Well, I just graduated basic training for the air force, (about a week and a half ago), and started tech school. I felt like writing a bit about it. As far as basic goes, it wasn't entirly what I was expecting. I thought the dorm area would be tentlike, but it was just a standard building. Not particularly improtant though. A big aspect of basic was sleep though. You pretty much spend the entirety of basic not getting enough sleep. It's such a big deal, pretty much every class starts with the teacher saying, if you feel yourself getting sleepy stand up. I ended up choosing to stand up in most of my classes, cause you can get in a lot of trouble if a teacher makes you wakeup. What I noticed is just some people can do fine without the sleep, and have no trouble staying awake in class, and some people like me just always struggled. The worst was probally getting night ec, ec is just where you guard the door and have to decide if somones authorized to enter, which they always are unless a mti is trying to trick you. Anyways night EC means you have to wake up in the middle of the night for 2 hours to do ec, so you lose 2 hours of sleep, + an extra 20 minutes to get dressed and undressed in the right uniform. But it wasn't terrible, on a normal day, where you get a full night of sleep, you get 7:45(7:30) of sleep. I put the 7:30 in parenthesees because thats how much sleep our flight got, we always woke up 15 minutes before we were supposed to to get a jump on morning details.
I guese a random thing I can throw in is I volenteered for kitchen duty alot. It was called KP, though so it may have technically been called kitchen patroll, was never sure, doesn't really matter though. Anyways in KP, you just do duties around the chow hall. You can clean pans, clean plates, fill water, clean cups, run clean items back to the line ect.. There were many reasons I liked KP ,I got extra time to eat, mabey 20-30 minutes, I could talk during my meal time, sometimes I got icecream or deserts, I got breaks between the meals to relax, and lastly you don't have to deal with mti's all day. The main downside though is that you have to wake up an hour or 1.5 hours early to do KP but I thought it was worth it. The duty itself also got challenging during the meal times, when lots of dishes are coming in.
The craziest thing I remember happening in KP was when one of the dishwhashers and the people using it had to use our dishwasher. It got insanly hot in the room where we cleaned the dishes, and there was a huge line of trainees waiting to give there trays to us.
Well I guese some extra information is I am currently in tech school training to be an air traffic controller.
So far I would say tech school has gone somewhat poorly, I failed a room inspection, failed open ranks(passed on retake next day), got in trouble for standing up during a breifing, and was late to morning formation once.
But at the same time its not to terrible, because I didn't get in trouble for the morning formation(since they changed the time alot of people were late), and for the breifing I don't think the mtl who called me out ever reported me to my mtl, so he was probally just trying to scare me.
So in the end I'm only really on the hook for the room inspecting, but it just doesn't feel good to make so many mistakes.
As far as the school part of tech school goes I'm doing pretty well. I've passed all my daily assements and the first test thingy we had today.
We have alot of school though, 9 hours a day, though It goes pretty fast. But I'm glad its the weekend and I get some time off.
On June 30 2012 06:56 oesis wrote: The craziest thing I remember happening in KP was when one of the dishwhashers and the people using it had to use our dishwasher.
I think you forgot to include what happened to the dishwasher, there's like a gap. Did it break?
You thought the dorms would be tents? whut this isn't the revolutionary army or 1865. I found that line comedic.
Also, it's not uncommon for new recruits to get into trouble for various reasons, they are getting you ready to join their family, so it's a different lifestyle and has it's own set of demands, so don't sweat the small things.
We all greatly appreciate what you are doing, stay safe and remember: "life of lively to live to life of full life thx to shield battery" -bigMommA .
Mad props for choosing to be an air traffic controller, good luck:
They never really specified but it was fixed before dinner, It wasn't anything crazy like breaking in half, it just stopped funtioning. I don't know to many specifics cause I was in the other dishwasher, the one they came into.
Ack1027
Yes, I'm enlisted, Officers don't go through basic training, they do something similar but it has a diferent name.
iwearcapes
What do you mean by waiting list, are you waiting for a job assignment, waiting to be shipped to basic, ext?
Find this thread ironic, cause its almost been exactly a year since I graduated BMT. Stationed in Lackland right now actually, lol might of saw you in passing (although I don't go on main base a lot)
Whats your afsc? and what tech school are you at?
BTW I hated Tech School almost as much as Basic, but the real Air Force has been great ,best decision of my life!
edit* reread OP and saw your going to be a Air Traffic Controller, hard school but a great job if you don't mind stress.
Grats, one of my best friends just graduated bootcamp Airforce bootcamp today actually, pretty proud of him. I know what it feels like too (almost) as I just recently graduated the Navys bootcamp this march. Goodluck in tech school dude!
On June 30 2012 11:43 Freebirdo7 wrote: Find this thread ironic, cause its almost been exactly a year since I graduated BMT. Stationed in Lackland right now actually, lol might of saw you in passing (although I don't go on main base a lot)
Whats your afsc? and what tech school are you at?
BTW I hated Tech School almost as much as Basic, but the real Air Force has been great ,best decision of my life!
edit* reread OP and saw your going to be a Air Traffic Controller, hard school but a great job if you don't mind stress.
Yeah I'm stationed in Lackland right now too. Fuck me... I went from Lackland to Keesler to Osan (Korea) right back to Lackland.
What's your AFSC? I'm a SSgt working at Security Hill (Computer geek). _________________
Oh yeah and holy fuck... ATC (Air Traffic Control) is a hell of a job. I wish you tons of luck. One of my buddies went to ATC for tech school he said it was SUPER STRESSFUL. He didn't pass the final test. Him and this Asian guy he said were washed out probably because of dialect. If you make it pass ATC's high failure rate though you will be making some dough.
Right now if I was ATC and I wanted to re-enilist for 5 more years as a young SSgt (5 years in military) the military would pay you $73,440 in bonus pay (before tax) . So ATC is definitely a money making job. You'll be set whether you stay in or get out and work for a regular airport.
[QUOTE]On July 01 2012 06:18 Silentness wrote: [QUOTE]On June 30 2012 11:43 Freebirdo7 wrote: Find this thread ironic, cause its almost been exactly a year since I graduated BMT. Stationed in Lackland right now actually, lol might of saw you in passing (although I don't go on main base a lot)
Whats your afsc? and what tech school are you at?
BTW I hated Tech School almost as much as Basic, but the real Air Force has been great ,best decision of my life!
edit* reread OP and saw your going to be a Air Traffic Controller, hard school but a great job if you don't mind stress.[/QUOTE]
Yeah I'm stationed in Lackland right now too. Fuck me... I went from Lackland to Keesler to Osan (Korea) right back to Lackland.
What's your AFSC? I'm a SSgt working at Security Hill (Computer geek). _________________
Haha at least you got out of Texas, I went from Lackland to Goodfellow back to Lackland
I'm an A1C,1N2c, I work at the new site off base. Had a few friends from Tech School working at Security Hill
EPT
