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Open general.
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Apr 26, 2018 03:19
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 23:26 |
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To be fair, AFSOC dudes play by different rules. Rules where they actually get a voice in how their budget is spent. As an AF officer and aircrew member, I've almost always had a roommate or two, I've had a room that had a pretty significant bloodstain in the carpet (that room also had a 15" LCD computer monitor as the tv), a room that had a hide-a-bed in a chair as the bed, more than my share of roaches, and one time an outdoor picnic table because I got to it first. So it's not automatic five-star hotels...it's not like I ever had to dig a hole in the ground to sleep in, either. This is not a complaint post (most of these lovely rooms were in awesome locations), it's recaging for the resource thread.
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Oct 3, 2018 15:54
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Mustang posted:If you have 60 days of leave and want to take 60 days of ETS leave, can your BDE Commander deny it and force you to sell off your accrued leave? I guarantee you the answer is written down. In the AF, the guiding reg is AFI 36-3003, Military Leave Program. The relevant section: quote:4.1.5.4. Disapproving or Denying Terminal Leave. Unit commanders: Since most stuff regarding leave is sourced from Title 10 (federal law) I suspect the Army's rules are similar if not identical. The middle point deals with stuff like UCMJ action, voluntary or involuntary separation programs (RIF, etc), where there's a defined date or a statement that requires separation asap. It's not the commander's decision unless he has that authority for a specific reason, which he will have to present if you challenge it through legal (Area Defense Counsel, in the AF). Godholio fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Nov 2, 2018 |
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Nov 2, 2018 03:32
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You have about a .0000000000000358% chance of become a Japanese linguist.
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Apr 23, 2019 08:03
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LingcodKilla posted:Not all navy bases are awful. I’ve had a pleasant time at some of them. Fallon is the second worst place I've ever been. Yuma is the worst. Advice: Figure out what you want to do with your life. Do you want to use your degree? Don't join the military. Want to get a steady paycheck and (probably) disagree politically with 3/4 of the people around you? Join the military. Being politically active to the point of actually managing campaigns and whatnot is going to be awkward at best. You're going to end up explaining a whole lot of times that what you're doing is actually legal. Assuming you actually keep it legal by not doing it during duty hours, in uniform, etc.
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May 24, 2019 00:59
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After three years there I wholeheartedly agree. Well, except one guy, he's a new-ish O-4 and probably a future CNO like his dad.
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May 24, 2019 20:26
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Consider this an excellent introduction for how utterly loving stupid the military is about the weirdest things. It's all downhill from here if you get in.
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Jun 10, 2019 20:34
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It also continues happening to your family if you die while you're in, or to you via the VA if you survive.
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Jun 10, 2019 21:28
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bird food bathtub posted:Can you even join in your 30s? I was considered old as gently caress joining in my mid-20s, like that was literally my basic nickname, and I was pretty sure I was bumping up against the cutoff age. Not even close. Hell, the crab man was 37(?) when he joined the Navy Reserve. My question to everyone interested in joining is "What do you want to do afterwards?" If the military is the best way to get there, so be it...but that's rarely the case.
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Aug 1, 2019 02:37
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I can teach you powerpoint to the same level that .mil intel experience would give you. $1000. I take paypal or venmo.
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Aug 2, 2019 03:37
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It exists, it's just not available to everyone.
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Aug 3, 2019 20:13
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Absolutely don't lie. You were a dependent. The military has your medical records already.
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Mar 10, 2020 01:40
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Woofer posted:tell your recruiter the truth. The DOD has his records. The best case scenario is that they notice his lie/omission early enough that it's not worth loving him on.
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Mar 11, 2020 01:38
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mlmp08 posted:Not necessarily. The DOD had his records, but may have lost them in a warehouse fire. China has his records.  The warehouse fire was in the 70s. If he's looking to join now, he's not that old. And DOD stopped disposing of dependent records (you had to specifically request them otherwise they got shredded after a couple of years) sometime around in the 90s or so, so he probably missed that one, too. Edit: I hadn't considered that if he lies, he's basically banking on the military bureaucracy's incompetence, which is not a bad bet to take.
