I'm just going to get this out into the open...
I'm in the Air Force inactive reserves for another 78 days. I have until November 29th to get my life as I now know it all sorted out and packed away. Which pretty much makes life really stressful. So anyway, this little blogger guy (if I remember that I created it) will serve to kind of document the process of my enlistment, job training, deployments, etc...
More or less I started seriously looking at the military as an option in about January of 2009 when I was talking to some Army recruiters. I didn't do it then because I had a house I was going to buy and a girl that I was dating, well, all that and the Army people really didn't impress me too much, they didn't seem very smart; and I'm honestly not that big a fan of drinking or one night stands and stuff like that, and that was pretty much all they talked about. So that's why I didn't go with the army...
So then at the end of 2009 (about mid December) I was single and didn't feel like I really wanted to own a house at the age of 20/21. That's when I made the decision that I was going to do what I had always wanted to do, I was going to join the Marines. You know, Semper Fidelis, oooh-rah, devil dog jarheads, etc... So after talking to a recruiter and deciding that I wanted to enlist they sent me down to the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) in Lansing. There I took the ASVAB and did all my medical processing to make sure I was an eligible candidate to be a Marine.
That is also when I decided that without a doubt, I absolutely never wanted to be a Marine, or a soldier in the Army, or in the National Guard. The ASVAB is pretty much like the SAT's or ACT's of the military. I got a 92 on them, after being away from any kind of schooling for at least 3 years... and here were Marine wannabes getting 40's and lowering and saying "I'm surprised I even scored that high." So there I was thinking "you know.. I haven't even seen any of this kind of stuff in 3 years and I easily doubled the scores of everyone else... and half of them are trying to be in the artillery..." People who can't read,write, or do math... calculating where to send the artillery... with me possibly on the front lines. I decided that fratricide was not something I wanted to partake in.
And that's when I started talking to the Navy. They wanted me to be a nuke... a nuclear propulsion specialist. me... running a nuclear reactor... scary thing to think about. It was like 2 years of schooling, a $20k signing bonus, and then 4 years of service; with an amazing tie in to a 6digit job in the private sector when I got out of the service. And then I talked to a guy that was a nuke... and realized that huge signing bonus was there for a reason, because it was a terrible job.
So then I talked to the Air Force recruiter... and he was the most genuine of all the recruiters that I talked to. He was wearing dress blues the day that I first talked to him, he was clean shaven, and very honest about everything. Needless to say it was a very different experience than the army, marines, and navy... He pretty much told me that if I wanted a big signing bonus to go with the Navy. After explaining to him that I would go crazy if i was stuck on a boat for months at a time he said 'good, fill out this application.' After the application was submitted through MEPS and approved it was time to go break the news to my marine recruiter.
That was fun too... both my marine recruiter (sgt. mullens) and his CO chewed me out calling me a liar and said that they were better than any other branch blahblahblah, and to get out of their recruiting office and to stop wasting their time; to which I replied "K, BAI! LOL" and walked out. I kinda felt like a jerk, but they were just being stupid about it.After 15 minutes of me saying "look, I'm telling you I don't want to be a marine, so why are you still asking me if I want to be a marine?" I guess it was 'repeat-everything-he-says-in-question-form day' that day..
Now that was all in January of 2010, because I was supposed to enlist with the marines in February... so I had to move quickly to get out of that nightmare... And with that out of the way it was all smooth rolling more or less. I went to MEPS again in June of 2010 to get a quick medical checkup and also to sort through jobs that I was qualified for. I got medically disqualified from my top 3 job choices because apparently I don't have depth perception... So that left me kind of stuck, I had really wanted Aerial Gunner, but since that was no longer an option I chose "security forces apprentice (3P031)" as my #1 job. I got the call August 3rd 2010 that I had actually gotten that job out of the 15 I'd submitted for, with a ship date of November 29th 2010.
Sooooo after almost a full year of constant waiting and anticipation I finally had a job assignment and a ship date. I was seriously excited, and really still am. I found some very nice people to take my dog for me, it looks like my mom is going to take my cats, my older brother will probably inherit most of my tools, my little brother has already inherited 2 laptops an old gamecube and xbox plus games and probably some knives that I won't feel the need for in the Air Force. I found someone that'll hold onto my guns for me when I'm in basic and Advanced Individual Training (AIT). Now I just need to figure out what to do with my car, lawnmower, couches, clothes, etc...
And that's not to mention the most stressful aspect of this whole thing, my new girlfriend. I met her the month between my enlisting and my job assignment... which makes things kind of difficult. I had been single for almost a full year, and was pretty much preparing myself to enlist single and to stay single for a while, and then I met her almost by accident and it's been awesome ever since then. So now that I have an amazing girlfriend I've been rethinking my enlistment, and even more than that, my job choice. I picked Security Forces knowing that it has the possibility to be one of the more dangerous jobs in the Air Force, especially if/when I get deployed.
I have never had a problem thinking about the dangers of being deployed, guarding air fields and military bases, or any of the stuff that goes along with being Security Forces... until I was in a relationship with someone I really like. The problem comes in when I know that my actions will affect more than just me. I can handle the idea and concept of death and dying, and I have no problem with that; but knowing the emotional hardships that people would have to endure if that were to happen has been very hard for me to think about. I would hope that no one would have any lasting distress from my death, and that no one would have to suffer through any hardships, but we all know that won't happen. I would hope that they wouldn't blame themselves for 'allowing' me to enlist, or for anything really... I would only hope that they would remember that I died serving my God and my country, doing what I wanted to be doing.
Aaaaaaand now with all that morbid crap aside... here's a link to the Air Force's website with some info about the job I signed up for: Security Forces Apprentice
More updates later maybe if I remember or find anything else that I think is noteworthy. I might post pictures of my seemingly ever expanding gun collection...
