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It's quite the unreal experience you start hitting the deadline for separation. You think of all the events that transpired to the day when you were young raising your right hand. If you could do it all over again, you would - but you would never re-enlist another 6 years. The camaraderie and those whom you fostered bonds with people you'd never would in another life to for things that you end up realizing was meaningless; status, ethnicity, or down to the clothes that they wore. If I knew they were competent to build up a network with me from nothing in the middle of nowhere and crack open some cans - you have my respect.

So why leave? Maybe it's not for me anymore... or that the culture changed itself. The unit I've been with for the past couple years provides one of the most important services that houses critical operations that is relevant to current events, but it's running on fumes and left me tired. It's left me the 20/80 man, the 20% that does 80% of the work, slaving away for an Air Force that emphasizes on Additional Duties, Volunteering, and Non-Work related tasks over actual Work. To stand up millions of dollars worth of equipment and billet 1-Up tasks or deployment only to come back to a new system that rated me average because another guy who couldn't tell you the difference between an a Device Driver was because he never worked a day in his career to volunteer.

Whole Airman concept, a system of check boxes that force you into playing "The Game". A game of which I didn't want to play. In layman's terms over the year you must have bullets fitting the criteria of; Work, Education, Leadership, and Volunteering. Although, you can succeed in the career by focusing on Volunteering and Education alone. How? Well, if you volunteer you can use that as leadership and being the example whereas training people on how to be more effective/efficient at your job holds less weight. "But what about Work?". It's called Bullet Sharing. If it's someone they want to posture for promotion, you share your mission impacts and work results so that they will have exactly what you did on their performance report even if they didn't touch it aside from being transitively in the same work center as you.

I just want to be able to leave in peace of mind knowing that our metaphorical ship doesn't sink without it's Captain and Navigator, but no matter how much I try to beat actual values into our new Airmen these days - they either have given up or they are chasing that next stripe.

When Porom and Palom sacrifice themselves by turning themselves into stone to save you.
They're fine later in the game, but you don't know that until later.