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Mar 11, 2020 05:38
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E: NM
Godholio fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Jun 20, 2020 |
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Mar 29, 2020 17:05
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Jobs that actually provide useful training that can be applied on the outside. There aren't a ton of those, but they exist. If you can get something useful out of it AND the GI Bill, it might sometimes maybe be worth 4 years. As a former backseat flyer guy, I don't think infantry falls into that category beyond vague "I was in charge of people" experience, which you can also get at 7-11 or Walmart.
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Sep 19, 2020 22:30
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ElMaligno posted:i am gonna use my tuition assistance and gi bill to get a teaching certificate and a Masters in teaching and education. gonna become a teacher after i retire, then tell my students to not join the military If you know where you want to be, look up the local Troops to Teachers program. They may have surprising requirements that influence the path you take.
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Oct 14, 2020 17:52
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I brought it up because my masters in history did not qualify me for poo poo because it wasn't from a local school. That's right: Only the universities in that state met the state requirement. So again: find out what the requirements are before committing irreplaceable resources (time and TA) to something.
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Oct 14, 2020 18:07
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not caring here posted:I remember a few companies, Leidos being one of them, that have been sponsoring Secret clearances for non clearance havers. I don't know if it's still true. It's true IF there's nobody else available and they can pass the costs onto the government. I got my Secret from SAIC, which used to be one with Leidos. Several other companies were willing to front for a TS/SCI, but one (which I wish I could remember the name of) was so cheap I think they'd have argued with me if I wanted office supplies.
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Oct 27, 2020 05:28
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MonkeyWash posted:The benefits are the same. What Stultus said is true of the Army, I don't know how the Air Guard works. The guard will also have state missions that the reserves don't. It's definitely not true for the AF. Reserves and Guard are full of deploying people...the system is currently designed so they share a significant portion of the deployments. Cargo and tankers, for example, are on the go CONSTANTLY. Not great for your civilian career most of the time.
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Oct 29, 2020 03:14
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And if you're lucky they'll actually be on the paper.
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Jul 15, 2021 01:43
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The Scientist posted:My situation is weird and I'm probly gonna get laughed at itt but 1) I turn 33 in Aug (so above most age req's except for Army Reserves and Navy reserves afaict) 2) graduated w/ Bachelors in Computer Engineering in May 2020 and now I'm in grad school for masters in same, but didn't originally do ROTC, and apparently too old to enter ROTC if I were to do another bachelors and take a commission 3) have titanium plate in left hand & some scoliosis Why on earth are you looking at this at all? (basically, Mustang's questions are really loving important to have answers to BEFORE doing this) The answer to your question is OCS (the AF calls it OTS). It's the commissioning program you apply to if you already have the required degree. Different service differ in the details, but you can apply as either an enlisted member or as a civilian. If you're a civilian, you're sworn in as an E-4 while you're in training, then you get discharged and commissioned effective the next day.
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Jul 15, 2021 19:53
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Or being physically broken and unable to do whatever.
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Jul 16, 2021 02:05
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It's definitely a by-service thing (often used as a recruiting/retention tool) but that's interesting. I've never seen that before.
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Apr 11, 2022 02:10
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You're on the hook to attend musters, IF any occur. In my three years of IRR, I sat through one. They were trying to entice aircraft maintainers (which I'm not) to come back as reservists. Just keep the address updated for that purpose, show up if necessary, roll eyes throughout the presentation, and leave. In exchange for that, you get full base privileges...Class Six, commissary, PX, etc. Get that ID card. Edit: In theory, the IRR could be mobilized, but since we've finally wrapped up Iraq/Afghanistan, I don't think that's particularly likely barring a major loving twist.
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Nov 9, 2022 00:46
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Make sure you don't have additional commitment for stuff like schooling, PCS, etc.
