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On the USAF side access to mental health care without retribution should be SOP for our service, especially for those in combat operations. I won't go into all the details but I fought an EPIC battle with Big Blue years ago to keep CLEARED Ops Psychs available to our aviators in the AFSOC world. I am obviously not an RPA operator but the RPA community in particular needs this service. I spent a lot of time commanding and working in their world and my battle resulted in me having to brief the Under Secretary of the Air Force when the Manpower people tried to take them away our cleared Ops Psychs. I used the following argument to successfully keep access to this critical care capability: "Sir, a lot of people underestimate and overlook RPA operators believing they are fighting the war from a box and they get to go home every night, someone insinuating that is an easy way to fight a war and it reduces the risk to their mental health. In fact, our RPA operators wage a far more personal form of combat than most and I believe it defiantly impacts mental health, especially in the long-term. I would ask you to consider this small vignette. Many of our RPA operators will observe the same house, watching the same person for a month or more at a time. As they develop a pattern of life they observe the target kiss his kids each day then send them off to school, they watch him interact with his wife, they watch him pray. The interaction while one way becomes very personal. One morning our RPA operator wakes up, has breakfast with his wife and kids, kisses his kids and walks them to the bus stop then heads off to the GCU. He sits down and five minutes later the phone rings telling him or her to kill the target. Our RPA operator professionally runs the approvals and traps and a short time later launches a missile or two that turns the target into pink mist, but it doesn't end there. Our RPA operator stays over the objective and watches the body in high definition for hours to see who responds. He or she can sees the kids face and grief when they discover their father was shredded into a lifeless mass of meat, they see his wife try to put the pieces back together and they watch as the body is eventually carried off by other friends and family. At the end of his or her shift they drive home and sit down at the dinner table where the family asks "how was your day?" How does our RPA operator possibly answer that question to his family. This form of combat is different than our other platforms that deploy. While on deployment manned operators have a separation that provides a buffer to process everything that happens, the live, sleep and eat with the camaraderie of others who are experiencing the same effects of combat, they have the time it takes to get home from a deployment to decompress and adjust, and they have time at home away from combat when their deployment is over. Our RPA operators have none of that, in fact they are so critically manned that they often can't take leave, the only get one day off per week and they do this in an endless cycle that can last for years on end. Make no mistake the person he or she killed was a bad person and they deserved to die, but we never want our warriors to lose their humanity in the process." Ultimately this argument worked and we were able to keep a TS cleared Ops Psych that was with our RPA folks everyday. I will laugh when someone plays Dos Gringos Predator Euology but I will never disparage our folks in this community, they carry a different burden than most and they do it without an end in sight. And, @Danger41 , they may be the SEALs of the Sky, but I hold the Draco's on the same regard. Most don't know the impact a little PC-12 has had on the battlefield or the commitment and cost to your community.

Homelessness has nothing to do with homebuilding and everything to do with drug use. You'd accomplish precisely nothing by putting addicts in the suburbs, except for maybe freaking out a lot of soccer moms.

You're seriously still standing behind this guy?

So you are saying Biden is honestly the best option for leading our country right now? Regardless of the track record to date? You're willing to vote for him again instead of someone like desantis who has a proven record of success in implementing policies that are both wanted by the people he leads and actually result in good outcomes? It sounds like you are advocating for siding with politics instead of reason because we can't change the world, so might as well accept shitty performance out of our leaders and move on. Do you accept that same stance with your financial advisor, mechanic, plumber, or home repair specialist? If not, please address, specifically, the items you are very happy with from Biden. You may agree with his policies, but please show me the exact outcomes in, lets say: economics, that you are pleased with. Do you believe Biden has unified or divided the country through his efforts? Is our international footing better or worse because of the policies of the last two years? Get specific please. You wouldn't ignore strange noises under the hood after a visit to the mechanic, and you'd want to know exactly what's wrong. I'm asking the same questions. Don't tell me to ignore what's broken just because "Politics has always been somewhat dirty/disingenuous/cynical". Without fail, every time I ask these kinds of questions I get one of three responses: "Somehow Trump's fault." "You won't understand because I already know what you believe" or "I don't want to talk about his." Never have a I heard a rational, unemotional explanation of why people are pleased with Biden. Not Once. The truest response I ever got was "Doesn't it make you feel good that we're voicing support for the oppressed?" Those aren't answers. That's dodging the question because those people are afraid to answer questions with real facts and are running away. So yes, I will call that what it is. Cowardice.

