Our oldest joined the air force, leaving for basic training in 2/2013.
Our youngest joined in January of 2017
Resources During Basic Training
- Air Force Wing Moms not only posts a TON of information and links, but they will put you in groups with other moms/siblings/spouses in your airman's flight. This was great when it came time for phone calls each week.. we knew if others didn't receive phone calls as well, and had a better idea of what was going on. They will also create facebook events for every graduation week, where everyone can join and share their photos, experiences while there, etc.
- These info sheets will tell you what your airman is learning and doing each week of training. I shared them each week on our sons facebook page, and emailed them to his grandparents each week as well.
What we experienced while our second son was away at Basic Training, day by day, in 2017
Letter Writing & Questionairres
The Phone Calls
The Phone Calls
Our Trip Diary: From our 2013 Trip to Lackland AFB for Graduation
- Tuesday - Flying to San Antonio, Checking out the area
- Wednesday - sight seeing before we can get on base
- Thursday - We get to see our son! Airmans run, Coin Ceremony, Base Liberty
- Friday - Graduation Day! Ceremony, followed by town pass
- Saturday - Town Pass! A whole day with our son!
- Sunday - Saying Goodbye
Photos are all taken by Basic Video Productions.
Some of them (very few) will be posted on the Air Force Basic Training Facebook page.
Your Child MAY have ordered photos, or you may order them.
More about our experience with photos
Congratulations! I hope your son likes his career field (AFSC). My dad fixed jet engines for 4 years on the USAF's first jet in the '50's...I think he was born a mechanic. I got a degree in weather, and thoroughly enjoyed my dozen years. (Yes, there is a lot of stuff you have to put up with, but once you learn the system, without compromising any Christian beliefs, of course, he'll enjoy it). Because of that, the USAF trained me in computers, which helped me get a computer job outside the USAF. The shiftwork was the only bad thing about weather. I still stay active in the local American Meteorological Society. and work with the Skywarn group. The point is, you don't know what you'll learn in the USAF that'll help you later.
ReplyDeleteIf he starts thinking he wants to be an officer, he'll need a degree in something. Our Army son, E-8, got some kind of admin degree through Phoenix. He had 2 trips to Kuwait, 1 to Baghdad, 2 to Afghanistan, and did a lot of classwork during downtime.
Retirement used to be 20 years, and you'd get 50% of your base pay for life, after retiring.
You have to be an officer for 10 years or more to retire with tho highest officer rank held.
So, 8 years enlisted + 12 years officer, you'd retire with the highest offiicer rank you held.
You are 2nd Lt for 2 years, 1st Lt for 2 years, then Capt for 6 years. So that's 10 years.
You can become major starting around 7-8 "After" being a Capt, or it could come a couple of years before that if you've excelled in your job. But one thing I learned as an officer, is that they just don't want you doing your job, you need to do it well, better than the next guy...showing initiatve, etc...which is true whether you are enlisted or officer. We're all on the same team, but there is friendly competition.
As far as the reality of going to war, overall I'd say the USAF is safer than the Army/Marines. In general, only the planes do the shooting. If you're deployed in Afghanistan working on jet engines, you may get more involved.
Our son will retire in about two years, and should have no more battle assignments. He stayed enlisted, but the degree helped him get to E-8 ... that, and just being a "doer". He's in EOD - explosive ordnance disposal - yep, bomb squad. Needless to say, my wife and have prayed a lot.
So, welcome to the "Military Mom's" group, and specifically an Air Force mom.
And BTW, I have a question about the CamScanner...they've recently changed things, and I've been trying it for a couple of months. Does the OCR plugin, which "must" be "installed" to get OCR to work, come in the free part (I can't "find" it) , or is that in the paid, which they call the "License" ? Thx for saying that the OCR is just for searching text, not creating characters for a doc.
Dave H.