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Honestly, I can't even imagine working 15 days/month at the airline. Homie do play that game...12 days is about my max. Much prefer to be down around 6-9. In base reserve or line holder, dropping trips is where it's at. Life's too short to be working that much, especially at our pay rates.

I get what you are trying to say. And to a certain extent I agree about what you are saying about diversities. However I think a white male and another white male can be an example of diversity. Not because of their skin and crotch obviously but because of an untold number of other diversity factors. Sex and skin color are some of the worst indicators of diversity imaginable. And yet that’s what’s focused on.

Meh - I've got a dozen stories just like that with regular dudes. Your sample size is a bit low. I've had more issues with some pussy AC/DO/CC types who couldn't make a decision to sit a low-performing idiot just because. This was long before we celebrated people for cutting off a penis.

Perhaps a lot of talking past each other here. DEI progressives/leftists/grifters (whatever you want to call them) only care about a narrative, which is to say they want to cook the books with numbers and don’t give a fuck about actual qualifications or merit, and in fact are biased and racists against certain demographics. On the other side are the ultra-right people who think women don’t belong in a cockpit, gay people can’t possibly be doctors, etc. (insert whatever other similar statement you want). I think most of us agree DEI could simply be destroying barriers to truly provide equality of opportunity. I don’t give a fuck how many white vs. black fly airplanes, but we can do better recruiting and educating in inner city Atlanta. I don’t care if we have 50% women or 2% women pilots, but we can put more effort into targeted recruiting at women’s schools, female sports events, whatever. We should be after these demographics not because of physical traits, but to maximize the applicant pool and look for hiring opportunities to diversify backgrounds (and therefore thought), but with zero fucks given about immutable traits. That direction and weight of effort of education and recruitment is how DEI could be a good thing, but instead, as it stands today, is all kinds of fucked up.

You've never heard of Hiring Our Heroes? Its probably one of the largest nationally funded DEI initiatives in existence. Edit: Also probably one of the most successful if you compare KPI's pre 2012 to 2023. As of last year veteran under employment and unemployment is now statistically negligible from civilian counterparts.

I know the liberals don't care because their guys is "mostly doing a great job", but come on...which President is guilty of collusion? Chicoms sending millions to Biden family members.

I mean TBH if you have a relatively average town demographically and the pee-wee basketball league is like 75% black kids at age 5…yea you probably should encourage more white boys and girls to play! Never know when you’re gonna find the next Alex Caruso 😂 #WhiteMamba. Did you see Mac McClung win the dunk contest? VA white boy, represent! Same goes with super early pilot training or pipeline programs…you have not selected for any skill or experience at all at that point, and because I believe talent is evenly distributed, yea you should try to have a relatively representative group. Same story also for stuff like ROTC - you don’t want your Officer corps to be all male, all southern, all white, all middle class, etc. Those things are all fine (I am all four!) but there’s talent elsewhere too that you’d miss if you just let societies proclivities and stereotypes run rampant forever. There’s a brittleness that comes with too much sameness that can be hard to see when you are part of the in-group. Your current crop of ready & willing ATP holders in 2023, yea you hire who’s most qualified now when there’s severe need; don’t hire some random trans black Romanian or whatever with zero flight hours just because. This is your NBA red herring and why there’s no affirmative action for talentless white wanna-ballers like myself. But that’s not happening. Anyone saying we’re less safe in commercial aviation today because of DEI is full of shit unless they have very convincing receipts. Thinking long-term though, as the airline CEOs are / should be doing, you can do better when you home-grow people like the majors are starting to do with these fight academies. I have two daughters with zero flight hours each, but there’s absolutely no reason they should not envision themselves as ATP pilots when they grow up nor should there be a lack of great opportunities for them to pursue that if they so choose. Representation and opportunities do actually matter, especially in high-powered, high-status careers, and I hope to see more of both for my girls or other young people like them who are not well represented in cockpits today.

Seriously dude? Do you really think this is how the real world works? The real world does not have a perfectly symmetrical representation of demographics spread evenly throughout every single aspect of life. Want to know why? Because actual people are not defined by their race, gender, sexual orientation, etc… People are people; made up of their own experiences, desires, and preferences that have absolutely zero to do with their uncontrollable physical attributes. Want to know how stupid your comment sounds? The NBA is 75% black, but 75% of the population is white. Youth basketball should obviously be made up of 75% white kids as the entry point to the sport. Gotta make those demographics even and match reality. Oh wait, no one would argue that.

