Inside the Mind of BTK

158 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
So one afternoon in August 1966, he drove down to the local Air
Force recruiting station and signed up. Better to enlist and have some
say over which branch of the military he went into than be drafted.
Because he didn’t intend to be a pilot, chances were he wouldn’t end
up seeing any real fighting. Not long afterward, he underwent basic
training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. In October,
he was sent to Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas,
where he attended technical school, specializing in radio communications.
Before long he was clambering up 120-foot-high radio towers,
adjusting antennas and fixing malfunctioning radio equipment.
After another stop at Brookley Air Force Base in Mobile, Alabama, he
launched into a three-year globe-trotting odyssey, living out of a suitcase
while traveling from one base to the next in Turkey, Greece, Japan,
Okinawa, Korea, and Japan.
The Air Force gave him his first taste of what it felt like to have
subordinates. It also reminded him of one of the things he loved most
about Boy Scouts—he got to wear a uniform. After a few years, when
he became a sergeant, Rader was allowed to supervise men, and the
sensation of being able to control people like that proved both intoxicating
and addicting.
Rader wrote in his journal that these were good years for him, the
one period in his life when he considered himself to be a bona fide
“lone wolf.” He would often think back to his Air Force days with a
fondness and sick jealousy. In his mind, the lone wolf stood at the top
of the food chain. He took what he wanted, answered to no one, lived
only for himself, roamed indiscriminately, and killed whenever the
urge hit him. Then he moved on. Nothing and nobody could ever stop
a lone wolf.
Rader took his newly acquired skills as an extrovert and picked up
where he’d left off in Salina. He drank a lot of beer, even letting down
his guard on a few occasions and allowing himself to get drunk.
Whenever he could, he enjoyed hanging out at the bars near whatever
base he was stationed at. He did this because bars were a gathering
spot for prostitutes. Rader had quickly become a big fan of prostitutes,
especially Asian ones. His journals hint that this was how he lost his
virginity. Sex with prostitutes, however, was probably something of a
disappointment for him because, like all psychopaths, he would have
abhorred a willing or compliant woman. For him, it was the hunt and
the thrill of controlling a woman, forcing her to perform some sexual
act against her will, that would have turned him on.