Sinbad served as a boom operator aboard KC-135 Stratotankers in the United States Air Force. While assigned to the 384th Air Refueling Wing at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas, he’d often travel downtown to perform stand-up comedy. He competed as a comedian/MC in the Air Force’s Talent Contest in 1981. Sinbad was almost dismissed with a dishonorable discharge for various misbehaviors, including going AWOL. “I didn’t make the Air Force basketball team and went into denial. So, I kept going AWOL. My mother kept begging me to go back. I told her, “No, I’m not going back. I’ll just grow a beard. They won’t recognize me. I’ll just be another black man with a beard.” I was going to Georgia Tech to learn about computers. I’d go AWOL all the time. I’d just leave. I’d come back, hoping they’d throw me out.
After a series of incidents, he was eventually discharged “for parking my car in the wrong position.”