Gotta start by recognizing DEI is trying to do both. So if you say "I want to get rid of DEI" you are also saying "I want to continue to keep up artificial and stupid barriers that make it harder for certain people to succeed." Lets start the conversation by acknowledging most people on here are specifically annoyed with the perceived notion that DEI is pushing hiring people based on a certain skin color or gender over someone who might be more qualified. Then we need some data to show that 1.) that actually happens in a significant volume. 2.) those individuals weren't hired over people who were overqualified. Because you can be overqualified for a position and you should not expect to get hired into something you are overqualified for. (Unless you deliberately alter your resume and work history to remove those overqualifications.)

So is your answer to fix the societal and pipeline issues that are detecting women from getting involved in aviation …. or just hire more women at the majors until you get the demographics you like (regardless of skill, experience, etc)?

I think that southern public school education is working against you again…Lincoln did not free all the slaves in 1863.

Wasn't bad although we were limited in the number of bases we could go TDY, luckily your mom was working the juicy bar at each location.

Any confirmation the Russian pilot said "too close for missiles, switching to fuel" and if in the debrief the other pilot whispered to him "gutsiest move I ever saw Sergey"?

And there it is. The explanation for white males being an overwhelming majority of professional pilots must be that white males are more inherently suited to the job than any other group. I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this is not what you really think, but you should understand what it sounds like when you make this argument. Same with the pro sports analogies. I think we can all agree that there are certain physical and genetic attributes that allow people to perform at the ultra high levels of professional athletes. There are absolutely not similar limitations for performance in a cockpit. Are certain individuals more suited to flying airplanes? Of course. But you won’t convince me that the requisite skills skew to the tune of 95% white male. We got to affirmative action/DEI/whatever you want to call it for a reason. There absolutely are barriers for certain groups that shouldn’t be there. I agree that in a perfect world we would all be judged, in the words of Dr. King, by the content of our character vs the color of our skin or any other physical attribute. Unfortunately, that is not the world in which we inhabit. There are still groups that need help breaking breaking barriers because people are still shitty. DEI is an admittedly imperfect band aid for the real world. If people want to debate better solutions, fine, but don’t blow sunshine up everybody’s ass by pretending we live in a post racism/sexism world.

Exactly. This is how I view the difference between the words equality and equity. Equality = cast the widest net you can by publicizing opportunities for underrepresented groups.. but still select for competence at the end of the day Equity = prioritize quotas and percentages over all else at the expense of competence

There's a phenomenon where people will subconsciously self-select out of a career fields if they don't see people who look like them doing those jobs. As white dudes we don't notice it because we're well represented in most desirable high caliber fields. But I have multiple female family members who are military pilots, and they say that feeling is something they had, and is still prevalent among girls. I'm not for quotas or specific DEI hiring initiatives but outreach campaigns like the "fly like a girl" one the Air Force has pushed are great in my opinion. If you truly want to get the best talent you need to cast the widest net you can and whittle down the pool from there.

I mean, more or less 😅 Simplified for simplicity’s sake. But yes, what I wrote is not the full story, there are many good books that tell it better.

Yea I agree with almost all of this. It does make you wonder when there’s a highly desirable, lucrative and respected career that’s 95% one gender (or race or whatever), that’s not what you’d expect to naturally occur. Probably worth putting some effort to assess if that makes sense or if it is a societal effect that’s not actually helping make that career field better. Don’t hire people because of their race or gender or whatever or hire unqualified people, but open up your recruiting lenses and offer opportunities and push people who are underrepresented to apply. There are amazing, top 10% future pilots we’ll miss out on if you don’t do those things, and you’ll have to hire instead more center- or below-center-of-mass in-group folks just to fill the seats. I’ll say it again, there’s a brittleness to too much sameness. Fully agree that modern DEI stuff is usually insane so don’t put that evil on me Ricky Bobby.

If you were conducting an interview and this dude walked in, would you take him seriously? Be honest. They won't hire you if you show up to the interview with the wrong color suit at some places. I had the pleasure to fly with a future trans a few months before I retired in 2018. He, by far, was the worst pilot/student I ever flew with. We were conducting a NVG tac form upgarde sortie, in the mountains during a steady snowfall. He couldn't maintain +/- 100 feet. That will get you killed when you're flying at 50 feet. l I had to cancel our flight before we left the pattern. The other aircraft went single ship. We were not able to complete any training. The other aircraft needed us to complete MSN training as well. He (my student) was not confident or competent...at all. He actually scared me. I have been in situatuons where if he was my co, we would have died. He transitioned two months before I retired. That reaIly helped the squadron. Especially, the 5 months he spent DNIF trying to figure out his sexuality. He was a waste of a pilot slot. I knew it was my time to retire. That's my experience. What's yours?