Well, when the alleged mental health professionals have been overtaken by idiots who claim that homo/trans is just another normal choice, no matter how much money you provide, they aren’t going to actually help these mentally disturbed people make rational decisions and regain some cognitive balance. When truth is ignored (men can be women and vice versa) and value for life is minimized (abortion on demand), then we as a society aren’t going to really value truth or life. With no absolute truth, everything is subjective and at the whim of the individual. As shown above by Huggys link, the trans community is blaming normal people for that douchebag’s murder of kids.

He said he has a refrigerator full of ice cream, not even joking. That's a damn lie. Fill your fridge with ice cream and see what happens. If he can't get the little details right, how can he get the big ones right?

Everyone is special and deserves special pay 💰

Um if they identify it as real flying then it’s real flying and you’re a bigot.

All the back and forth aside, it’s going to be a very sad time for our country if the 2024 election is Trump vs Biden again. I honestly have no idea what I’m going to do if those are the choices. I voted for Trump twice, and don’t regret either one, but I won’t do it a third time because he is not the person to lead the country out of the mess it’s in. I plan to vote in a primary for the first time in my life next year, even though my state’s primary is pretty unimportant, I feel like I need to do something to try and prevent Trump from being the nominee.

I think most of us have zero desire to vote for him again. At least he got the silent treatment from the crowd when he mocked Desantis like a child at his last rally. Hopefully that’s an indicator of what’s to come. The RNC is absolutely fucking retarded if they nominate him again, as he’s probably the one guy who can actually lose to Biden.

I am neither conservative nor liberal, democrat nor republican. I never voted for Trump. I never voted for Biden. I currently have been voting more conservative simply because I have been agreeing topic to topic in that direction. It's not always been that way. For example: Democrats used to be anti-censorship and anti-authoritarian and I agreed with them often. Now they aren't, so now I don't. I'm an American who prefers adults making difficult decisions using humility, reason, logic, candor, and a certain level of social awareness. Our current president has none of those attributes. He is a hollow shell and you clearly understate all your critiques of him. It shows in how you carefully craft those critiques. Have the balls to admit the truth: Biden, Trump, and a vast majority of our current government have no business leading anything...ever. Yet you support them. If you let these people run your house or manage your daily decisions, you'd be homeless, divorced, and broke....and like addicted. I implore you to stop being a coward and call a spade a spade. Our government under Biden's administration has amplified political divisions rather then unifying as they claimed they would, has undercut our self-defense capacities, and is in the process of putting our economy nearly a decade away from fiscal recovery by way of spending beyond their means. There is no way you'd run your personal life the way this administration is, yet you actively support how they run our nations affairs. Such dissonance is not sustainable psychologically or socially. That's not understatement. That's factual information from each of those areas of focus. Ignore it if you want, but if you choose to refute it, please bring facts that prove your point, not emotions. You'll note I reference no social agendas, politics, or hot topic issues. It's the basics that are completely messed up. Live within your means. Make rational decisions. Protect the family unit. Don't pass on debt to your children. Unify, don't divide. Basics. If you insist on supporting agendas simply because they are "mainstream democrat" I beg you to reconsider. Acting in that way makes you what Marx called a "Useful Idiot", and you are hurting our country.

They don’t need to afford it, that’s the taxpayers job

Destroyed our energy sector, rejoined the useless Paris Climate Accords, continued to cow tow towards Iran while they kill Americans, massive number DEI/affirmative action hires like VPOTUS, humiliated the United States in Afghanistan, billions of dollars to Ukraine that we will never see again all while ensuring a free flow of future voters, sorry I mean illegal immigrants, sorry I mean “Undocumented Persons” across the Southern Border. These are mainstream Dem positions right? I’ll just let Nsplayr explain himself and also explain why he has zero critiques of a nation wide “Assault Weapon” Ban.

