Branch: Air Force
Duty: Air Force personnel
By Delaney Brown
When Richard Boore enlisted in the Air Force in 2006, he imagined he’d be one of the people you see jumping out of planes, parachuting into combat zones to rescue fallen brothers. He expected adrenaline and the chance to be a hero.
He certainly didn’t think joining the military would mean a desk job.
But after fracturing his shoulder in two places at initiation, the Air Forces version of special operations boot camp, a desk job was what Boore got. He was assigned to handle logistics and instead of parachutes he got parameters.
It was hard for Boore, now 27, to let go of the chance to be a paratrooper. “Saving lives was my MO,” Boore said. “I didn’t want to kill, I just wanted to do something crazy that I could look back on and be proud of.”
For Boore, joining the military had been a chance at redemption. When he was 18, Boore had been arrested for driving under the influence. It was his first offense, but the arrest stayed on his record.
Boore tried going to college, but could never settle on a major. After two years at USF St. Petersburg, he had taken all sorts of classes, but was nowhere close to having a bachelor’s degree.
So he tried becoming an EMT. He went to the Fire Academy. He loved the work, but he couldn’t find a job. In 2008, it was hard for anyone, let alone someone with a criminal record, to find work because of the recession. When a firefighter position opened up, hundreds of applicants flooded the waiting pool.
Often the narrative we hear is one of soldiers not wanting to deploy. It’s rarer to find someone actively seeking active duty.
Boore waited for his shoulder to heal. He compartmentalized. He did his work and he went home; he didn’t make many friends at his desk job. He didn’t want to. He clung to the hope that once his shoulder healed he’d have another chance at being a paratrooper.
Active duty almost came a few times. Boore was prepared to deploy to Kandahar, one of the most dangerous assignments at the time. Even if he couldn’t go as a paratrooper, at least he’d get to be part of the action and do what he had enlisted to do.
Just as it looked like Boore would have a chance to go overseas, he got news that his assignment had been canceled because a contracting group was going to do the work instead.
Boore held onto the hope that he’d be able to do what he enlisted to do, but one disappointment after another led him to think that maybe the Air Force wasn’t what he had hoped it would be.
When it came time to find out about his base assignment Boore was flexible. If he couldn’t be boots on the ground in Afghanistan, at least maybe he could be stationed someplace cool overseas. He would joke with his friends “as long as I’m not stationed in Minot, North Dakota” He hadn’t heard good things, and the St. Petersburg native really didn’t care for the cold.
After finishing up his training in Fort Lee, Virginia, Boore’s assignment came back: Minot, North Dakota Boore didn’t believe it at first: but it wasn’t a joke. In what Boore calls a stroke of luck, a spell of flash floods caused a stop movement order for the Minot base. He got stationed in MacDill instead; he never had to go to Minot.
Once at MacDill, a new prescription pushed Boore’s possible deployment date even further back. By the time Boore was finally scheduled to deploy it was three months after his separation date. He decided it was time to move on.
Now that he’s out of the service, Boore appreciates all that the military did for him. He admits that his life was rudderless before enlisting. He’d used up most of his college fund chasing different half-baked ideas.
“(The Air Force) wasn’t ideal for me, but it did so much for me that I wouldn’t change it.”
March 2018 will mark two years out of the service for Boore. He’s a mass communications major now. He chose the major because it would be the quickest way to finish his bachelor’s, but he ended up really enjoying it: the photography classes in particular. For the first time, Boore has found something he’s passionate about that he could turn into a full-time job. He’s happy.
Boore sees his time in the military as a little like a prison sentence, he needed it to help him mature before he could move on to better things. Even though it wasn’t ideal, Boore said he wouldn’t change anything; he often recommends spending time in the service to others.
“The experience wasn’t what I wanted,” Boore said. “But I’m not sour. I can’t imagine where I’d be without the military.”
Photo courtesy of Stacy Pearsall (resized for web)