My current job involves writing an enormous amount of letters to another branch of government with just enough variation that it makes building a form letter/mail merge too difficult. Have been tinkering with ChatGPT writing the letters based on data from a spreadsheet, it's getting pretty close to working the way I want it to. It will save me 10-15 hours/week and be done in minutes.

Pictures for humor only. The right message at every recruiting event, from inner city schools to MIT, should be "we want the best on our team and we believe some of the best are here right now. If you think that's you, come talk to me." The absurdity of DEI hiring is that it advantages the rich black girl from a private school in New York over the poor white dude from Appalachia with no parents who has been working since 12 and taught himself to read. Both examples are real people I know.

Pretty sure the bonus announcement states for each tier how much of it you must serve to avoid recoupment. Serve is defined as not curtailing the orders. For example I think this last 4 year option was you had to not curtail until after 2 years in order to avoid recoupment of those first 2 years, then you would not receive any further bonus payments.

So you haven’t read the Emancipation Proclamation, huh? Wrong again.

Liberals are arguing there should be barriers to people based on physical traits they are born with in aviation jobs. They don’t think they are arguing this, but they are. They talk about opportunities and shattering glass ceilings, and similar emotional gibberish that sounds inspirational and forward thinking at first contact. However, because there are a finite number of jobs, any hiring advantage given to one group based on their immutable characteristics has deleterious impacts on those outside that group. A job in the majors is already highly competitive with far more qualified applicants than positions; ergo preference to one skin color/genitalia necessarily creates a higher barrier to those without the desired qualities. Flea/NS: is there any proof that race/gender based hiring increases aviation safety or efficiency? Is there any danger they could threaten aviation safety or efficiency? I’m sure you are both well meaning bros who want to answer “yes and no” respectively, but consider the question not from your altruistic motives but from the perspective of cold-hearted corporations driven solely by financial incentives.

I don’t know that anyone is arguing that there should be barriers to ppl based on physical traits they’re born with, specifically in aviation jobs. However, there are a lot of company/gov led initiatives that are pushing certain groups of ppl based on physical traits they’re born with. I get the impression after years of these arguments on BO that the liberal minded ppl here and in America have no problem with physical traits being the discriminator as long as it helps someone get a job, but consider it abhorrent if the situation is reversed. I don’t understand how that isn’t a hypocritical viewpoint.

So what if it is skewed? As long as the most qualified are being hired and everyone has an opportunity to tryout, then who cares what people look like? If a group of people I’m working with are all disabled transgender black females, but the most qualified… then great! If that same group were all white men…then who cares? The dudes on this group are talking about it because “those left of you” have made institutionalized racism a comeback in places like the airlines and military. Also what problem is DEI trying to solve? Are we losing wars because there aren’t enough minority female generals? Are aircraft incidents on the rise because of old white males? Or is it about feelings and perception…quality and competence be damned? Because that is an unacceptable experiment in fields where quality and competence impacts lives. Finally, what rights do white males have in terms of getting a pilots license that minorities and females do not? Are women not allowed to pursue aviation, nor minorities? There is no law in place that prevents anyone from pursuing a pilot career. Now, if you want to make the financial barrier argument, for example, African Americans, I’ll buy that and to that point have no issue with flight schools doing outreach, mentorship and offering scholarships. Those should be offered to underprivileged without thought of race/gender but that’s just my opinion. However, having a mandatory quota based on race (United, and let’s be honest many programs in our military) is racist and dangerous.

Well if you bothered to read what Flea was asking for, which I was kind enough to quote, you would’ve seen that he was asking for data verifying hiring based solely on race and gender. But thank you for reminding us all that half the planet’s population is female. You’re probably right though…Must be that old (male) white devil out there telling all those girls they can’t be pilots again.

