After a very very long day at MEPS

I have finally taken my first steps on the path in a career with the Air Force, swore my first oath at roughly 3:08pm mountain time, been up since 4AM. Word of advice for any of you who are planning to go into or are in the process of going to MEPS.

Be sure to check, double and then triple check your paper work with your recruiter for errors, it'll make your life so much easier, I was fortunate that my recruiter caught a lot of errors before I went. Also, don't change your answers, once down there, don't tell them ANYTHING that you did not tell the recruiter to write down, this can get you disqualified for service, permanently.

Other than that, it's a very long and boring process that you REALLY don't want to do twice.

Pretty much what he said. And make sure you don't wear tighty whitey boxer briefs. This one guy wore some and it was pretty see through able. Oh. They strip you down to your skivvies btw. Whatcha doin Art? Workin on some C 130's? Or are you gonna be one of the lucky sumbitches who get to fly in a Spectre/Spooky?

My Dad tried to force me to join the Airforce earlier this year :/ Set up an appointment with a recruiter and everything, and told me they would call on a day. Well, they called, but I got refused from every division of the armed forces :/ Bummer.

But anyways, nice, and good luck.

Sadly I don't have the vision to be on a plane, so I'll be working Intelligence if I get the jobs I want (Which what I listed is intelligence >.>)

That sucks. You know that machine that they use to test your vision? I could still see through the blinder and it screwed up my vision a bit, which screwed up my test results. But I still got 20/20. My visions a bit better than 20/20 normally.

Ah, yeah, apparently I failed depth perception (not sure how, but whatever -.-)

Either way, intel isn't bad, very marketable outside if I make it through tech school. It's just stupid hard apparently, but I think I can handle it.

Yeah. No offense, but it just seems odd to join the Air Force and not be able to fly planes. And my mother worked on intel in the Navy, and my dad worked in the Command center on the Roosevelt. But now you have to deal with todays advanced tech. Learning all that sounds like a pain.

The Osprey is the coolest.

Well, truth be told only a very small portion of people who join the Air force actually become pilots. The vast majority are auxiliary or support for those pilots, in some ways you can say that not everyone who joins the Navy will be on a ship, I could have tried to become a pilot, however the cost to get lasek surgery (and a two year waiting period before I could MAYBE be eligible for joining) was just not worth it.

Initially I was thinking of trying to get a degree in fixed wing aircraft to increase my chances of becoming a pilot, but again, my vision (I have horrible vision, and I mean REALLY bad vision without glasses) kept me away from that route. The amount of debt I would have accrued from getting my eyes fixed and going to school would have put me well over 50 or so grand. Even if I had got lasek it has to be done a very specific way, and if not could have disqualified me from joining entirely.

The Air Force isn't all about flying, which I'm sure you already know. It'll be a challenge, but in the end I think it'll be very rewarding. Hell I'm sure that you feel the same way with the Army, I give you great props for wanting to be the one kicking in the doors and being shot it. It takes a very brave person to do a job that lays all the chips on the table with every expectation that you may not return. If I recall you were going to try and become a Ranger right?

If I came off as defensive I really wasn't trying to be .

I understand.

It's all cool, by the way, are you a DEP'r yet?

Yeah. My Sargent signed me up for a future soldier website. I'm gonna check that out. I didn't get a FS card yet, but I should be getting one soon. I'm going January 3rd, 5 years active and 3 years reserve, for a total of 8 years 16 weeks. 11 Xray is my MOS (infantry). What about you? Do you have an account for that website yet?

I have not been booked for a job quite yet, but the ones I listed are all intel related, but I'm hoping to ship by September, until they book me for a job I will not know for sure when I'll be going sadly.

As for the website, I don't recall having an account. I'm signing a 4 year contract with 4 years in reserves, simply because I'm not 100% sure if I want to make this a career just yet, if I do decide to do so, I'll sign for another set. If not I'll just take my papers and walk after my first four years and know that I've got some of the best credentials possible and if I do get my intelligence job, most likely a top secret security clearance that could have me working somewhere else fore the government with better pay possibly. It's too early to say really, first I need to get through training and tech school, from there, the only way to go is forward or up if not both

Ahh. Next time you see your recruiter. Ask him about www.futuresoldiers.com