ok coming from a guy in the air force, i gotta pick on heyyou. air forces boot camp is just as long as everyone else's now. but im sure its still not as hard, it has its challenges but its not bad.

I joined in 2005 and its been a good gig for the most part. as you might know i have been around the world a couple times and got to see many things. and never had to worry about health benefits or money. One thing i will tell you though, is the air force is the hardest to make rank in unlike others. We have to test for all of ours. So it would take you longer to progress/make more money.

Yes you would get E2 auto. with ur eagle scout thing. so straight from bootcamp, with housing allowance, and food allowance, you would be lookin at 2900/month. just a guess though, since housing depends on where ur based. if overseas then you also get COLA which is added on top of that.

You get all the way up to e4 with just doing training and time. but after that is tests for the rank. Me being an E5 i make about 3720/month.

As for jobs, if ur wanting mechanic, you can do like me and be a crew chief. its technically called Tactical Aircraft Mechanic, but there is also Aerospace Aircraft Mecahnic i think. only difference is like mine its fighters, and the other is big heavies like c130s. As a crew chief in the fighter world, we work alot and get screwed alot but we have some payoffs that other careers dont like, we usually have more medals and awards,things like that.

Also the air force does 6 month deployments now, just so you know, but its better than 12 months like some branches do.

Anyways, anymore questions just pm me. later.

 

oh, and yes you will only get housing allowance off the bat if your married first.

 

True story -- I was TAD to Quantico from September - December. The Marines whipped my as$ into shape with PT three times per week. I was with all of these kids fresh out of bootcamp who asked if we did PT in the Navy. "Yeah, once a year during PT evals. Other than that, since the ship is in drydock we just drink beer and play Nintendo all weekend." I had more three days weekends while there than any time during the previous three years of my tour; however, I had a BLAST with them. Fucquers got me so hammered during a pre-Marine Corps Ball party that I literally crawled home. They wouldn't let me buy drinks. Too bad I didn't go to the Ball itself as I'm sure a few of the hawt Marines womern would have made sure I had an even better time.

 

that sounds about right Vdub.. one things those fellas know well is drinking- and the other PT.. and the other too, which is where they get their reputation from!!

testing for rank in the AF was modeled after testing in the Navy.. that is nothing new.. every branch has some form- the Marine Corps uses composite 'cutting' score to promote, which is based off of a bunch of factors and not how one performed on a single test on a single day.. the only promotions that are given in the Corps are e1 through e3.. e4 is a service and MOS wide competition based on open slots above you and nothing more.. rank moves excruciatingly slow in some fields, and pretty quick in others... e4 is a promise in other services so long as you keep your nose clean.. not so in the Corps..

I love the Corps to this day and would highly rec it to those with a sense of adventure.. i often say the best decision i ever made was to join, and the second best was to get out- but that was back in the lean days of Clinton's first term and the dem's were making it hard on the services.. I wasn't going to change fields from a grunt to a copy machine repair guy or some such just because they were slashing the infantry.. so i left.. and went defense contractor some time later..

in your case- the Corps should be cut off the list because of rank and quality of life, and the Navy because of 'floats' away from your family.. Army and AF are still on the table.. they army is tricky- you may end up at a great duty station and with a locked on unit.. or you may end up with a crappy unit in a poohole.. one will make you, the other will break you.. the AF is the ticket.. but so is the Coast Guard.. that is a good outfit too.. my guess is though, that you will find a better marketable vocation in the AF than the others for the day you decide to leave them.. just my two cents dude..

 

i agree^ but not to start a pissin contest, the AF goes the same places the army and them go. so it wont always be a vacation. just coming froma AF guy who almost was takin out by a mortar. if i had to reccomend a branch, id say AF. best bet for you and your family.

Also think about seeing if you can get a fulltime AGR or technician job at a base of your picking, in the air national guard.

 

i didn't mean to make it sound like the AF doesn't do the things other branches do.. I worked with PJ's a little bit and those guys are just as tough as any anywhere..

at home though, base life is much easier than the Marines have it.. Marines are the smallest service and get the lesser money so they pinch wherever they can.. and that costs the standard of living the other CONUS services get- thats all i mean..

if i had it to do over again, i would have gotten over myself and joined the AF, let there be no doubt.

 

The military pumps more aviation mechanics into the civilian workforce every year than there are jobs for them. I've known quite a few of them who ended up pursuing other careers. So don't count on that military aviation experience to land you a job after you get out. You might get lucky, but most don't. Go for some kind of training that has civilian application in a job market that's not already totally flooded -- if you should choose not to or be denied the opportunity to re-enlist after working in some job that won't translate into civilian employment you'll be right back where you are now, which I assume isn't where you want to be because you're wanting to chuck it for something else.

Other than that, I can't offer any insight into the USAF because I got out 27 years ago. My boy's in the Army Guard getting Afghan sand up his *** now, and understandably isn't particularly thrilled with it. He's a tough enough guy and at 28 isn't a dumb kid any more, but he's found out that I wasn't full of crap when I told him that missing his four kids was going to hurt a helluva lot more than he could imagine, and that if he was like most he'd find himself soon enough wondering where that fat enlistment bonus went. He went in wanting to transition to active duty and make a career of it, but now he's looking forward to getting out and going to college on Uncle Sugar's nickel.

I'm not trying to talk you into or out of anything. I just hope to keep you from getting high on sunshine blown up your ***, and sunshine blown up your *** is all you're going to get from recruiters and guys who've been in less than a year.

 

to echo what Unreg has said (which was VERY true), and to add just a little to it:

don't let the recruiters sell you ANYTHING you can't put your hands on, spend, screw, drink, eat, or poop in or on... ONLY tangible things should influence you.. half of their 'sell' is the promise of adventure, and such things that appeal to your machismo.. don't let them do that to you.. only buy from them what is measurable and will benefit you and yours..

i can say this from experience, because i bought into all that tough crap lock stock and barrel.. and it got me notta- except a few stories to tell.. and even then i gotta look over my shoulder to see who is listening..

 

USAF all the way!!! Why leave your family when you dont have to man?

 

It was that macho crap as much as if not more than the enlistment bonus that sucked my boy in. He was having a tough time providing for a wife and four kids, working two and three jobs, sleeping three or four hours a night, and along came some recruiter with stories of easy money and magic transformation into a movie hero. It was darned attractive to a 26 year old kid who was feeling pretty powerless while grinding his life away and never quite catching up to the bills. He believed that the military was going to pay his bills and make a man out of him.

It was a painful process for him, unf***ing his mind of the crap the army had put there, but once he accomplished it he became a man in the same way every one of us (who's done it) has done it: alone and through sheer force of will. And in his case as in so many others, not because of but in spite of the military. Now that he stands squarely above his own two feet and looks life right in the eye he doesn't fit into the army like he used to. I'm very proud of him now that his mind has separated from the military well ahead of his ***.