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Cougar wrote:

First off, good job picking the USAF, it's the best branch by far.  Second, I commend you for stepping up to do this and serve your country, as I did.  Third, I want to slap you in the fucking face for going open general. 

When I enlisted my recruiter gave me the same bullshit, "Yeah, go open general and you can pick what you want to do while your in basic training."  BULLSHIT.  I wanted to go Loadmaster, but it wasn't open yet, my recruiter talked me into going open general in the hope that a position would open.  Didn't quite work out the way he or I expected.  When you get to basic, on your third or fourth week you are going to go down to the admin building to "pick" your AFSC.  When you get there they will take you into a little room and show you a list of AFSC's.  Not jobs, AFSC's.  They'll say "Pick five." and then you leave.  They then look at which jobs are the most undermanned and that is where you get to go.  I got extremely lucky and got 3C0X1, look it up.

My best advice I could possibly give you is to call your recruiter and tell him you want to be a cop and that you DO NOT want to be open general.  Wait as long as you need too, because trust me, you don't want to be a cook or a Information Assistant.  Not that cop is much better, but whatever floats your boat.  I just hope you like chem gear exercises and sitting on a flight-line with no toilet at 3 in the morning every other day.

Cop=Almost the crappiest job you can have.  Unless your in a K-9 flight. Then it's cool.  But other than that, it sucks.  A lot.

Oh shit a 3CO. We got alot of you guys in the Ground Radio flight in my squadron. I am a 2E1X1. Satellite Wideband Maintainer. Are you still in? If so where at? Yea I agree with you that you should go in with a guarenteed AFSC. Open General can and 9 outta 10 times will fuck you over. If you wanna be a cop then demand that AFSC. I know they can put you in that job but theyre trying to fuck you over, believe me. Ive seen it happen too many times.

{BMF}*Frank_The_Tank wrote:

So Ive heard about the Open General horror stories.  The upside is that they need 4000 cops this year.  And the next job with the most needed people is airborne linguist at 550 people this year.  I did call up my recruiter, and tell him I wanted to be listed as security forces, not open general, but he said he cant change it.  BUT, before leaving, I will have to go to MEPS again and do some outprocessing stuff, and there, I will get to see the job counselors again, and with them, they will make sure what job Im going for and all that, and I can specify security forces again.

Thanks for encouragement cougar, and I laughed when I saw the "Third, I want to slap you in the fucking face" lol.  Someone fucked up on booking the job, which sucks...yes.  Ive heard alot of people say that being a cop is a shitty job....which I wont lie, it will have its times that Im standing outside at 1 AM, next to a gate or hangar for multiple hours and it being 25 degrees out will suck balls.  But like every job, it will have its upside.  I am a little bit worried about getting stuck in a job other than security forces.  If I get stuck with something else, and I like it....great.  I just dont want to get stuck doing some stupid shit like a dental hygenist, a cook, or a forklift driver.  Well have to see I guess......

Wow your recruiter is lying so bad. Nothing is official until you take your final oath the day you ship out. Til then you control whatever job you want. DO NOT LISTEN TO HIM. He has a quota he has to meet and im betting you that his supervisor is telling him to send you open general so they can put you into some bullshit job that needs fillied. Ive seen and heard of it happening. My old supervisor was a recruiter for 3 years and he told me that they were sometimes ordered to lie about vacancies about the jobs the recruit wanted and advised them to go in open general so the Air Force could decide what job they got. I WOULD NEVER LET THE AIR FORCE CHOOSE ANYTHING FOR YOU IF POSSIBLE. Especially in this case. Dont let them pwn you man.

Go to it man .. joa goin gto be the best pilot ... *sigh* make sure you have a lot of fun there.

arabeater wrote:

{BMF}*Frank_The_Tank wrote:

So Ive heard about the Open General horror stories.  The upside is that they need 4000 cops this year.  And the next job with the most needed people is airborne linguist at 550 people this year.  I did call up my recruiter, and tell him I wanted to be listed as security forces, not open general, but he said he cant change it.  BUT, before leaving, I will have to go to MEPS again and do some outprocessing stuff, and there, I will get to see the job counselors again, and with them, they will make sure what job Im going for and all that, and I can specify security forces again.