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Nov 9, 2022 22:10
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Army is weird because of warrant officer pilots. On the AF side you would apply to OTS through a dedicated Officer Accessions recruiter (which are fewer and farther between - my state had ONE, for example) specifically for a pilot slot. Applying for a specific job is unique to pilot, combat systems operator (formerly known as navigator) and air battle manager. If you get selected, you got your slot. If pilot is the only one of those three jobs you applied for (you could put all three down) and you aren't picked up, well...there you go. If you DO get picked up and flunk out of flight school, you probably become a civilian but that is not guaranteed. I know two people who washed out of pilot training: one was discharged and the other became an ABM. Edit: Your flight physical should also be done prior to actually reporting for training; generally it's done after you submit your application, so it might happen before or after the board makes selections. Mine was around the same time the board met, which was several weeks prior to results being released. That gives you a chance to get any necessary waivers or whatever. However, I knew one guy who somehow didn't get his flight physical done until we were in loving ABM school, months after commissioning. He failed, and it was non-waiverable. He was reclassed to a personnel officer (about two years before that career field was absolutely gutted). Godholio fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Jan 30, 2023 |
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Jan 30, 2023 23:40
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The actual ABM part of being an ABM was awesome. The career field's leadership ruined everything else. IMO they're going to be loving gutted in the next couple of years though, so I don't think I'd recommend it right now.
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Feb 1, 2023 00:09
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Vahakyla posted:Will they? Our ABM nerds say that once wedgetails are rolling out to the USAF, it's ABMs galore? That seems to be on the projection from AFROTC, too. That's almost a decade away. I don't know what the final tally for FY23 E-3 tail retirement was, but half the jets will be off the books with a year or two. The first Wedgetail won't be delivered until 2027. Then a second will roll off the line A YEAR LATER. JSTARS will be gone by then. And AFCENT CRC deployments. Not many seats left at the table. ABMs are arguably overmanned right now due to so many E-3s being permanently hard-broke. It's been a couple of years since I've seen the AFPC roadshow charts, so I'm not sure how bad things are bathtubbing already, but if they actually managed to make plans and get ahead of this I will be absolutely loving shocked.
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Feb 1, 2023 00:41
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Enlisted time is not commissioned time. It all falls under TAFMS.
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Apr 4, 2023 13:12
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The dudes who enlist, commission, then stick it out to make 3 or 4 stars just blow my loving mind.
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Apr 5, 2023 12:50
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LtCol J. Krusinski posted:There were several prior enlisted CNO’s, and Mike Mullen was both CNO and then CJCS as a prior enlisted man if my memory is correct. There’s been quite a few prior E CJCS’s which… A couple of early CSAFs were enlisted guard bums back in the 50s or 60s, but that probably doesn't count.
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Apr 7, 2023 19:37
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Twining at least. I think there were 1 or two more. My assumption whenever I read this was that it was a boost to a West Point application or something.
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Apr 8, 2023 11:47
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Beyond the typical disaster response activities that occur and are managed at the state level, the Guard can be activated (individually or en masse) and operate on federal orders as if they were active duty. "Total Force" has been the model for several decades, setting up the relationship between Guard, reserve, and AD. Look that up and you'll get a much better explanation than I'm capable of this early in the morning.