Great to see there are still people in our country that run toward the sound of gunfire. Good on that cop wearing the body cam both figuratively and literally pushing any of his fellow cops that appeared to slow down. A plan of nothing more than 'run to the sound of the gunshots and shoot that person' violently executed right now is better than SEAL team six showing up in 5 minutes. Now if only we can get some of the front office people armed and doors that consist of more than glass, we might have a chance at this being a page three news article about someone being killed trying to break into a school.

I say Biden/DeSantis ticket for 2024. Dems get what they want as long as Biden stays alive. Republicans get what they want when he dies, and until then they get the Senate back by having DeSantis as the tie breaker (assuming no shift from the current seats). Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This. What will they choose though? Money and power or doing what's best for our nation? I've read at least one history book and something tells me they will choose money and power.

I mentioned to my wife I'd volunteer one day a month to guard my daughters school and she countered "but would you trust the other dads who would want to volunteer as well? They don't have the experience you do." Maybe some training would be required for most, but I'd fucking stand guard.

I don't buy this argument any more than the mental health one. The entire western world has been trending more secular/woke/declining social fabric/whatever you want to call it for decades.. but we're the only country with a mass shooting every week. How do you even measure a nebulous concept like declining social fabric? Church attendance? Because that was certainly higher on 1950.. along with racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and men beating their wives. The social fabric argument strikes me as another pie in the sky deflection because it doesn't come with any proposed solution.

Let's build some affordable homes in Martha's Vineyard! My favorite part about homelessness in So Cal is going surfing a few days after it rains to find needles all over the beach. This happens every single time it rains here. Needles and trash. Yet our (CA) leadership cries about protecting the environment. The last time I checked, the ocean is part of the environment. Our cities (Los Angeles, Long Beach, and etc...) are decaying. It's a piece of shit now. I wouldn’t advise tourists to come and visit. It's a scam. You'll feel like you paid a fuck ton of money only to visit a crappy carnival that smells like shit. Disneyland is an overpriced liberal indoctrination camp. Our roads are worse than an Iraqi runway on March 21, 2003. Yet, Newsom is the next good thing? He's helped ruin my state. My favorite part is the SF reparations committee who have came up with a plan to pay people more than our entire state budget. All the while, SF is a shell of what it used to be. Tell me this makes sense. Go woke, go broke I guess? Let's keep voting blindly along party lines without doing any research about what we're voting for. That seems like it's working. Let's not focus on reality and give everyone a choice to literally become whatever they want. Let's change the way we identify men and women. Because changing what we call them makes our science true. Let's blame people today for things done 100s of years before we were born. Let's act like taking guns from law biding citizens will do anything to prevent mass shootings by criminals. Let's dumb down our schools so anyone can get in, regardless if they have a 1.5 GPA. Everytime we disagree with someone, let's call them a facist. Let's pretend that our side can do nothing wrong. Let's pretend that the people in Congress aren't insider trading. Let's pretend that our leaders really care about us.

Perhaps, but I've never met these guys, so I'm not willing to believe that. Rhetoric spouted online is almost invariably an escalated and idealized versions of true beliefs. Everyone does that. I know I do. Cutting through to ground truth of a differing view is worth it to me, so I'll keeping asking questions until I'm actually answered. To be clear: guys like @nsplayrand @Prozac are invaluable resources worth listening to. They continue to post on what is largely a conservative forum despite often getting attacked or derided for their beliefs, yet they continue. That means they are true believers and I, for one, seek to understand what facts drive their beliefs. History teaches that the left mis-understands or completely fails to care about the beliefs of the right. If conservatives and moderates don't try to understand the left, there is no hope of any kind of compromise, and society splits...which we're seeing right now.

@FourFans Good points but you’re going nowhere. Prozac is an idiot who votes a blind D ticket just like every idiot who votes a blind R ticket. To further demo the balance of this problem, his statement above makes him as delusional/uninformed/blind as the people who happily push for trump in the primaries. They’re no different from each other, just one is on the D side and the other is on the R side. These people will always exist in our society, unfortunately. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink…

To your first (unquoted) point, I don’t know that Medicaid is the answer, but I am for diverting money from colossally wasteful spending and putting it towards mental health services. To be clear, I do not support more total spending or new taxes, I support throwing Peter off the cliff to pay Paul. Firearms (or hammers, or prescription drugs, etc.) is irrelevant. What’s relevant is we have a systemic issue with not just mental health, but also rapidly declining societal norms and values. Those two things tied together are the RC of our issues that manifest in many ways, one of them being evil shitheads who shoot kids. Grndpndr’s post is a small visual presentation of that. But most importantly, we collectively see far less value in other human life than we used to. We’re not ISIS, but we’re sliding that way (in terms of zero fucks given for the lives of others who aren’t us/our circle). So why has this happened? I could list a thousand things that have driven our society down the toilet, and I believe we specifically have declined further than other first world countries (likely because we have more money and innovative capability that has netted us some really negative things, amongst all the great stuff too of course).