Thanks for encouragement cougar, and I laughed when I saw the "Third, I want to slap you in the fucking face" lol.  Someone fucked up on booking the job, which sucks...yes.  Ive heard alot of people say that being a cop is a shitty job....which I wont lie, it will have its times that Im standing outside at 1 AM, next to a gate or hangar for multiple hours and it being 25 degrees out will suck balls.  But like every job, it will have its upside.  I am a little bit worried about getting stuck in a job other than security forces.  If I get stuck with something else, and I like it....great.  I just dont want to get stuck doing some stupid shit like a dental hygenist, a cook, or a forklift driver.  Well have to see I guess......

Wow your recruiter is lying so bad. Nothing is official until you take your final oath the day you ship out. Til then you control whatever job you want. DO NOT LISTEN TO HIM. He has a quota he has to meet and im betting you that his supervisor is telling him to send you open general so they can put you into some bullshit job that needs fillied. Ive seen and heard of it happening. My old supervisor was a recruiter for 3 years and he told me that they were sometimes ordered to lie about vacancies about the jobs the recruit wanted and advised them to go in open general so the Air Force could decide what job they got. I WOULD NEVER LET THE AIR FORCE CHOOSE ANYTHING FOR YOU IF POSSIBLE. Especially in this case. Dont let them pwn you man.

arabeater knows what the fuck he's talking about.  The recruiters only main goal is to "get em in boots"  you aint in the military until you swear in for a second time right before you ship out.  try to get EXACTLY what you want in your contract or else, chances are. you aint gonna get it.

i did

Frank I went in "Open Admin" and wound up in Satellite Intelligence.  It was a blast!  But really, whatever you do make sure you have fun at it. 

Keep in mind in basic that you are all in it together and that it's not going to get any worse than that.  What they guys are saying about the mental part is dead on.  Don't let them mess with your head.  Believe me, in a few months you'l  be laughing about the crap you went through in basic.

And if you haven't already started... get off your butt and get running.  You are going to be walking a lot.  Lackland is a huge base.  I'm here in San Antonio now, and believe me you are lucky you won't be here during the summer months.

And if you are dead set of being an SP... don't let them make you take the second oath until you see it in writing.  They will try to get you to, just swear in and we'll take care of it, but GET IT IN WRITING.

I miss the USAF... not the politics, just the job.

RAIMIUS wrote:

Basic does try to mess with your head a little.  My roommate and I make a least one joke  per night about stupid stuff during basic.  (It was only a couple months ago, so it's still kind of fresh in our minds.)  I don't know about basic at Lackland, but at the Academy it is not really tough, it just grinds you down a little.  Keep your stuff straight and help others as much as you can.

Good choice, USAF!

whoah, didnt make a thread about shipping out a while back? how did it all go.

(Sorry to hijack the thread for a minute)

Basic went well.  It was not as physically demanding as I thought, but there was a large cumulative effect.  There were times when everyone was dragging.  We only had 1 out of 33 in my flight out-process.  He realized that he never should have come here.  I have a lot of funny stories from Basic, but most are of the "you should have been there" variety.  It's now a somewhat fond memory (that I do not want to repeat).  USAFA basic is different from enlisted basic in that it is run by upper class cadets with minimal TI oversight.  I think everyone was subconsciously on the lookout for the TI "Smokey the bear" hats.  They were usually bad news for both us basics and the cadre.

Now that the academic year has started, life is a little more normal...at least by academy standards.  I am working on making the Dean's and Commandant's lists (academic and military honor rolls).  Unfortunately, I am out of shape by academy standards and have to go to mandatory workouts.

I wound up straining my calf (at the knee) while running the Assault course. That surely didn't help my fitness test score two weeks later!

The academy is a unique place.  I love and hate it at the same time.  There are times when I want to be virtually anywhere else, but know that I'd miss this place at the same time.  I wouldn't trade it for the other colleges I looked at though...not in a million years.

Frank, make sure you run for endurance and do sit-ups, push-ups, and flutter kicks too.  The fitter you are, the easier basic becomes.  It is a lot of mental stress, but by removing some physical stress-it becomes that much easier.

Last edited by RAIMIUS (2006-11-01 20:05:39)

{BMF}*Frank_The_Tank wrote:

Yeah, the push-ups are whats killing me right now.  This is why Ive basically buried myself in working out, focusing on triceps, shoulders and chest.  All those muscles are the ones used most for push-ups, and I am lacking horribly there.  When I first went into my recruiters office, I was in the worst shape of my life.  Im slowly getting into the best shape, but Im still far from that.  Sit-ups I dont mind so much, like anything else they come easier with the more you do it, and the good thing about them is ab muscles that are relatively in shape, help everything else. 

