The Air Force and What to Know Before Joining
While still in high school I talked to a recruiter and got extremely lucky, he was honest. Later in basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas I found out just how honest he was. I signed up at a MEPS station in downtown Chicago were they gave me a very thorough physical and did some other things. The physical was very dehumanizing, you did a lot of things that doctors usually do but in groups of fifty guys or so. The hernia check and such was the worst, lined up around a room as a couple of doctors, or at least I hope they were, checked us there and then had us turn around and bend over. Yep, to look from one guy to the next for whatever it is they look for there too.
During this whole time and on into my military life, one thing that is probably the most accurate thing about the military is the standing in line and waiting, as someone said in a similar article on the Army, it is a favorite sport in the Army and the Air Force is no different. The hurry up and wait ethic has become a fine art in the U.S. Military and every branch of service uses it. I found myself even before getting into that big room and swearing my allegiance to the flag and constitution hurrying up and waiting. My recruiter had done me very well though, I made the military wait on me.
I went to the MEPS station with the knowledge that the Air Force wanted me and I could choose which job or even which area of jobs I wanted. He had told me to refuse any thing I did not want and I did. The first trip to Chicago from Joliet I went through the physical and then to an office were a uniformed Air Force person told me the only thing open, in some really odd language of the military, that cook and police were the only jobs open. I say the language was odd because he made it sound so good, Law Enforcement Specialist, Security Police Specialist, Food Preparations Specialist. But with my recruiter I knew Security Police meant standing at a fence somewhere in North Dakota getting cold and wet while watching gophers play with each other. I made it into a job were I could take my break and watch the security police outside our building watch the gophers then I went back in and worked on electronic equipment for nuclear missiles.
The job I chose after my fourth trip to the MEPS station was the field of electronics, this meant that sometime in basic training I was given a job in the electronics area and it had to be one with a certain number at the start of the jobs specialty number. The specialty number is a number given to every job in the military, the numbers have a meaning, like the first number is the area or field and the rest break it down further. I had a contract with the Air Force that promised me a job in electronics, you can today try and do this, you might find that it will work if you are stubborn enough to get a job or area that you want. If your ASVAB score is not high enough in the areas that you need to get for certain jobs, then you can’t even consider it. I had good scores and it helped me that I had taken good classes in high school other than shop.
When I left for duty I went down to Lackland AFB in Texas, where all Air Force basic training takes place. It was a month of guys yelling at you to shine your shoes, walk straight and make your bed neatly. The yelling is just a bluff and the discipline you get to learn is real. They have very little in the way of real punishment to give you other than an extra duty like washing dishes and they don’t do much in the way of physical punishment like push ups. If you plan to join the military and this goes for any branch, you should start to get in shape before you go, at least start to run and jog to get ready. It will be easier for you if you do, and your time will be that much less of a strain.
Basic training is not like the movies, not much of the military is like any real thing you have seen unless you’ve been in it. The scenes you see on the TV commercials with the kid flying a kite and dreaming of becoming something like a Unmanned Aerial Vehicle pilot is not real. The chances of landing a particular job like that is pretty slim. The chances of you getting a job more like security police or electronic equipment specialist or civil engineer is better. But there are all kinds of jobs in the military and someone has to do them. Some things about basic are the hurrying to get somewhere like lunch or paperwork pushing venues and waiting are common. You are dropped after your arrival at a dorm and shown inside, whether it’s a weekend or weekday, day or night. The dorm may not be your’s for the month you’ll be at Lackland, it may be another. On a regular work day you’ll start your shaves and uniforms but the weekend that I arrived we had to wait until Monday. We sat around and did not much of anything on Sunday except we could go to church. Some did but I slept, we had gotten in around three AM and I was bushed. On Monday we got to start out with our regular military hors, up a five or so and into our t shirts, pants and tennis shoes for a run and some push ups and sit ups. By the end of basic it was required of us to run a mile and a half in like seven minutes and do fifty push ups and twenty five sit ups.
Then it was back to the dorm, with all fifty guys in two bays sleeping on beds right next to each other, for a really quick shower and a shave. If you get lucky during your stay at basic, you will have a good job like cleaning mirrors in the bathroom or sweeping the floor. If not you’ll get something like toilets or showers. One thing you should never ever do at basic or even any other military event or training is volunteer. Volunteering is a risky business, half the time it’s for good stuff the other half it sucks. So just hide in the middle of the crowd and don’t get noticed, the guys who are noticed get into the worst of jobs and get picked for stuff. That is one thing that is true about the movies, the guys making the jokes and sticking his hand up all the time got the worst jobs and volunteered for stuff even when he didn’t volunteer. By the end of basic the Technical Instructors barely knew my name so I hid pretty well.