I’d like to see the person who can’t hold a fast food job because of mental illness/drug use magically afford a place of living because someone just built a dwelling. Sounds fantastic…al.

When I left USAFE for TAC I was able to hand carry my medical records. I purged the BS that my squadron FS kept me grounded for a few months. Had to go to the head USAFE FS that over ruled him. 40 years later I can still pass a Class 1 physical.

We are a massive and diverse population. While that’s mostly a good thing, it comes with some disadvantages and dissent. While our mental health may be on line with other nations, I believe our culture has declined over the past 15-20 years. As others have mentioned, we have seen a trend away from proper parenting and upbringing. The younger generations are self centered and entitled. Look at the drop in recruiting numbers. We stopped caring about others and treating our fellow neighbors with love and respect. Only Biff was around then but back in the 50s the availability of guns was the same but mass shootings almost never happened, why do you think that is? We also value individual freedoms such as the right to bear arms at the expense of a little security. What happened is absolutely tragic and one child is one too many, but I’d rather live in a country where I can protect my loved ones with a (very small) chance of anyone I know being involved in a mass shooting, vice a country without said liberties but “safer.”

Appalling mainstream media reaction aside.. I see a lot of people talking about mental health and how family or someone should notice the warning signs and just because I'm the asshole who always has to play devils advocate.. How would that actually work? People going through deep mental health problems often purposefully conceal it from the friends and family. This is really common in cases of suicide as well. Not to mention your family are probably the least likely people on earth to suspect you of potentially committing mass murder. You extend benefit of the doubt to family by default. I think it's so easy to say "how did they not see it" when it's someone else's kid but if it was our kid I doubt most of us would. Even if you suspect something is off, most people wouldn't immediately jump to report a family member to a government watch list red flagging them for gun ownership. That's quite the leap with potentially life ruining consequences. This is why I find the right's "mental health" argument just as disingenuous as the left's "guns are the problem" argument. Copy broken homes with shitty parenting produce bad kids. But you can't un-ring that bell. Much in the same way you can't un-ring the bell of there being hundreds of millions of firearms in circulation in America. And neither side of the political aisle seems to want to actually do something about guns or mental health when they have the power to. Dems controlled the house, senate, and presidency until last November and didn't do crap. Likewise republicans just say "mental health problem" to deflect without ever proposing any public funding or resources to fix our supposed mental health problem. Mass shootings are literally a fad / social contagion and I worry that the political parties using them as a bat to whack each other with does nothing more than prolong the fad's popularity.

FIFY.

hey, it's not all bad news!

Numbers seem low 😂 I’d ballpark it at close to 100%, other than maybe the brand new LTs who legit aren’t broken or old yet.

Biff, I love ya man but this is you rn…and it’ll probably be me in another 30 years or so! The only people I hear constantly harping about trans issues are old cranky GOP men and state legislators, and that Venn diagram has a lot of overlap 😅 Look I don’t fully get the issues trans people are dealing with, and parents should obviously have a say in their children’s medical care, but it’s like such a 0.1% issue I have a hard time caring at all. Adults can do whatever they want frankly. p.s. - if you want to nearly homelessness, stop holding up permitting reform and stop doing NIMBY historical character preservation nonsense and let developers build a ton of new apartments in whatever town you live in. And FWIW I am 100% walking this talk in suburban/exurban Nashville. Build build build.