But like I said, Im focusing most on push-ups for the time being. 

And as for running, I dont have a problem with it, Im just waiting for my legs to feel a bit less sore and my knees to ease up a bit.  When I start running they feel like they arent really "absorbing" the shock, it just feels like its more of a stress on it.  Hope it heals up soon, because its fucking annoying lol.

just do that push up pyramid I told you about (i think I did) every 2 or 3 days.  do push ups till you reach muscle failure then stop for a day or two to let your muscles heal.  the best way to improve on push ups is to just do push ups.  it gets pretty repetative and boring but thats the quickest way from doing 10 nonstop to a 100

{BMF}*Frank_The_Tank wrote:

GunSlinger OIF II wrote:

{BMF}*Frank_The_Tank wrote:

Yeah, the push-ups are whats killing me right now.  This is why Ive basically buried myself in working out, focusing on triceps, shoulders and chest.  All those muscles are the ones used most for push-ups, and I am lacking horribly there.  When I first went into my recruiters office, I was in the worst shape of my life.  Im slowly getting into the best shape, but Im still far from that.  Sit-ups I dont mind so much, like anything else they come easier with the more you do it, and the good thing about them is ab muscles that are relatively in shape, help everything else. 

But like I said, Im focusing most on push-ups for the time being. 

And as for running, I dont have a problem with it, Im just waiting for my legs to feel a bit less sore and my knees to ease up a bit.  When I start running they feel like they arent really "absorbing" the shock, it just feels like its more of a stress on it.  Hope it heals up soon, because its fucking annoying lol.

just do that push up pyramid I told you about (i think I did) every 2 or 3 days.  do push ups till you reach muscle failure then stop for a day or two to let your muscles heal.  the best way to improve on push ups is to just do push ups.  it gets pretty repetative and boring but thats the quickest way from doing 10 nonstop to a 100

Im not sure if you told me about the pyramid or not, but Ive had people tell me about it.  I do as many as I can (which as of now, is about 7 as embarrassing as that is), wait a couple minutes, do more, wait, do more and so on, until I hit the point where once I get down, my arms wont push me back up.  Once my arms get to that point, Ill give it a little while, then do some of the wuss push-ups, but instead of regular type, I use the diamond shape with my hands centered below my chest.  Works them harder than normal wuss push ups.....

damn Im a failure ......wuss push ups I mean c'mon.............partially embarrassing.

that just means you got a whole lot of improving to look forward to. do 7. pause for 30 seconds then do 6 then pause then 5 then pause 4...pause....3....2....1 and then 2 and then pause...3  pause 4 yada yada yada.  in NO TIME you will see an improvement from 7 to 70.  do that and then rest your arms and work on abs the next day and run the next day.  the abdominals are one of the only muscle groups along with your legs that you could constantly work out with giving your body time to recover, so i recommend you go buck wild with the sit ups and curles and run a good steady 2-3 miles at least 3 times a week. but when you run dont cheat yourself.  if your not a fast runner just keep it at a slow steady pace, not to fast and not to slow. sprint everynow and then but never stop.  the key to running is to have your heart rate speed up for at least a  good 20 minutes if you wanna see any improvement on that slice of the PT pie.  i love ab work outs, thats my niche.  but you gotta work on those push ups big time, dont worry you got plenty of time. start your pyramid at 7 and then next week youll see how easy you could go to 8, but keep it steady and over a short period of time youll be amazed at how much you improved. these are just some of the things ive noticed and been told during my time in boots.

i spent a night at Lackland in guest housing.  san antonio is the best military town out there

Last edited by GunSlinger OIF II (2006-11-01 20:40:13)

Arab, I know its the AF Im going to lol, but think about how rediculous it would be if I get to basic, some TI is like "On your face and give me 15!", then Im like "umm..I can do 7...how does that sound?"

GS, Ive noticed a difference in my ability in just the past week and half.  I started at being able to do a whole whopping 3.  Within a few days it was 5, then 7.  So its increasing, just taking some work.  Thanks for all the input and help.

{BMF}*Frank_The_Tank wrote:

Arab, I know its the AF Im going to lol, but think about how rediculous it would be if I get to basic, some TI is like "On your face and give me 15!", then Im like "umm..I can do 7...how does that sound?"

GS, Ive noticed a difference in my ability in just the past week and half.  I started at being able to do a whole whopping 3.  Within a few days it was 5, then 7.  So its increasing, just taking some work.  Thanks for all the input and help.

What rank are going in as? E1, E2 or E3?