It's a hard knock (Military) life...

For my last class blog I wanted to provide some insight into my professional life before I started working at Seton Hall and attending CCM. When I tell people I am retired from the military I am asked a lot of questions about what it was like, was basic training hard, etc. This post will hopefully provide a quick overview of this information and links to sites you can visit for more information.

I spent 23.5 years in the United States Air Force (USAF). I met a lot of great people, got to travel to dozens of countries around the world and experience things that I never thought I would get a chance to see/participate in. No matter which service someone goes in, however long their journey ends up being, everyone always starts in the same place: basic military training.

Air Force basic training is approximately 6.5 weeks long and happens at Lackland Air Force Base (AFB) in San Antonio, TX. Lackland is the only basic training site for the USAF so it has been aptly nicknamed "The Gateway to the Air Force". Basic training, or basic military training (BMT) as it is called at Lackland, is no walk in the park. Instructors, called Military Training Instructors (MTIs), have 6.5 weeks to transform these young men and women from civilians into USAF Airmen. This transformation starts the moment trainees arrive on base on the bus ride from the airport and is non-stop.

If you are interested in possibly joining the USAF, you can find a great deal of helpful information at the USAF Basic Military Training website, including a breakdown of what you can expect to happen during each week of training.

I consider myself a fairly lucky individual because not only did I experience basic training from the trainee side, I went back 7 years later and served as an MTI for 4 years. So I was one of those who got to experience basic training from the instructor side as well. It was a tough job (long hours, lots of talking/yelling/marching) and I am extremely grateful I decided to apply to do it.

For my last assignment before retiring, I was assigned to a NATO unit in Szczecin, Poland. This allowed me to see an entirely different side of our US military. In Poland I served with military members from 29 other NATO countries and 3 non-NATO ally countries. This was a tremendous view into the international alliances the US has around the world and the cultures and customs of ally countries. If you have the chance to attend an Oktoberfest in Germany or hosted by a German citizen, go! The German element of our NATO barracks hosted Oktoberfest each year and it was amazing! 😁

For over 23 years my world was the USAF...until this past summer. In late 2022 my son enlisted in the US Navy (USN). He shipped to basic training (called boot camp by Navy members) in May and graduated 4 Aug. I was excited to be able to take a few days off from work and attend in person along with my daughter and stepmom.

Until this trip I had never had any long term connection with the Navy. On one of my temporary deployments while I was on active duty, I served at a major command base and worked with members of all other US branches, so I interacted with several Navy sailors while there. Other than that my entire military career was USAF-based.

The Navy boot camp graduation ceremony was, in a word, awesome! Lots of cheering from the audience, performance of military drill by the graduating sailors and a few extra drill teams. You could see and hear the pride and excitement of everyone in the building everywhere you turned! The graduation hall was a long hanger at least 200 yards long, maybe more. There were 6200 graduating sailors, 3-4 guests per sailor, plus misc Navy personnel working security, participating in the ceremony, etc. The place was packed!

The picture below is during the ceremony. We were seated about 2/3 of the way down from the far left of the hanger; it continued another 30-40 yards past us on the right out of camera view. The Navy streams their weekly graduation ceremonies; you can check out past videos on one of their official Navy pages.

My son kind of shocked his mother and I when he said he was thinking of enlisting. We were both excited and nervous for him while he was going through boot camp. He only got 2-3 guaranteed calls in the 10-week training. Going through those long stretches without hearing from him was difficult. but it was worth it when he called us and said he passed his "final exam" exercise, Battle Stations. Every sailor recruit must pass this 12 hour exercise in order to graduate. I watched this video to get an idea of what he would be going through during the exercise. WHOA!!

I couldn't have been more excited to hear someone say they passed their final exam and would be graduating on time. He sounded completely exhausted but you could hear the pride in his voice as well. He is currently in his job training school for another roughly 7 months and then he will get his orders to his first official assignment. His journey is just beginning, but as a new Navy Dad I cannot wait to see where his path takes him, both personally and professionally, and learn about the customs and traditions he will participate in and the history of his chosen branch of service.

Check out these pages for additional information:

US Navy Boot Camp

US Army information

US Air Force information

US Marines information

General "life in the military" information

Military pay and benefits information

I hope this was useful to you. Questions? Suggestions for future posts? Email me - CyberShamrock.Blog@gmail.com!

Until next time.....Code Geek out!