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Jul 2, 2023 12:28
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There a couple of paths to commissioning, which I'm not going to spend any time explaining: service academy, ROTC, OTS (civilian or enlisted applicants), and whatever the ANG calls their version of OTS for enlisted guardsmen. Any of those paths can lead to any of the three main categories of officer career fields (AFSC, not MOS): rated, non-rated, and the doctors, lawyers, and chaplains. You're probably not in the last group. Rated fields are pilot, combat systems officer, and air battle manager. Non-rated is everything else and it's all grouped together. OTS is probably your path if you decide to roll the dice. You work with an "officer accessions" recruiter...not just any minimall recuiting office can do OTS applications. When I went through this, my entire state of Utah had ONE. When she retired, my file was trasferred to a guy in Washington state. You'll have to find the nearest one. You can look up the requirements for the application package, but it gets reviewed by a board of officers who rack & stack and fill however many available slots there are. OTS is the control valve the USAF uses to control how many new officers...the academy and ROTC are not as flexible, and making large changes there can have ripple impacts that last for years. But with OTS, they can ramp production up or down pretty easily. If they need a lot of lieutenants, you'll see high selection rates from recent boards. If not, rates plummet. This can vary from career field to career field. When I got picked up for ABM, they were running about a 66% selection rate. There are separate rated and non-rated boards, so depending on your desired job, your application will go to one or the other, or you could submit to both. When I went through you could put down up to three jobs. With the groundwork out of the way, here's the real answer to your question: if you apply to a rated board, you will only be selected for a job you put down. With my eyesight, I could only reach for ABM so that's all that was on my sheet. I was reviewed to be an ABM or nothing. If I'd put pilot down, they'd have looked for both but nothing else. A non-rated board will take your request into consideration, but you are being selected specifically to be an officer, not for any particular job. If you only put down "engineer" you could get picked up and become a supply or maintenance officer, or a cop. If you apply to be a pilot only, you get selected to be a pilot or not at all. If you make the cut for selection based on the number of new officers needed, your job will be determined by the infamous Needs of the Air Force. Hopefully it matches something on your sheet. For non-rated, you find out your career field about halfway through OTS. Godholio fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Aug 12, 2023 |
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Aug 12, 2023 14:20
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Dick Burglar posted:Thanks for the write-up. The only correction I'll make is that almost anything is waiverable, including age. HOWEVER, that depends on the need. If they can easily fill all the positions, they don't need to open that door. But if they think they're borderline or coming up short on applicants, it could happen. I had a vision waiver that the WA recruiter said I had no chance to get (the UT recruiter disagreed), and I commissioned with a dude on an age waiver. The recruiter can give you an idea on whether it's realistic or not, and whether it's worth trying or not. I will also say this: rated officers generally have a better QOL than non-rated. Your worst deployment is their best. Edit: The military doesn't give a poo poo how fancy your degree is. The USAF basically forces every enlisted person to get an associates from the loving Community College of the Air Force ffs. Even if they have a BA/BS. My BS was in psychology, with a <3.0 GPA. "Degree?" is a yes/no question. SOMETIMES it can play a role in picking your AFSC, like an engineering degree can help you become an engineer, but it's not a guarantee. And even so, it's also worth mentioning that as an officer, you're generally supervising the guys doing the work. With foreign language proficiency, you might be thinking about something like a linguist riding in the back of an RC-135 Rivet Joint. You could, but probably over 90% of the guys doing that are enlisted. You're gonna be their boss, and maybe you have to sit the seat a couple times a year to check the annual training requirement. Maintenance? You're briefing the squadron commander on why a mission cancelled because the jet wasn't ready, or why Airmen Fuckwit got a DUI, or got caught sleeping on the shitter, or who got sick enough to be put on quarters, etc. You're not wrenching on the planes. Godholio fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Aug 12, 2023 |
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Aug 12, 2023 18:54
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You can apply again, but they probably only do boards once a year these days...again, depending on how many officers they need. That kind of thing, which can fluctuate, is probably best found on the airforceots forums, or maybe they've moved to a reddit or something by now. Those people eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff, and most of the people hunting for info will be college students or recent grads who are very excitable. Last I heard, which was a couple of years ago, is that OTS is now 8 weeks (previously 12) and there were only two student squadrons (there were four when I went through). So there's a lot of variability. Edit: technically there were five sqs, but the Dragons were all the hurt/recycling people, so like <10 folks.
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Aug 12, 2023 19:55
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 23:26 |
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Dick Burglar posted:
I'm still curious what you're actually after. Why are you interested in joining? You're basically scanning all the branches at this point, so what are you looking for?
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Aug 13, 2023 16:07
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