Exactly. We call “ brave” what we called mental illness before all this craziness started. We give homeless drug addicts clean needles and narcan instead of arresting them and getting them into programs. Makes as much sense as seeing someone play Russian roulette and saying “here, let me give you some clean bullets because we care”

So here is the actual full video (~28 minutes) of Biden’s remarks at the Women’s Business Summit at the White House. https://www.c-span.org/video/?526980-1/president-biden-calls-congress-pass-assault-weapons-ban-nashville-school-shooting 10:14-12:24 includes his opening comments about the shooting in Nashville. Feel free to judge him by those comments; I think they were very appropriate. Of literally all the things in the entire world Joe Biden can speak about well and compassionately, it would be having a child die cruelty too soon. Before 10:14 he was introduced and warmed up the visiting crowd at the White House, which included kids, and after 12:24, he have his actual remarks about women and their businesses. Even the joking comment about Jenni’s Ice Cream highlighted in bad faith above makes sense given that it’s not only a personal fav of his and an ongoing meme about him, but it’s also an ice cream business started by a woman that’s now wildly successful. So given full context instead of the dickhead edit you see above, I have basically zero critiques.

50 years ago BiffT was saying the same thing except it was in regards to Elvis Presley and the devil music.....

ADOs, too! That’s where the real work is done. DOs are just figure heads! 😇

Very impressive work by cops.

DO's need incentive pay, IMO. The CC at least has a chance at promotion and is their because they want to be (most of the time). The DO is probably in that position against their will, has limited promotion potential, and is getting the same amount of crap as the CC...just one is ops and the other is people. Edit: And I am not even a DO. 😇

It has been proven over and over again that having a complete family unit while growing up is one of the single biggest predictors of success in life. By success I don't mean becoming a CEO or a pro athlete, I simply mean a good happy human being.

The root cause of all of these kids doing this is shitty parents. Either shitty because they support their kid having a mental health crisis, or so detached from their kid’s life they had no idea any of this was happening until too late. Either way they failed their kid, horrifically.

💯 Miley and Austin disgrace the service and would resign if they had any honor. Petty incompetent political creatures.

I said it before, men really are better at everything, including being a woman.

How this dipshit still has a job and hasn’t been dragged in front of congress for his epic failure in Afghanistan is beyond me. Talking to a lot of my grunt buddies…one of the least respected “members” of the SOF community.

The only uniform item that I derive any morale from whatsoever is the green bag. It serves as a daily reminder that I'm better than the nonners and the paper pushers who convene meetings like the one that produced this worthless uniform reg update. hot take alert: if you wear the two piece flight suit you're a beta cuck flyer who is complicit it the eventual eradication of the green bag. Shame on you and your disrespect for tradition and may god have mercy on your soul

Stupid money. low bullshit. gets me out of the house.

Hey @Padres02, I’ll take a swing at your questions: Though you didn’t mention it specifically, I’m assuming you’re applying to Guard/Res units. Your scores are really good. Your flight time is also a huge plus. Your young age is also a big help, and the fact you’re applying in your last semester of college is excellent. Lastly, being enlisted in a unit can be very helpful in getting selected for an interview; certainly some home field advantage. Your GPA isn’t awesome, neither was mine. But, if I were reviewing your application I’d think that “spatial data science” sounds like a difficult field of study…simply because I have no idea what the hell that is and it has the word science in it. Also, you framed it well showing improvement, you can definitely talk about this maturing process in an interview. You asked about the other endorsements, it’ll show some ability on your part, but more than likely won’t be a huge deciding factor. I tell you this because unless you have a ton of money burning a hole in your pocket, I wouldn’t worry about getting that instrument rating. Uncle Sam will pay you to learn it in UPT. As for the PRK, definitely bring it up, and let them know the waiver process is being started. Laser correction is not a secret you’ll be able to hide from them. If I selected you and then found out that we were stuck in the waiver process, I’d be pissed, as we could not move forward until those waivers are moving as well. There’s an awesome flight doc on here: @stuckindayton He’s super helpful, and really goes the extra mile to help folks with all things AF med. I’d start bouncing questions his way, while working with your home unit, because if we know anything about medicine, it’s that answers often vary. My final piece of advice is regarding airframes, locations, and attitude: I get it, we all want to live/work somewhere nice. However, I bristle whenever we’re interviewing some UPT hopeful and they go on and on about how much they love my state…blah, blah, blah, yet they’ve never been there before the interview or rolled through on their way to Disneyland once. Every state, every unit, and every mission has positives and negatives. It’s going to be up to you to decide what’s reasonable. You’re young enough to be selective at this point. If you don’t have any luck this interview season, cast a wider net next. Having said that, I’d find the location and mission you’re most interested in and get to know that unit. The more you can get to know the folks you want to work for, the better. If you’re applying to your home unit. Wander over to ops next drill. Introduce yourself to the pilots. Ask to speak to the Chief Pilot or DO. Let them know you’re applying. They’ll probably invite you to a function to get to know you better. Repeat this every drill! Bring them a bottle of something good for the bar, next time they might invite you to stick around for a drink. Lastly, under no circumstances show a speck of entitlement. Your attitude matters more than all of your qualifications combined. We’re looking for a good pilot and long term friend. I hope this helps and good luck to you. I’d say your chances of selection for an interview are high, the rest is up to you.