I’m just saying don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. The annoying CBTs, the intolerably weird seminars, etc., yea those aren’t helping. The DEI industrial complex is a thing and it pretty much sucks - 69% of them are a bunch of grifters of you ask me. BUT, there’s no reason the flight deck (or the boardroom or wherever else) has to be so radically skewed white and male, or female, or whatever else depending on the field. But for aviation it’s definitely white and male. IMHO talent is relatively evenly distributed by race, gender, etc., so if your institution is not, you are accepting more mediocrity than you should. If there are some no-shitter physical characteristics that are essential to screen for, ok. That doesn’t really exist for airline pilots, yet the group is 95% male and I’m sure very overly represented by white people as well. And while I’m sure the vast majority of current pilots are well meaning and we’ll qualified, you don’t just continue to accept an objectively weird situation with that kind of imbalance forever. Give more opportunities to folks who are underrepresented and you’ll find tons of excellent pilots, more than if you remained hemmed in by your very off-kilter, limited historical selection pool. That’s my opinion at least. It’s not hard quotas or interviewing people with freaking bags over their heads, it’s nuts seeking out talent broadly and nurturing opportunities for everyone. Feel free to disagree if you’d like.

Hope this helps…Sounds exactly like that data you were requesting.

Dont worry.... they will find a way to manage to take a trip what seems like every weekend to either, LA, NYC, or Las Vegas anyway...

I think most folks on this forum would prefer that DEI go away entirely, and people be hired based upon merit alone. My experience in corporate America has been that DEI preferences focus on very specific groups that do not include veteran status and age.

They can focus on recruiting more minorities/women/trans/midgets, but I want them to only accept the best applicants, regardless of race/sexual orientation. It all needs to be masked. No pictures. Just qualications and an interview wearing a full face mask, using a voice changer and a burka (race/sexual orientation will be hidden and the parties will be safe). They are not going to do that. They will be the liberal Getsapo.

I'm admittedly not familiar with the theater anymore--since I separated last year, the current SPINS, etc..... However..... if it were the US in Russia's shoes, prosecuting a war in a country with coastal lines in the Black Sea..... a water body that encapsulated critical sea lanes necessary to our supply chain, we would have declared a JOA that likely would have incorporated large portions if not all of the Black Sea. There would be NOTAMS and other types of communications circulated to the international community that the geographic confines of the JOA were apart of an armed conflict between us and whatever state we are warring with and warning third party air traffic that flight into the conflict zone would be extremely high risk and safety couldn't be guaranteed. I'm trying to imagine this in the context of Korea, where if we kicked that off, we would likely declare most of the Yellow Sea and parts of the East China Sea as part of that JOA. And if we knew, for instance, China was operating assets in that JOA that were offering materiel wartime support to North Korea, how would we address that. Especially if we knew that support included information that directly contributed to the kill-chain cycle of the state we are warring with. TBH I don't know? From another lens: Geneva only describes two statuses for "people" in a conflict zone. They are either combatants, or non-combatants. And either status can operate either legally, or illegally. It doesn't really outline the case of an RPA though that is not a person and is simply a materiel asset. However, with a manned aircraft, in international waters, from a non state party to the conflict, those members aboard that aircraft would be considered non-combatants. The general thing about Geneva from my understanding is that to maintain lawful status, non-combatants are expected to act as non-combatants which means not performing actions that directly involve themselves in the conflict. Providing intelligence that relates to targeting to one party of the conflict would almost definitely undermine that status and I think the case could be made at that point that you might be a combatant or an illegal non-combatant. With the former you could be lawfully targeted, with the later, you could be held criminally accountable.

Lets take a minute and recognize the fact the DEI encompasses a lot more than race. DEI is focused on anything that is a protected class. So gender, age, disability, national origin, VETERAN STATUS..... etc..... You are focusing on one aspect of DEI that you do not particularly like but there is a lot of other stuff out there. Most people on this forum directly benefit from DEI efforts based on age and veteran status. Many other veterans benefit off of DEI efforts protecting disability statuses.

In a perfect world, yes. That's not what's happening. DEI assumes that if you have a certain skin color, then you must have had a disadvantage. Assuming you overcame more barriers because you aren't white is intensely arrogant. Imagining that you know anything about someone based on their skin color or gender has a name: RACISM. So I'm clear: DEI IS INSTITUTIONAL RACISM

Must’ve been one of those UPTski 2.5 VR comrades that got Flankers instead of May’s to Siberia because of diversity, am I right? *high five*

