Tell me how wonderful the Air Force is

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My baby brother decided this summer that he wanted to join the Air Force, so he did. He’s currently in basic training in Texas, which is a whole lotta miles from our farm in Wisconsin. He, obviously, will not be at Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. He graduates next week, and my parents, our older sister and her fiancé will be flying down to see him graduate and spend a few days with him. Nobody else will get to see him until December 23, though.

Basically, I miss him a lot and I really want him to be with us tomorrow, but he can’t be. This is really hard for everybody – we’ve never had a family holiday before where somebody couldn’t be there. Our family’s pretty close. Not in a meddling, “in other people’s business” way, but in a tight, “I love you; you’re my brother” way. (If that makes any sense at all.) It’s tough that we only get to talk to him for a few minutes at a time once a week, when we’re used to seeing and talking to him every day.

I just got off the phone with him, and I know he’s pretty homesick, but OK otherwise. He’s going to eat Thanksgiving dinner with a local family, and I’m glad of that. I feel kind of dumb, because he asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I forgot to ask him what he wanted. There’s not much we can do for him right now, except write letters and wait for him to call.

Does anybody have any advice or stories they want to share? Want to tell me how awesome things are going to be for him once he’s out of basic training? What can I do for him once he’s out of basic? (I know he’ll let us know eventually, but I want to know now.) I know he’s looking forward to that, too, because he wants to work on helicopter engines, but what if he doesn’t get it?

Gosh, I miss him. We don’t get along very well all the time, and have opposite personalities, but he’s my little brother. We taught each other how to swear, dammit. We have attempted to kill each other with agricultural implements (all in good fun, of course). Can anyone put my worrywart tendencies to rest?

2

Active duty Air Force Captain here.

Your brother will be fine. And I don’t speak on behalf of just the Air Force, but of all of the services.

Your brother, even though he is in basic training, will have friends that will most likely outlive his service. He will be among friends, even though he is with a local family, tell him to remember it. . . and he will.

He’s just physically away from you–he’s not far from your heart. Don’t sweat it. Tell him to enjoy it.

Tripler
The Air Force is a family. Let him grow into this new one, one friend at a time. . .

3

I am not an expert but I was in Air Force ROTC for a year in college before I decided to check out other options. There are two types of people in the military: those that joined the Air Force and those that wished they signed up for the Air Force once they got a taste of another branch. This is a bit of hyperbole for sure but the Air Force is considered the cushiest branch of the services and most similar to actual civilian jobs. The bases are nice and safe and he won’t have it hard. He will probably gain some valuable skills along the line as well plus their technology is really frickin’ cool. I wouldn’t worry about his safety on an Air Force base.

4

It’s a well known fact that the USAF has the smartest enlisted men. Consider the following:
[ul]
[li]In the Army the officers send the enlisted men into battle.[/li][li]In the Navy the officers and enlisted me go into battle together.[/li][li]In the Air Force, the enlisted men send the officers into battle while they stay back at the base drinking coffee.[/li][/ul]

Tripler got it right, he is only as far as your heart. He will be fine. you on the other hand… Naw, you will be fine also.

5

That’s pretty cool that they let him out to eat Thanksgiving with a local family. That’s pretty surprising to me, having been in Air Force boot camp down there on Lackland AFB myself–but then, I wasn’t there over a major holiday. (Well, the 4th of July, but what better place to celebrate that than on a military base?)

Anyway, boot camp is fun, and the Air Force itself is not too bad. I had to get out ASAP, because I’m a hippie and I couldn’t reconcile the job with my personal beliefs. But it’s not any more dangerous than any other job, with a very small number of exceptions.

BTW, having grown up in a military family (dad served 40 years, mom is an officer, uncle fought in Vietnam, grandfather fought in North Africa, great-grandfather in the Army Air Corps, which is now the Air Force), I can tell you that the following is absolutely correct:

6

Well, hell. Post on the SDMB, get results.

Thanks for the assurances. I’ve had a little time to calm down now, and Mom came up from the barn and teased me a little for getting all soppy, but then she cried a little, too, so that was all right.

Shagnasty, I’m not too worried about him physically. He has a way of coming out on top, and he’s not stupid. But he’s my brother, so I’m going to worry regardless of all other factors. He doesn’t know that, but that’s just the way it is.

I actually am very proud of him, and all the accomplishments he keeps telling us about. Like getting his marksmanship ribbon (or was it badge?) or doing 66 sit-ups in a minute. I just miss him a lot.

On preview: Ha, Rick! My brother’s favorite Air Force joke goes:

Do guys in the Air Force jump out of planes?

No, we like to put wheels on the planes and land them first.

I heard it every time I saw him for at least a month before he left. Seriously, once a day.

7

I’ll tell you what. . . [True Story]

The greatest memory I have, that my father shares with me, is that I got myself on a morale phone back in December of '05. I called my house but nobody happened to be there at the time, so I had to leave a message. My fifteen minutes of phone time weren’t up yet, so on the second call, I explained that to the operator, and got patched through to my Pop’s factory. I got the secretary, who put me through to an extension–at which my sister popped on before my dad got on the line.