Yeah, what he said. I started the process after turning 60 after an active duty then reserves career. Tinnitus was easy. Neck injury was documented. However, frostbite from Land Survival and Arctic Survival was not. Raynaud's (blood flow shutting off to fingers) triggered by cold at Arctic Survival was not documented because I was afraid they would ground me or boot me out of Alaska. This is a significant % according to the VA office. Hearing loss due my time as an Armor Battalion ALO surrounded by loud ass tanks wasn't documented but easily proved but wish I had done a hearing test after getting surprised by an M1 main gun firing only 30 yards away. So, even if it is just one line in your medical records, it is in your records for later use. Document everything.

I had a blast in my 11 years of AD, but I had a lot of good timing and luck with assignments and commanders. The guard has been phenomenal and much better than AD, even considering my admittedly good run in the AD. There is so much less BS in the guard, you know what you’re flying (vs. hoping it works out and you don’t have poor luck on assignment night), and it’s probably in a location you enjoy living. My opinion is go guard until your age puts you at a disadvantage (late 20s), then go AD. 1) You’re correct, it’s going to be harder to do non-standard things in the ARC, but a common misconception is you’re “stuck” for a full career at one squadron doing the same thing. There are absolutely opportunities to go do test, live in Europe, go back to UPT, change airframes/units, do a staff job, go to Weapons School, teach at Weapons School, etc. There’s a reserve B-2 squadron and I think there’s at least one or two U-2 reservist (someone correct me if I’m wrong on that). Point is a hell of a lot more “change it up” opportunity in the ARC than people think. 2) That’s not the mold, just some people. Tons of dudes fly their ass off in the guard and don’t work for an airline. At least in the fighter world, you will be expected to give 5-7 days a month as a part timer. Most guys live local, so I’ve seen many part timers flying 10+ sorties a month. I can’t speak for other communities, but we are very far from the “one weekend a month” side of the guard. There’s also plenty of opportunity to stay full time if you don’t want another civ job - you can’t plan on it of course, but I’ve never seen a guy who wanted to be full time not be kept full time through one of many avenues.

There's been a general trend here of guys asking "How can I improve my chances?" and getting responses like "This has been discussed, do a search." I'm the first one to pass out a UTFSF card, but the way the info is arranged sporadically throughout a number of threads and jammed in the middle of a bunch of stats, I admit it's tough to search for and find. I’ve tried to merge the posts into one jumbo thread, but it was so random and scattered it didn’t make much sense, so I’m going to start a new thread with stolen and linked info from the old threads (click on each subject for a link to a separate thread on that subject). This is intended primarily for pilot slot applicants, but feel free to add info on how to improve your chances for ROTC/OTS/USAFA. After you read Brabus' post on evaluating your chances for a pilot slot and before you ask how to improve your chances, read through this thread. This is NOT for posting stats and chances, it's for generic methods of improvement. Flying hours – Not necessary and a lot of hours may actually work against you (un-learning civilian flying to follow the Air Force way), but a small number of hours could be beneficial to give you a general feel for flying and concept of the principles. Additionally, it shows that you’re motivated enough to get out there and get some training yourself. GPA/degree: Your GPA is huge, the associated degree is not. A technical degree will help you get into ROTC or help you if you want to be a test pilot down the line, but a 4.0 English major does not weigh higher than an engineering 4.0 major. High school GPA does not matter. AFOQT scores: You have the option to re-take, but the second test will be your score. If you score worse the second time around, you take a hit. The only question I have is whether there is a cut-off at which you would recommend re-taking the test? Citizenship – Get it. You cannot commission into the military if you are not a US citizen. Fitness: Improve it. Your Physical Fitness Test score weighs into your PCSM score. Commander’s Ranking: This can be huge, not only for your OM, but in terms of what your commander may decide to help you out with. Extracurricular: This will help you for the ‘whole person’ concept, but where you’ll really make your money is in volunteering, primarily in Det activities. Also reference the commander’s ranking thread. Ethnic background – Doesn’t matter. Affirmative action won’t help you and prejudice won’t work against you. “If you can fly a jet, I dont care if youre purple-skinned or Klingon. There is no gender bias. There is no racial bias. There is SKILLS bias.” That's what I've got it, discussion is open for additional recommendations and questions.