Let me underscore: Employment in the airline industry RIGHT NOW will secure you for a future that is fraught with landmines of uncertainty. Social history says that our 'global society" is headed for pain. I have met the dude who was #2999 of 3000 at UPS Airlines...for SEVEN YEARS. (I can't remember the exact numbers, but he was literarily #2 from the bottom) And that ended. still SEVEN YEARS of crap schedules, commuting to the base you didn't want as a home so you decided to keep commuting...AND not knowing if you will be the first one cut. FOR SEVEN YEARS........yet he stayed.... ....he hung on. I'm telling you a fact that cannot be disproven: The sooner you get your number, the sooner you furlough-proof yourself. Is it impossible? no. The next couple decades are going to suck bigtime, there is no way around that. But if you are in the best job 'we' can possibly have, at the time, then you are the lottery winner my friend. Seriously dude. Airline pilots will make money, and live a better life (15 days at home BAby!!!) in our lifetime. AI is coming...FAST for us. But not yet. Make hay while the sun shines. You're a pilot, get after it! After 3 years of no more than 15 days a month at work: This is the best part time job I've ever had. The dirty secret: If it was 25 days a month, we'd all be happy so long as we weren't living under communism...

Prozac? Pawnman?

I would not. Assuming that hiring continues along the current trend and you're going to a legacy passenger airline, you won't be forced to sit reserve very long. Commuting to the worst line is usually better than commuting to reserve. Once you get a line, you'll have a decent chance of either commuting in or home, so your nights in domicile on your own dime could realistically be under 6 within a reasonable amount of time and possibly down to zero within a year. I just stayed in a hotel when I commuted to reserve (roughly 5 months back in 2019) and only spent maybe $100-200 more a month than most my buddies that had crashpads. For that price, it's worth it to me to have my own room, a shuttle on demand, and every 4-5 days paid earns enough points for a free night. Also opens up the opportunity to pick up cross town trips for a bit extra pay and just commute straight into the cross town airport.

When's that POS turning back on? We're feverishly trying to get our OPR's done and in the system before the new one goes live (again...). We're "a bit" behind because we chose to scoff them until they figured out wtf they were gonna do with that coat hangar abortion that is myeval. On another note, why do we even do an OPR every year, especially in the Guard? At least at my squadron, almost noone does any assignments (staff/NGB/etc...) off-station, we all know who should go where/when, so it seriously has no bearing on anything we do. I think every 3-5 year OPR's would suffice. Ever tried to write an OPR for a part timer who does exactly what is asked of a part timer and nothing more (most of our part timers have no other duties than flying)? "Makes his sorties....most months...." This is actually one of the nice things for the ARC units, at least mine. We're fairly evenly spread on rank, though we have about 1/4 the Captains as we do Maj and LT Col, which are even split. Rather than having dates strewn about the year, it's a bit more manageable knowing exactly when they all close out. Generally many of the items we have to deal with in the ARC and a royal PITA because it's designed by the AD, who doesn't think about our considerations. So this is finally one our favor...though, based on your example above, it further points out why we shouldn't be required to have the same setup as the AD.

This is bullshit. You asked for some evidence, got it, now you're moving the goalposts.

I definitely can. Can you you point to EVEN ONE incident where a white pilot who should have been fired was retained because he claimed "you're firing me because of my race or gender"? Melatonin content and wedding tackle should have absolutely no bearing in the hiring process because gender and race have no discernable impact on the capabilities of a pilot. The moment they are introduced as any form of discriminator, the quality of the force goes down, because they stop hiring for quality and start hiring for diversity. That's how DEI bullshit is diluting the gene pool. That's basic logic. Can you not see that? Following your rules, the NFL and NBA would be better if they hired more white guys and asian girls, and the oil fields would be more productive if they had a quota of weak armed trans-men work the rigs. The logic of DEI is completely false. Removing some barriers to entry makes sense, enforces quotas does not. Also basic logic: it's impossible to prove a negative. Asking someone to do so is violently ignorant. If you make your world view decisions primarily based on "statistics", you're putting yourself at the whim of any tool who knows how to twist numbers to his view. Logic and reason. Use logic and reason. When you stop hiring based on ability to do the job, you get a lower quality product. When you DO hire based on ability, you'll get all the diversity you need as a side-effect. You want a stat? Ok. An airplane was crashed (and yes, one is too many) by a man who should have been fired based on his performance but was retained predominantly because of his race. Show me a stat that proves diversity has IMPROVED the safety of the airlines. (that's a positive by the way...those can be proven)

Anyone here familiar with the Giant 3591 crash? Yeah, that. The FO hid his training failures during the hiring process, had multiple training failures at Atlas, and was almost scrubbed from their program...which is saying something...but wasn't because he played the 'you're firing me because I'm black' card, and was retained. That asshat had no business behind the controls of a coffee machine, muchless a heavy jet. That's the kind of incident that will become more and more prevalent.

