, three children something like that and I, I remember we were, before we went to our, uh, field week, we were talking about meeting up at a restaurant to have like, like one last hoorah or whatever and somebody said Hooters and he just, he just stopped, slammed his fists into the table and was like, “I will NOT eat at a place where they show you their breasts for money!” We’re like, “I don’t, I don’t, I don’t.. you don’t know what you’re talking about, Man.” (Laugh). Like, “that’s not, that’s not what happens”. (Laughter). My, when I, what was the unit? Um, uh at our unit there, I don’t want to say “hazing”, that’s a very bad word now a days but we’ll say there was a lot of brand-new-guy introductions and ironically, and maybe I always suspected it but, um, like maybe like months before I got out I finally did my first term Airman thing, which you were supposed to do when you first got there but it just didn’t happen because we were on an Army Base. I, we, we had all of our brand new guys truck in and they were wearing their kits and gear that were assigned to them, if you will, and she actually, she actually really admired how we treated our new guys, which was funny because she said a lot of Air Force units, you guys show up and they feel very alone and they’re not really brought into the family and she actually really liked the way we, even though it, um, even though we, you know, enforced that they were new, and it was their fault for being new, like, the fact that we were incorporating them is what they uh, she actually really liked and admired. And maybe that’s something we always suspected but you know, we just can’t portray it that way. I mean, (pause), funny stories. This sucks because these are things that you, you always think of when you’re in conversation but maybe when you’re told to pull them out. Um.


TL- Who was the most influential person on your life so far?


BN- In my life.


TL- Yeah.