If you are absolutely sure this is what you were put on this earth to do, have you considered active duty? Or heavy units? Or enlisting in an ANG unit to gain experience and get to know the squadron better? You're self-selecting to the most difficult group to be hired into and you're already fighting an uphill battle compared to many of your fellow applicants. Having a PPL is 100% a gateway because the Guard loses the pilot slot if you wash out of UPT. They can afford to be picky with who they select, and they should be. If you wash out they don't get a chance to fill your slot with an alternate, that money is gone. Think about this from the SQ/CC point of view, are you willing to wager the one or two slots per year you get on someone with zero flight time? Especially when you're getting 100-200 applicants per year for each pilot slot, many of whom have 90s across the board on AFOQT/TBAS, great GPAs, and a PPL in addition to a good work ethic? Active duty is where the Air Force can afford to take chances on people because they own you and can send you down another career path if you don't make it. The Guard doesn't have that luxury. If you want to bump your chances with guard fighter units, find a way to make the PPL happen.

#1: You're still in the goldilocks zone IMO. Similar to you, I started this process and took all my tests at 25, and got picked up for fighters of the street at age 26. Age is very unit dependent, some prefer young guys out of college, while others see value in someone with more life/professional experience. Through this process I've seen several people get picked up for fighters at 28, 29, and 30. Furthermore, this may vary by year as units decide to hire young one year and balance it out with an older hire the next. Overall, If you are competitive in every other way, I do not see age as something that will negatively impact you until maybe 28. That gives you a solid 2-3 years to apply/rush as hard as you can. Come interview time, you may very well be asked why you didn't start earlier or pursue an AD commission. Have a real and honest answer ready and it should be a non-issue. On that note though, why wait until spring to do your tests? Definitely give yourself 2-3 months to study, but you should want to get them done ASAP, as the last thing you want to be doing is trying to harass a recruiter to schedule you in time for the spring "batch" of boards. I made this mistake peak-COVID and wished I had started it earlier. #2: Echoing above, but this is again very unit dependent. IMO, the general rule of thumb is that local ties can always help you but the lack thereof won't necessarily hurt you. I've been at several rush events and interviews where it felt like there was only one or two guys from the opposite coast, but they were still invited out the same as the local guys. If the unit really likes you, they're not going to care where you live, as long as you can convince them that you're willing to drop everything and move there when that time comes. Sometimes though, with all other things even, they will go with a local guy as a tiebreaker. You can't control the board's selection process and there's really no way around that except to be yourself and show why you'd be the best fit for the squadron, both on paper and in person. I can only speak from my own experiences, but this is what I've found through the process thus far. Long story short, I think just about everybody in the "circuit" has had these same concerns at some point, it's only natural. Though I wouldn't let either of them prevent you from pursuing this with your full effort, and given your current situation I certainly don't think either would preclude you from getting a slot. Good luck!

Air Guard F-16 alert unit "Tell us about yourself?" "How do you feel about maybe having to kill people?" "How do you feel about the possibility of having to shoot down a civilian airliner?" "Which is more important, being an officer or a pilot?" "Make me believe your not going to quit or washout" "Why you over the other candidates?" "If your dog was drowning and a complete stranger was drowning, who would you save if you could only save one?" "My biggest failure" "Why the F-16?" "What do you know about our mission both stateside and overseas?" "How are you a leader?" There were a couple more of the "standard" questions and maybe some others that I'm forgetting.