Originally posted by Daubie
When you get done with high school, enlist. Grow up and get away from mom and dad. You can start your college in service and does GI bill still have educational benefits when you get out? Go get an engineering degree, then reapply as an officer candidate. I hated basic training. I think the officers get a little bit more extra heaping measureful for their indoctrination into it. I watched the other night what Marine Corps officer candidates have to go through to Quantico.
I was a bit of a pacifist as a kid. I was 22 when I enlisted in the Bees, Navy needed carpenters. My draft number never came up during 'Nam. The process changes your attitude to respect this country to do what is necessary, well it did me. My WWII Pacific Marine wife's uncle would only talk to me in all of the family as I was the only other military guy. He told me a lot of what even the movies never show. He never talked about the war, except to me. I asked him early on if he remembered it. "Like it was yesterday!" is what he told me. What he told me was strictly between him and me, even still, now that he died. I trained with the Marines to Camp LeJeune so we kind of had common ground to stand upon.
Russian Air Force before you even get very far stick you into a centrifuge. Whether you biologically can handle the G forces they expect, is what allows you to go further or not.
So you may wish to fly fighters or a certain type of aircraft, but the selection process may prove otherwise. My Navy boards of testing I actually qualified for Annapolis, but my color blindness disqualified me.
Daubie
Daubie - while your points are good for someone looking to serve...you can rarely become a fighter pilot via OCS (Officer Candidate School)...although it is possible.
68Hall hit it on the head though.
When I was in HS, I wanted to pursue the USAF and become a fighter jock. So i learned all about what was required, visited the USAF Academy, etc. I learned the USAF wants the best of the best ONLY to fly their assets.
I had the smarts, grades, extracurricular activities, Eagle Scout, 20/20 vision, all of it. I didn't make it because after I was accepted for the USAF ROTC (I decided the USAF Academy was not my ideal location for college years) and accepted at Penn State, they looked into my Medical History and saw I had seasonal allergies and asthma for a year or two in my early teenage years. Because of that, they scrapped my ROTC scholarship and my hopes of becoming a fighter jock. (After the Gulf War the DoD noticed soldiers with asthma whom served on the front came back and had it worse, so their medical expenses went thru the roof...therefore they stopped accepting people into the service with asthma.)
There are essentially 2 paths for becoming a pilot in today's USAF. Even if you are successful and go down one of these paths, you may still not make it, its just too competitive. I believe 1% of the entire USAF actually gets a shot at pilot school. And they don't all make it (does NOT mean its not possible).
The USAF getsits pilots from two places, with very few outside exceptions.
1 = USAF Academy. 2= USAF ROTC.
After high school, you need to get into the USAF Academy OR get accepted into USAF ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps) and attend a great university and get an engineering or science degree. Before and during your college years you have to keep your nose clean all the way. No drugs, booze, police activity, bad grades, etc. After that, you go through all sorts of aptitude tests and schools to see if you can qualify for Pilot School. From there, you have to pass Pilot School and hope to god you score well enough to be given an assignment to fighter jock school.
Its a tough, tough path...but the rewards if you make it will be great. Go for it!!