BN- (pause) I really don’t know. I don’t, I don’t know if I can answer that. I just, because I, between the alluded to family drama earlier, you know, I, I’ve got influences from a lot of different people, a lot of different ways. Um, perhaps the person I look up to the most, especially from a professional kind of, I, I really look up to my grandfather because he, um, he, he’s run his own business for a long time for a lot of his life and it’s something that I want to emulate and he’s, he’s one of the most gregarious social people I knew, I know, he’s still alive, um, for instance he, you know, he goes to time share meetings for fun because he likes the high pressure sales situations and he, one time on a dare with my grandmother he, he crashed a family reunion, he just showed up, like, you know, just played an introduction game and apparently, not only did they get dinner, but he actually lead the prayer before the dinner at the family reunion, he didn’t know anybody there, that’s just the kind of person he is, he’s, he, he’s good with people. And, (pause), I’m still working on stories, because I, (laugh), especially the appropriateness of it, because I, most of the stories I have, especially in work, almost always involve alcohol because, I, I won’t say that my career field is full of alcoholics but it’s full of alcoholics. There was a lot of drinking. Um, especially like the married guys were always the worst, like you’d get them on a TDY and they would just, they would just get trashed and the craziest stuff would happen. I, you know, I told a story today that I remembered, it was a, we were at a range once, waiting for an aircraft to show up, this was a range in Missouri, and the oldest turkey I had ever seen showed up, this, like, this turkey was like, had like a grey face and like, you could tell it could barely see, like I, I was actually able to walk up and touch this turkey, like I, I don’t know how, I don’t know how this thing managed to survive as long as it did but it was just this old retired turkey walking around and I was able to grab it because it was so deaf and blind it couldn’t even see me coming. That was a weird experience (laugh). I, alright, if I’ll give you my favorite story, favorite military stories, part of our um, training, we go from the apprentorship position to the full blown JTAG Control Aircraft position, uh, you spend a month in Vegas because the training is at Nullius Air Force Base and so me and another individual that I went to the school with, we got along hit or miss, but we could, we could get along well enough if we had to and it was our last weekend in Vegas. Um, C********, coincidentally enough was out, like, two weeks before, his girlfriend came out the week before so this was like, the only weekend we had just like me and him and I, it was a crazy night. We, we, we started off by going to the Hard Rock Hotel, we went to the club there and I don’t know, some girls gave us their mascaraed masks for some reason, I don’t know why they had masks, and like we probably had 3 Long Island iced teas but how much non-alcohol liquid in them was, was arguable because we, we talked to the bartender and she knew we were military and the Long Island iced teas were like $18 so she said she felt bad charging so much for alcohol so like, and this, I mean, this was straight liquor, like and it, it was the kind of drink where it dehydrates you as you drink it, like you could feel the moisture leaving your mouth, it was bad. And like, so we had a few of those, we were already pretty lit and we were leaving. We didn’t know where we were going to go, we were just leaving and uh, I don’t know why but there was like two dudes and a girl and they just kept looking around and they were just like mean mugging us for some reason and I’m like, “watch this guy, I’m trying to figure out what the hell he’s doing,” and at one point he even turns around and flips us off, at lease I remember him flipping us off, and I was like, “look that guys just flipped us off!” and he’s like, “who?” and I was like, “that guy!”, and this is definitely one of those individuals that when he starts drinking he has to get in a masculine contest with anybody so for some reason he just walks up and says, “hey”, and the guy just turns around and he just clobbers the dude, and this is, this is like in the line waiting for taxis, guy just punches him, and, (laugh), and like, him and his buddy dart and like, they leave the girl behind they were with and she’s like trying to calm him down, like, de-escalate Locker and we’re getting kicked out by the Hard Rock Hotel people, we get shoved into the cab with an Australian guy, and this Australian guy is just like, ‘Guys! Let’s get a MASSAGE!” and like, it’s like 11 in the night and we’re like, “what are you talking about, man?” and he’s like, “LET’S GET A MASSAGE!” and like, so the cab driver’s like, ah I remember him being something like, sounded like very South African voice, right, and he’s like, “Oh I know you guys get the best massage!” and like, he’s driving us around me and Mike are like, where are they taking us? And like, drops us off, we go in some shady like massage parlor that had, like pictures and shit on the top and we like, walk in and you know, it’s just this Asian lady like, she like, before she was even done with the spiel the Australian guy is gone, he’s in the back, and like, me and Mike are standing there and she’s like, “oh yeah you get a massage, hundred dollars,” I’m like, hundred dollars for a massage, I was like, “it was one of those things where you get like, a hand job, right?” and she goes, “no you get the ending.” I’m like, “hundred dollars, though? I could do it for FREE” (laugh). We’re like sitting there trying to negotiate with her and she’s not buying so we’re like no, so we walk back out and the cab driver is still there, we hop back in, we’re like we’ll just, we’ll just go to a strip club, I guess. And, which, fast forward we find out that all this shit was right next to each other, I’m pretty sure he was just driving in circles, (laugh) and then so you know, he takes us to some club and we go in there and we drink more and then sure enough I can’t find fucking Locker anywhere, he just totally Irish-goodbyed and we, we were staying on Nullius Air Force Base, which was crazy far north of the strip and, you know, I’m walking around trying to look for him, I, I’m calling him and he’s not answering and I end up at a, I end up at a McDonalds on the strip, you know I’m walking there, you know, I’m waiting in line to get chicken nuggets and this black dude behind me, like, he was like playing some video and I was like, “what are you playing?” and he was like, “Ah it’s my rap video!” and he was like, showing me this, this rap video he’s, he’s like produced and all of a sudden there’s this crowd watching this rap video and then some girl walks up and she’s like, “oh I’m in a rap video, too!” and we’re like, “No prove it!”, and so we’re like, all of a sudden we’re projecting on the wall of this McDonalds, like, this girl just ass shaking in a rap video and like, we’re like, “no that’s not you!” So of course she ends up, she’s ass shaking in a McDonalds, 2 in the morning and (laughter) and then, and then after my nuggets I, I don’t remember how long I was there, after the nuggets I cabbed back to my room and then I get a collect call from like, I haven’t gotten one of those in a long time, he, he uh lost his phone and he apparently just walked outside and just fell asleep on the glass- the grass somewhere, so you know I take the rental car out to get him, his pants are wet because he said he fell asleep on a sprinkler, (laughter). And then, so now it’s a Sunday morning, we, I think we went to like a Subway or something like that, you know, we got to have some breakfast and then we’re leaving the next day, and sure enough, just to cap all of this off, we see this sketchy looking guy with a big can of beer, he’s just kind of like waddling up and the way it was set up, it was the Subway, like a, a lit alley, and then some other restaurant, maybe a Sbarro or something like that. He, he wanders up, it, he was like, doing the look, and he like lays something out on the counter. I’m looking at Locker and we are both just staring at this guy and he’s just, he’s not paying attention, and we’re like, “is he, he’s going to do what I think he’s going to do, isn’t he?” and sure enough, like he, he does the look, he snorts something and leans back up, grabs his been and walks off and we’re like, that’s a guy doing coke at 7 o-clock on a Sunday. (Laughter) Like, this is a weird town. (Laugh). That was, that was just one of the weekends. We had two other weekends that were all just weird; man Vegas is a weird town. It’s, it’s exhausting being there for a month (laugh). I mean, you know, going on TDY’s, there’s just instances where, um, Temporary Duty Assignments, had instances where, you know I’ve seen married men getting so drunk they like, take their shirt off and they’re dancing around on stage and stuff, you know it gets. Um, there was an instance where one of the individuals in our unit who was underage at the time, he, this was perhaps one of the individuals that lead me to get out, he’s, he’s probably one of the angriest dudes I know um, if you’re at all familiar with uh, metalopolips, we refer to him as Murder face, because he’s just always grumpy like that character and this dude actually got in a alley fight with a K-State Linebacker and knocked him out, knocked out the linebacker. And then immediately got arrested because he was underage and, and he ended up getting paperwork, um, that actually got in the paper! The linebacker got knocked out because yeah, he was actually out for a couple games because of it. And, (sigh), um, (pause), probably, probably my favorite moment of my job, even though I missed my buddy’s wedding was probably at the actual NTC event because it was like the, the biggest training event that I was a part of when I was a full JTAG, I was a full JTAG position, and I remember showing up to a company level um, location, I guess is the best way to put it, I, you know, I was coming up, it was my first time meeting these guys, um, part of third brigade if I am remembering correctly and I’m walking up and the captain commander was just baraiding his lieutenants, he was just like calling them a bunch of retards and like the dumbest group of people he’d ever seen and I’m like walking up and I’m, you know, because I’m his new JTAG with a guy with a new romad and walking up we’re like, oh man this is going to suck and then um, I walk up and he like looks at me and he’s like, “Air Force, you’re my JTAG, right?”, I was like, “yeah”, he’s like, “I like you guys, get on over here.” And like, I like sit down and he like talks to me tells me all the cool stories about Afghanistan and then all the badass stuff that all the JTAG's were doing over there and like, he was, yeah he was talking up and he was like, “you’re my guy, you bring me air power and I’ll shoot stuff for you.” And like, yeah, it was great, like it was, you know, like the biggest moment in my life where I had that, you know, rock star feeling, where he shows you off and he’s like, “I’m gonna do, I’m going to cater to you,” you know, which is funny because I was just an E5, I was much below his rank, but he, he was familiar enough with our career field that it, the reputation of my career field alone just you know, gave me a rock star feeling, which was a lot of fun. Um, some other stories. One of the most impressive things I did while I was in is we did a, related to the individual who died, Brad, um, I think I want to say it was May that year, we did a ruck from his grave site in Trill, Illinois, all the way back to Manhattan, Kansas, which was like in three states and we did this through rotation and that was a rough experience because I was part of the initial crew so for six days we rotated rucking 12 miles at a time in between, let’s say that first group was maybe 8 or 10 people, so maybe just think 8 people crammed into a van, we didn’t, you know, we slept in the van, we didn’t, we didn’t have time to stop at a hotel because we were just constantly on the move and just living off gas station food, (laugh), like because we, we didn’t have time to change or anything so like I just, eight days of just walking, you know sleeping, waiting to walk again, and it, that was rough but, I even walked through East St. Louis at night! Which is supposed to be one of the most dangerous places in America. That was, although I did get harassed, uh, we had two kittens follow us in East St. Louis. Even the kittens wanted to leave St. Louis (laugh). Yeah they like, stalked us for like ten miles. Um, yeah that was a, that was a rough experience. You know, I went nose blind to it but apparently when we finally did the exchange and we finally got to go home, we were told the van had to be fumigated (laugh). Apparently it just stunk (laughter), My, rucking stuff is part of what leads to how I got bad knees and ankles now I when I did my first 8 mile ruck at tech school was the same week that my grandma was coming to visit me and my, my feet were chewed up to hamburger meat, like I was walking around like I had like special, I was basically walking around in bedroom slippers because my feet were so chewed up and I was, my grandma was literally out-pacing me in speed, because it would hurt to move my feet in great strides and apparently, I found out later, but  apparently my grandmother called my mother crying and she’s like, “they’re, they’re hurting him! They’re destroying him!” (Laughter).