So there I am, standing on top of a sandbagged bunker on an Iridium satellite phone, talking with my father, who happened to be on a random extension phone on the back of a warehouse wall in northern New Jersey. [/True Story].

Your son will have his dangerous moments–we all do, it’s part of the life of service. But he’ll be taken care of as well. It’s up to him and you to keep in touch. There’ll be times he can’t, simply because the Internet isn’t available at certain camps at Bagram, Afghanistan. But there’ll be times where he’ll call you every night.

Bottom line, don’t worry. He’ll be okay. We (and I speak for all of the Services) take care of our own.

Tripler
I’m glad he chose Air Force though. :wink:

8

I believe that has something to do with a urinal, but I’m former Army so I’m not exactly sure that the Air Force still uses that test. :slight_smile:

Rest assured that your brother will be fine, and that he’ll be learning some very valuable skills during his service.

And Tripler is quite correct in that your brother will be making some friends that will last a lifetime.

And, if things haven’t changed too much (and it doesn’t sound like they have), your brother will probably be stationed somewhere similar to a country club–as opposed to the other services’ barracks. His biggest consternation will probably come when he has to decide between steak or lobster each evening.

I wish him and your family all the best, and I thank him for his service.

9

He’s actually really looking forward to it, if only for the chance to get away from the food he has been eating. He’s still issued me the task of eating some turkey for him and giving our little brother a hard time. Those I can do.

10

Jesus, man, we’re not from Appalachia. :dubious: I’ll pretend that was addressed to my mother.

Thank you very much for the stories. They really do help a lot. It seems like the last few times he’s called, I’ve answered the phone, so I get the brunt of his homesickness. When most other people are home from work and settling down for the night, my family is just heading out for chores. I finish mine before it gets dark, so I’m usually the only one in the house. I’m really looking forward to him being able to communicate more freely.

Huh. He’s used the words “muck” and “I’m not sure what it was, but it wasn’t good” to describe the food, so it must be some pretty bad steak and lobster. :stuck_out_tongue:

11

My baby brother (he’s 23 but I’ve got eight years on him so baby brother he is to me) just finished up his four years at the beginning of the month; he didn’t re-enlist because he didn’t want to have to retrain, since they’re phasing out his now past field. We’re not worried. He’s going back to school, which he wasn’t ready for and is why he went into the Air Force to begin with, and he’s going to be fine.

But I can’t begin to tell you how much he’s grown up. I’m disgustingly proud of him. If there’s any way you can get to his graduation, do go. Seeing my brother at his was one of the weirdest coolest moments of my life.

12

Oh sh*t! Sorry about that! I got involved with a story about my mother with my wife mid-composition of the post, and forgot. . . please re-read that as your brother.

Tripler
:smack:

13

That’s all part of the training, y’know, just to, like, see if he could survive on Army rations for a couple of days in case the caviar and snow crab shipments are delayed due to, like, war, or something.

14

It’s the truth. The Navy base at Whidbey Island, WA has a golf course, but Lewis AFB has a polo ground. Polo!

By any chance, do you know which squadron he’s in? 320th has among the worst food in the US Air Force, 343rd is pretty good IIRC. Next time you talk to him, tell him to volunteer next time someone needs an escort to Wilford Hall Medical Center. The food there is SOOOOO good, and you can eat whatever you want! (which is huge for a basic trainee, especially a coffee addict.) After boot camp, the Air Force has the best food in all the services.

He meant after boot camp–the food in basic training is pretty bad. My first morning at 320 TRS, I made the mistake of getting the eggs, which I’m pretty sure had never been within a mile of a chicken. The first day, you get three (small) glasses of water, slam one down in a single gulp first, drink another one while you’re inhaling your food in the minute or so you have, then slam the last one down before you get up. After slamming a glass of Texas tap water and inhaling a gigantic spoonful of the 320 TRS imitation eggs, it took every ounce of will I had not to toss it right back up. The food at 320 TRS is just abnormally bad, though, and it’s known as one of the toughest squadrons. After a couple of days you get more time to “enjoy” your “food”, and you can drink juice or Gatorade if you like. FTR, I had veal (or is it venison?) for the first time at Air Force basic training and it was actually pretty good. That was at 324 TRS though–again, the quality varies a lot between the different squadrons.

Basic training is actually pretty enjoyable, and it’s gotta be the easiest job on the face of the Earth: you know exactly what’s expected of you, exactly who expects you to do it, and exactly how you’re expected to do it, all the time. You also get to laugh at your buddies getting torn a new asshole, and you get torn a new asshole every once in a while too–it’s great for male bonding.

And I second what whiterabbit said about going down there for graduation. He’ll come out a completely different man, I guarantee.

15

Current Air Force Active Duty who has just spent his second Thanksgiving (and soon Christmas) in Balad AB, Iraq.

The Air Force isn’t bad at all, especially when it comes to safety. He will get so many safety briefings he will want to blow his brains out.

