Today Young Tiger officially passed his AFVAP (with a 99th percentile score), lost 12 pounds, passed entrance physical including the weight (although he still needs to lose another 10-15 pounds), raised his right hand and took that oath, and has officially enlisted in the United States Air Force! (Alas, he doesn’t report to basic training till November, but at least they’ve officially got him! :D)
I just had to be a proud mom for a moment and brag a bit.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled mundane and pointless sharing.
Congrat to Young Tiger. I had a blast my 4 yrs in. I worked flight line on F-4s. The USAF no longer flies any of those hogs. I had the best friends I have ever had when I was in plus I had the closest female friends ever. Good times.
Thanks! Young Tiger tends to be a bit of a loner, so this should help draw him out of his shell – he used to be Mr. Social till puberty arrived, and then he became Mr. Cynical. It’ll be interesting to see how he does! He’s taking the computer programming next week, so we’re all keeping our fingers crossed for him.
Airman Doors went through basic training at Lackland from November through January, 2001-02. You can ask your son to e-mail him (his address is at the bottom of one of his posts; if it’s not, e-mail me, and I’ll pass it along) and Airman will tell him everything about it.
Thanks, I’ll pass the info along to my son. Although I will say his recruiter has been astonishingly honest about stuff. Papa Tiger is former Air Force, as was Young Tiger’s dad, so we’re not unfamiliar with the AF way of doing things, so we’d have been able to spot any egregious wrongness from the recruiter, but so far he has just been 100% accurate. (Unlike the Marine recruiter who stalked Young Tiger for the last year and a half!!)
Mama Tiger you are going to have fun sending him care packages (send enough to feed 80). Also he will be in basic during turkey day. Don’t worry about him, he will be taken in by a family in San Antonio and fed real well. It will be a nice break for him.
Also make sure he invests money in the college fund (how that works is the airman puts in a dollar and the military matches it with many dollars–when I was in for every dollar I put in they matched with 10, I was able to invest up to $1200). It sure helped me get my degree.
Oh BTW I had a blast even though I don’t drink, ever. We would go to bars and my friends would make sure I had a soda.
But one thing that has lasted with me is a love and respect for the USA that is deeper than I had before I went in. (Hint: if they ask the troops during basic why they went into the military have him say “to serve my country”. There will be many who say “to get money for college” “to get a job” but the answer I suggest will earn him some respect from his TI).
I am always excited when I hear about someone doing their stint in the military cause I know that it is a good decision.
Will they let him out for Thanksgiving if he’s only been there for two days? I think not! Papa Tiger went into Air Force basic training(admittedly many years ago) on December 19 and wasn’t allowed a day off for Christmas. I suspect his only Thanksgiving celebration will be a turkey dinner…
These days the college benefits are, for $100 a month for the first year, plus an additional $600 investment during the first year, he’ll get full Montgomery G.I. Bill benefits when he gets out, which can add up to over $40,000. Not a bad deal for an $1800 investment!
They’v got him temporarily in explosive ordnance disposal, Tripler, but that’s truly a temporary placement – even his recruiter laughed at the prospect of him going into that. He is just NOT the type. But he’s taking the programming test next week, and since he’s already had some programming experience will hopefully do well enough on it to get into programming school. If not, well, we’ll just have to see!!