TL- That’s what grandma’s are for (laughter).


BN- Yeah. App, apparently my grandpa didn’t want me to, granted he denied it, I talked to him about it later and he denied it but according to my mother he, he tried to talk my mother, talk my mother into talking me out of the career path I wanted because TACP’s the only job in the Air Force who’s sole purpose is destruction of the enemy. Most Air Force jobs that’s secondary to some other primary mission but TAP was a very unique breed considering the rest of the Air Force and um, yeah apparently my grandpa didn’t want me to do it because apparently he, he did some sort of Intel work when he was with the Army so he wasn’t really in danger per say so yeah apparently he was worried about me signing up, although, I only ever went to Iraq and I went there in 2011 so by that point, there wasn’t that much going on. I wanted to go to some other places, especially Afghanistan but it just uh, it just didn’t happen for me. I, I can tell you another funny story in Iraq. So I, I worked night shift every day for six months and one of the fires guys, Army fires, basically they, they were supposed to coordinate like artillery for the Army, even if there wasn’t artillery, they were there anyway. Federal job, I guess. Um, one of the guys, they were always freaked out about how much, thought it was gross to see men licking ice cream, like out of a cone, he just, he just thought it was something, I don’t know, like he, I just remember he ranted about it one day so like, literally the next day I uh, I went and got like, twenty ice cream cones and filled them all with ice cream before he came in and I went in there and I just passed them out to everybody and so then everybody in that talk was just licking ice cream out of a cone when he walked in. When he, he like walks in, looks around, and just walks out, like he, it bothered him so much he couldn’t even stay. We had a nice laugh though about that. I actually had the Army guys convinced, it’s funny because I’ve even had other military branches, since, since being out ask me, because we, we’re so good at it, like, a lot of people think that Air Force on Army bases we get all these benefits or something like extra pay for bad living or something like that so we learned whenever anybody would as us, “oh do you guys get this extra?” just always say yes, so like I mean, we, in Iraq, we had people convinced that we got a special stipend if wherever we were stationed didn’t have an ice cream machine. (Laugh). And like, it sounds ridiculous but I swear there was a lot of Army, like, we got the rumor going so good that like, we, we had like officers asking us like, about like the ice cream stipend (laugh). Its just rumors can get around.