Fixed it for ya.

On the average units interview candidates twice a year/approximately 6 month intervals. Sometimes only once a year due to budgetary issues/bad years. As mentioned before it’s dependent upon unit manning requirements and how many slots are allocated per fiscal year. Sometimes 1 slot is only available sometimes 2 or 3, etc. Guard Bureau/ANGRC requests a certain amount and may or may not receive all of these slots. These requests are based upon Fighter/Heavy flow requirements/unit inputs. I suspect Reserves or AFRC HQ does the same as we have worked together on such budgetary concerns. Wishing ya’ll the best on your endeavors!

Enlist if you have to, it does help, but only really if you have to, to get into a unit that only hires from within. Fly as much as you can to make SURE you would want to do this for the next 10-12 years. If you do enlist, crew chief (Tactical Aircraft Maintenance), Aircrew Flight Equipment, etc. Basically any job you're dealing with the jet or the pilots. You've got your bachelors and you're young, do well on the AFOQT and TBAS and you have a good shot.

I think it all comes down to how bad your eyes are and if you really only want guard/reserve or if you could live with AD. Under the assumption you only want guard/reserve I would do this. 1. If you want to fly heavies, apply for a loadmaster job 1A2XX at the unit you want to fly for. You get a FC2 physical which is less eye intensive but during one of my flight physicals later on, not my initial. I asked about doing the Pilot version when I was a load master and flight med let me. ( I attempted to transfer to be a Helicopter Pilot for the Army). This could potentially show you if you could get medically DQ'd early on. If you want fighters id follow the advice of those who posted before me and go AFE or crew chief. 2. Clep a bunch of classes during your enlisted tech school, they are free the first time you attempt them. I clepped my English classes, math, science, computer basics, Social Science and History. You can even clep public speaking. My point being this will help make up for the time you spent in Basic and your other tech schools. 3. Once you get to your main job I would grind through school and attempt to get flight hours at a 141 school. Assuming you did a 4 year enlistment you should be right on course with your peers. But now you have prior service, a degree, and flight hours. With experience as Aircrew with the Unit you hopefully still want to fly for. If you dont care if you go AD. If you know in your heart of hearts you want to serve then go to the Academy in my opinion. 1. Apply for the Academy 2. Apply for ROTC Disclaimer: I did not go any of those routes but the guard/reserve one is what my friend did and it worked for him. I was AD for 6 years because I wanted free college, I clepped a ton of classes during tech school and then did one or two classes at the education center at my base. I had 80 credits after 6 years because I was slow rolling it. I separated and went to school full time and choose a degree that allowed my Post 911 to pay for my ratings. I applied for the Reserve board as Unsponsored got accepted and I am currently waiting on my dates. If I could do it over again differently I would of at least tried for the Academy or ROTC when I was your age. I believe being prior enlisted makes me more competitive but I don't look down on people who haven't enlisted, infact they seem just as competitive. I don't think hiring only from within is a solid strategy and could potentially limit diversity but I am not currently an Air Force Pilot and know nothing about hiring. So my opinion doesnt mean shit haha. As most active duty pilots were never enlisted before and most of them are great people who all have different backgrounds and methods of becoming AF pilots. Overall if you are floating the idea of joining the Air Force you should probably just go to a school that you want and look at ROTC and then do your PPL in your free time to see if you even enjoy flying. No need to sign anything right now because the Air Force will always be there and you have plenty of time. Good Luck!

I always shake my head a little bit when folks hand out the "don't enlist" advice so quickly. You can't underestimate how important it is for a guard unit to find people that will be a good fit for the unit. That is why you hear certain units "only hire from within". If you are a junior in HS, set yourself up to go to basic right after you graduate. Enlist in something that involves the aircraft like maintenance or life support. At a minimum, either of those career fields gives you a head start on knowing the aircraft and its systems. Yes, your tech school will eat into your first or second semester but you can always CLEP classes or take online courses while you are in tech school to keep college credits coming in. If you get medically DQ'd down the road or don't get picked up, at least you will have served your country, been a part of the guard, worked with great people and probably got college paid for. Being a pilot isn't the only way to serve. If you think otherwise, you aren't a good fit anyway. The E's make it happen and deserve the most respect. With that said, the best guard officers I have ever worked with are prior Es. Hands down. There is a reason for that. They have earned the respect.

I don't even have words to respond. Clean pantries are ‘racist’ and ‘sexist’: Loyola marketing scholar