It depends on what job he gets on whether it will be dangerous or now/how often and where he will deploy too etc.

If he’s like me and picks one of the few combat jobs the AF has to offer, he’ll be gone quite often and while not as dangerous as Army or Marine jobs, still not as safe as if he was a support guy and stayed on base (you’re more likely to slip in water coming out of the bathrooms then getting hit with a mortar).

It’s probably too late, but if it’s not, tell him to become a flyer, in particular a Loadmaster or a Boom Operator. Those guys have it easy. Just being in the AF will mean he will have a better quality of life than the other services, but if you have a flying slot quality of life is even better.
Um, so yeah. He may very well hate it. But like anything, there will be both good and bad. Any questions, whether day to day life or what deployment’s like or what his job will entail I will be glad to answer.

16

Former Air Force captain here. I spent July of 1998 in San Antonio away from my family, including Independence Day (a big family holiday, since we’re beach people), and I know what your brother is feeling like tonight. It sucks. That said, those 30 days are some of the most, er… vivid memories of my life and definitely turned me into a better person.

Five years of active service gave me experiences that I’ll never forget and never could have gotten anywhere else, friends who I’ll continue to call two or three times a year just to check in, and an incredible look at parts of the world I never would have seen otherwise. The whole time I was in, I was kept safe and secure – the most dangerous thing I ever did in uniform was vomit (from airsickness) out the open rear ramp of a C-130 as it passed over Loch Ness.

The food was great and inexpensive; the classes were fun, if occasionally a little boring; the work was always interesting; the people were open-minded and generally kindhearted. My father was an Army career colonel, and he told me “Son, if you want to put on a uniform, make sure it’s Air Force Blue.”

One last note: I got a performance evaluation in my new civilian job yesterday morning, after a year where I was asked to step into some pretty serious management duties unexpectedly. My boss and his boss both showed up and said “Never in twenty years have we seen someone tackle a challenge like this with so much enthusiasm and succeed so completely.” I credit the Air Force with teaching me the habits and attitude that made that success possible.

Your brother is in good hands!

17

14 year veteran of the Air Force, got out as an E-6. I definitely credit the Air Force for the job and life I have now. No idea what I’d be doing otherwise, but I’m very happy with my job and career.

To those who said basic was fun… your nuts. It was 6 weeks of organized stupid, but it was virtually painless.

I was one of the ‘lucky’ few who’s tech school is on Lackland too. (crypto maintenance). We actually liked the Basic Training chow halls better than our own, but Wilford Hall was the best.

If I could go back in time and talk to my 19 year old self, I’d tell me to do it. I enjoyed my time in, I just am not cut out for management. So after a few years as an E-6, decided it was time to move on.

I second Jurph on the value of the training you recieve. It’s not just the stuff your actually trained on, but just the ability to show up on time, every day and do what your supposed to be doing seems to be a valuable skill that’s in too short supply in the civilian world.

18

Thank you, everybody.

My brother ate Thanksgiving dinner yesterday with a lieutenant colonel’s family. They also watched the Packer game yesterday, which I’m sure helped a little. In appreciation for feeding a boy I have personally seen eat one and half roasted chickens plus side dishes, my family is sending them real Wisconsin cheese, cheese curds, and a couple other Wisconsin products. Hopefully nobody will turn out to be lactose intolerant.

We got to talk to my brother on the phone yesterday for two whole hours, and he’s really, really, really looking forward to seeing our parents and our sister and her fiancé next week. He regaled us with tales of his instructors (who are fond of yelling “what the piss” at him) and reasons why other members of his flight had gotten kicked out (including claiming to be suicidal but not being suicidal and lying about being 18 but really being 17). He told us a little bit about what he’ll be doing next, but that was when Mom was on the phone with him, and I was in the kitchen rescuing dinner rolls from the oven, so I’m kinda fuzzy on the details.

I’ve no idea what squadron he’s in. I could ask, but I don’t think any mass-produced food is going to be as good as our mother’s, and I know that’s what he’s complaining about. I’ll pass along the advice to volunteer to escort someone to the medical center, though.

Things are much better in general, but I still can’t wait to see him at Christmas.

19

It’s really OK. My older sister gets mistaken for my mother every once and a while, so I suppose this is just the karmic wheel turning around.

20

Yeah, the food at Wilford Hall is pretty good. Except for the stuff they send upstairs to the patients. When I was a kid I got my orthopedic care there, including major spinal surgery when I was nine, and I wouldn’t eat the food they brought up. I would, though, eat downstairs. So my poor mother had to try to maneuver a wheelchair with me in it and an IV stand down to the cafeteria so I’d eat something so the doctors would shut up about my not eating.

Heh. I was a stubborn kid!

I still am surprised at how much my brother’s grown up. Maybe I shouldn’t be. But I’m happy for him. BTW, depending on what field your brother goes into, he could end up somewhere seriously unglamorous. My brother ended up in Omaha for all four years, and is staying there to finish school. He seems happy, though, which is what’s really important.