TL- What’s your favorite type of ice cream?


BN- Favorite type… uh, I’ve been really into mint chocolate lately. I don’t know why. I feel like mint chocolate is just two very random flavors but they taste pretty great to me!


TL- I would agree.


BN- What about yourself?


TL- Mint chocolate chip.


BN- Nice!


TL- Yeah! (Laugh). Is there anything else you can think of? (Pause) If you can’t think of it now we can meet again.


BN- Um, (pause), I mean maybe a little more introspective, I, one of the most jarring things about joining the military is, which seems to fall apart pretty fast for most people I know is like, not, not everyone but most, is like high school connections. It always seems to be tumultuous, especially how I talked about networking and how that works when you’re that age. I uh, I, I even had a, then girlfriend I reference earlier, I try to keep in contact with people that, from high school, that either did something for the town or went on to college. It’s weird. Especially you know, because I would come home and I, I mean I was getting a lot of female attention which was nice, that didn’t exist in high school just because I was in great shape and actually had money which was apparently hard to find when you’re going to college. Uh, but especially like some male friends and stuff, it was, it’s arguably what’s happening now like, its, it’s the growing disconnect just gets jarring because you know the things you had in common, you know you still might watch some TV shows or play the games or have the same hobbies but uh, like what you’re doing in life becomes very separate, you know, talking to kids about like, I’ll say kids but you know at the time, you know talking to them about like, you know the stressors of like, you know, trying to balance their party and study life, like especially at the time I was in tech school, it didn’t relate to me at all. I mean I was worried about getting woken up at three in the morning and PTing for four hours and like, like comparing, not to say that my problems are more important than theirs or more serious, it’s just a, they couldn’t understand the stressors of my life and I couldn’t understand theirs because I mean staying up late and studying didn’t seem like that big of a deal and to them working out for five hours didn’t seem like that big of a deal just because it’s different places. Um, I wish I could have done a better job at keeping some of those high school relations; it will be interesting one day when I actually go to a high school reunion. Um, especially considering the then girlfriend and I broke up, that was also dramatic and caused a lot more riffs, um, that’ll be interesting to see if that ever gets resolved one day. It’s weird, especially, now that I’m almost 26, you learn that, it’s that old Shakespeare bit, the whole world’s a stage, all of us are merely players, you start to see it, like, phases in your life, the connections that were really close and important to you at the time never seem to last forever. Except for I have one friend who I, I went to high school with and I keep in contact with and we went to Spring Break, we went to Vegas again, uh, over spring break. Uh so me and him are still pretty close.


TL- Awesome. Anything else?


BN- Um, (pause), I’ll give you a gripe! I’m, so the buddy that I missed his wedding, he got stationed in Hawaii after I left and he, I still talk to him occasionally because hopefully he’s going to make it out to my wedding, I’m pretty, I’m pretty jealous of him now because he’s, because everything I wanted out of the career field apparently he’s finally getting it in Hawaii because it’s a different budget, a much larger budget, and yeah apparently he’s just constantly going to these cool schools like Air born and stuff like that and he’s been, he’s now on TDY to South Korea, he just finished up a TDY to the Netherlands, like, he’s just doing all kinds of globe trotting on the government dime, and like, I didn’t get any of that in Kansas, not even a little bit so I’m, I’m pretty jealous that like after I leave are when things get awesome, but that’s not something that you, I mean I’d rather not, if I had known that when I separated would I have stayed in, I don’t know, because there was still a lot of other things I wanted to go on and do with my life but it’s, I’m, I’m glad that, you know the TAP dream’s happening for someone I guess. (Laughter).


TL- Anything else?


BN- Not particularly. I have, I’m sure funny stories will come to me later but, but yeah that was, I’m too used to telling those spontaneously. It’s weird pulling them out.


TL- Well if you can’t think of anything for now, we can conclude for today. If you do think of something, or want to meet again, feel free to contact me.