One of my sons is talking to a recruiter and thinking of going into the Air Force. Probably looking at one of the medical MOS's. Any suggestions or recruiter tricks he should be watchingout for?

One thing that caused my BS meter to go off was the recruiter telling him he didn't need to pick a job slot until after Basic. I can't imagine even signing the final papers without everything in writing specifying what he is signing up for.

Suggestions?

Getting a guaranteed job in the Air force takes forever, and typically isn't possible so most people end up picking the field that they want and going in general.

Picking fields that are employable after is a wise choice.

The Air Force is really hard to get into these days, they even do credit checks... so keep a clean nose while he's applying that is one thing for sure.

When I was in the USAF back in the dark ages, it was called an AFSC. MOS is Army lingo for a soldier's specialty.

Paul

Keep in mind, in the Air Force, there are few medical specialties for enlisted that have a similar civilian equivalent. Medical technicians do it all in the air force - they even know how to do stitches! In the civilian world, it doesn't transfer. X-Ray tech would be one that would transfer to a civilian specialty, but military experience and training won't suffice for a civilian job, without additional training and certifications.

It sucks. Many of the med techs in the military do things that I do now as an RN. And...they do them better.

yeah Dan, when I was a 91C in the Army, we were trained to do all sorts of stuff.. although with my MOS I was able to get a Paramedic License and an LPN license, and an RN license thereafter.....

I worked at the University of Washington Hosp after I got off active duty, and went into the Guard.... they were making the Med Students do IVs, and they took that away and wanted to hand it off to the Nursing Staff.. no one had any IV experience, as the Med Students had done it for so long...

and then they told the Nursing Staff office, that they had to train themselves from within, as the med students couldn't be spared to train the nurses....

There were 3 people on the Nursing Staff in the entire hospital that had IV experience at the time.... Me and two recently discharged Navy Corpsmen...and all three of us were working as LPNs at the moment....

In the State at the time, LPNs couldn't do IVs.... but the Hospital Nursing Office had NO problem with we three ex military guys training the entire nursing staff.. but then after we trained every one and actually instructed them as they were doing venipuncture....we were not allowed to start IVs on patients ourselves because we were LPNs...

Stupid I know....but the training we got in the military was far beyond what we would have been exposed to in any civilian program... which makes a good basis for getting a degree while in our when you get out....

one of the guys in my class, went on to the the P.A. program at Ft Bliss, then went into the Guard and went to Law School to do medical malpractice cases.....

I am sure he did financially well in life.. courtesy of Uncle Sam..

My experience mirros Dans. When I got my Seven level I was rated as an Isolated Duty Technician, which meant I could be sent to post where I was the only Medical person there.

When I went to Nursing school, I as surprised at how little I was allowed to do, compared to what I had done as a Medic.

One of our Eagle Scouts from previous spring, joined the AF Reserve and is a real book worm kind of kid...scored real high and he got into Military intelligence...

He was attending drills monthly over at Kingsley Field in Klamath Falls for 6 or 7 months before they could schedule him into Basic Training...

He gets down to San Antonio, and after two weeks down there, they discharge him.... he had color blindness issues, and a few other problems that were not medically correctable...

he joined the Reserves for the College Benefits...

However the aftermath was the exact opposite from my time in the Reserves 30 years ago...back then you could have issues that they wouldn't accept on Active Duty, but would waiver if you wanted to join the Reserves or Guard...

But they told Forrest, that he could not stay in the Reserves...but they would waiver him, if he wanted to go Active...crazy....

But he had already gotten his security clearances, and hadn't even been thru basic yet....

evidently the military isn't the same game as when many of us older guys were in....

If I had a kid wanting to get into the Air Force, the best advice I could give him would be to go Navy. Fortunately my grandson, who just completed Navy electronics tech school and is now going to nuclear power school, didn't need to be told. He's fourth generation.

Living close to the base I see very few young airmen around town anymore compared to five or ten years ago.The number of senior NCO's and junior officers seem to be on the increase but as you know the command element here most likely dictates these numbers.

They're forcing a lot of people to take early retirement.
I wouldn't expect them to make too many promises they will KEEP

Thanks, Dan & others. Medical is one of the fields he was thinking about - med tech / xray tech / etc. He took a pretest ASVAB and blew it away, now the recruiter is steering him away from the med tech positions saying he'd be bored silly.

Recruiter says he should be able to pick any job he wants and get it if there are no other things to disqualify him. Suggesting things like Intelligence, computer specialties, linguist positions.. I'm pushing him to think of what that job will translate into once he gets out. So not sure what his thoughts on aerospace control or space systems operations would do for him afterwards. Boring old dad pushing reality into his plans.

Is he set on enlisting or is considering trying to get a commission an option? I did ROTC and highly recommend that path if the young man had a pretty good idea of what he wants to do as a career. The air force is significantly over manned at the moment so they're turning down all of the new accession pipelines which will make it tougher to get a slot/scholarship, but it's still worth trying. Barring that, there are some good enlisted opportunities. Medical isn't bad, intel and linguist opens up some very specific post AF career opportunities, but only in a couple parts of the country. I don't have any specific guidance in regards to recruiters, just be careful and make sure that promises are in writing.

Linguist

If he plans on going past his initial enlistment , of the AFSC's he is looking , which ones have the largest reenlistment bonus multiplier ?