Any recruiter that tells you about the apartments you’ll be staying in at basic are great and you can decorate them how you want, or that the day is just like college except you learn about the military during your stay at basic is lying. You stay in dorms with fifty guys and you do what the instructors tell you. We had guys at basic that had been promised apartments at basic and all kinds of other nonsense, it is not true and you should get it in writing before the recruiter signs you up. If he won’t give it to you in a contract, then it’s not true. Basic training and on you get to stay in dorms, first big ones, and then at tech school and later in your duty station with one other guy. It may be different at some bases but at Minot AFB, North Dakota, we stayed in a dorm that had about a hundred rooms in the building and you had one room mate. AT tech school we had two to a room but some of the other dorms had four to a room.
I made it through basic, it was mostly weeding out the guys who could not have people telling them what to do and the people who had some kind of physical problems. The military wants smart people who can think for themselves, but until you learn how the military wants you to act, they want you to hut up and do what your told. The lower ranks of the military are all that, you do what your told until your smarter and know when you can give your opinion. Technical school was dull and boring until I got through the first half, it was for electronics which I just had in high school. Then it was fun, learning about the equipment and tools I would be using. I found out later that this would be a very important time but not until almost two years later.
Life after that was a pretty good routine, at your regular duty station you have your job that will be a pretty steady thing. You have your regular hours and sometimes extra duty and things like parades. Then once in awhile you will have an inspection and will have to dress up or into whatever uniform they choose. Once a month we had commanders call where awards were given out and the commander would tell us about things coming up. If you want to study hard at your job and at the military in general you can get your higher ranks quicker than others, but some people just don’t work at it that much. The military for me was just like a regular job that you had some extra stuff with. That is probably why I got into trouble later on, it was a little too boring for me.
When you join the military there are a couple of things you should know, the first is bonuses, if you sign up for six years can you get a bonus, or even a first or second stripe for the extra time. The next is if you are in and have any questions about anything whether good or bad, find out for yourself. Don’t take anyones word for it, go look it up in some book or regulation. I found that I could have signed up for six years and gotten two stripes when I left basic training just for the extra time. And when I got out I could have done it a little better than what had happened.
I got into some big trouble and could see that I was going to get kicked out, but was not at all informed about what my options really were. The other article here said the same thing, alcoholism is rampant in the military and I was no exception. I found that I had a problem and the only thing my commander wanted was to get me out of her hair. I found out when I was waiting to leave and I was temporarily assigned to the base legal office that even my punishment had been wrong and if the legal office had known my side it would have been less severe. But that was in the past and the lesson I learned was worth it. I have been clean and sober for more than two years and it took getting caught to do that.
I did not know then that I should not have talked to the defense side of the legal office so much as the ones who were doing the actual case of my punishment, I worked four months later for the very person who handled my paper work of the punishment, an Article 15. She said that they could not pin one of the things they charged me with on the punishment, driving to work while intoxicated. The legal office said it should not have been added on and that it would have been something they would not have done, they thought I had been caught in a vehicle at the time. But I found out later and it was too late, oh well. But as I said earlier, if I had not listened to my first sergeant and found out for myself from the base legal office what the punishment was and how it would go, then they would have done something about it differently.
And the same thing for getting kicked out, it was my commander who said I had to leave the military and who hustled me through the discharge, it was an honorable discharge though. The base commander does have a say if you ask, but I didn’t know to ask. I could have gotten a different assignment from him but it was too late by the time I found out, my paperwork had already been signed. I could have gotten a job that is called a direct duty assignment and finished my enlistment but I did not know this and did not find out till I had my final date assigned and all the paperwork started for it.
Again it is something that I have had to live with but I should have been better informed and found out for myself what all my options were. That is probably the biggest and best advice anyone can give you about the military and joining in any of the services. Find out for yourself before going ahead with anything. If you have questions, get answers and get the ones from the people who are going to give you the correct ones. If anyone tells you it is so, get it from a regulation , not by word of mouth. Anything anyone tells you has to be written down somewhere or they cannot be telling you that. So find out for yourself.
