That’s right, I ended the previous post about becoming a pilot telling you about how I quit. Again, it is not one of my prouder moments, but 11 years later, it is what it is and I can’t go back and change it. I learned from the experience, and I am better for it.
A year or so after I gave up on my dream, I was visiting my old cub scout leader who was a retired pilot and former navigator in the Air Force. We had a nice meal harassing each other about the Marine Corps and the Chair Force. All in good fun of course. On my way home that night I was talking to my wife and jokingly said, “Maybe I should just join the Air Force.” We both had a good laugh.
The next morning when we talked on the phone she asked me if I had been joking about that comment the night before. I told her that at the time I was, but that I had stayed up late that night and done some research and as far as I could tell I still had a chance before I would need a waiver, which is not something they were giving out at the time. At the time you had to be into training by the time you were 30. (That limit was recently raised to 33) So we decided to look into it.
I contacted a recruiter in the area I was visiting that was incredibly helpful but he told me I should really work with one in the area I lived. So I got in contact with her. She told me I was already too old and that it was impossible. After more research I realized she had no idea what she was talking about. With some support from the online community at airforceots.com, and the help of the first recruiter I helped her realize that she was wrong and my package started to come together in earnest.
The first lesson here is to realize when a no is really a no, and when it is just laziness. I could have easily taken her word for it and I would never have gotten to where I am today. At the same time I didn’t berate her or get mad, I simply kept searching and asking questions and eventually I found the right answers. So never give up on your dream, especially if the first answer is no.
In the process of putting together my package there were a number of tests, paperwork, and various other steps that had to be accomplished. Despite the complete ineptitude of my recruiter I was able to schedule the AFOQT and TBAS which are standardized tests that are required to apply to become a pilot in the Air Force. All of the services have similar tests. Having already taken the Marine Corps one, and scored very well, I was confident I would do well, and I did. Not perfect, but very competitive scores.
I went into the process with the mindset that I was either going to be a pilot or I wasn’t joining. I simply didn’t want to do anything else in the military but fly. As the deadline for the selection board approached, I was scrounging to get the last few pieces of paperwork signed and was genuinely scared it would not come in time and I would have missed my opportunity. Fortunately for me, some of my Marine leadership took it upon themselves to help me, and it did come in time.
On the day that the application was due I made what I consider to be the best decision I have made in my career. I called the recruiter and told him to add that I was willing to take a navigator slot. I figured that even if I wasn’t selected as a pilot, which was a very real possibility at the time, then at least I would still be flying, and more importantly I would actually be in a career that would support my family.
Then I had to wait.
From the time packages were submitted in June until the results ultimately came out in December was almost exactly six months. They didn’t announce a release date, but based on previous boards I had determined about when to expect them.
As that time started to approach I became really anxious. My commitment to the Marine Corps was in its last few weeks and I honestly wasn’t sure what I would do if it didn’t turn out as I had hoped. I had even started taking classes to become a high school physics teacher because I needed something to take care of my family and the odds were not great that I would be doing that as a pilot.
At that time the selection rates for the boards had been in the 25-30% range because this was 2009. The economy sucked and a steady paycheck from the military was pretty appealing.
I will never forget where I was when I got the call. I had visited our local library with my daughter for story time. As I was putting her in my truck I got a call on my cell phone from my recruiter. Fortunately, he is not like me and didn’t tease me or keep me waiting and he told me that I had been selected as a navigator.
I really didn’t know what to say other than thank you. I hung up the phone and screamed as loud as I could before calling my wife to tell her the good news. I of course made her wait and teased her a little before letting her know our whole world was going to change.
I would later learn through the official press release that my board had resulted in a 17% selection rate. Of the approximately 700 applicants only about 120 had been selected to become an officer period. Of the 120 or so selected there were only 6 pilots so it just wasn’t meant to be, yet. For reference the last board press releases I saw a couple of years ago had selection rates in the 65-75% range. What can I say? It is all about timing.
Over the next few months I proceeded to fill out a bunch of paperwork, get a flight physical, and then wait to get a class date to attend OTS.
Shortly after learning I had been selected as a navigator, we learned that my wife was going to be laid off, and in the same month that we were going to be having another baby. Isn’t life just grand sometimes? It was becoming even more imperative that I get a class date so that I could get going and take care of my family.
Despite some objections from my recruiter, and a relatively unhappy person in the office that scheduled class dates I was able to get a class date for September of 2010 with follow on training in Pensacola, FL. With a little scraping by, and a lot of blessings from God, we were able to get by until I was sworn in, and three days after my son came into the world I left my growing family behind for Maxwell AFB, Alabama.
I have to laugh a little as I think back on that time. Until that dinner with my cubmaster I don’t think I had once considered joining the Air Force, at least not seriously. And once I had become a Marine there was absolutely no way I would lower my standards and go to what I considered a lesser service.
To be clear, I still had great respect for the Air Force and what they did, the way that I had, and still have, great respect for all of the services. We all provide unique skill sets to accomplish our assigned objectives. The greatest problems we create in the military are when we try to take on the roles that have already been perfected by the other services, but that is a topic for a different time.
But for a Marine to go to the Chair Force? That is madness. Fortunately, I had enough sense to care more about my family than my own over inflated ego. And, even more importantly, I had a wife that loved me and supported me through it all. Not many women would willingly send their husband away for three months only three days after giving birth, and as I would later learn, only a few days before she would have an emergency surgery.
Adding to the theme of the people who got me to where I am, I am forever indebted to my little sister Natalie who willingly came to live with my family and take care of my kids and wife which she recovered. The real sacrifice is that she is not really a big fan of kids, but she was an angel to those kids and I will never forget it.
So if you are having trouble finding how to accomplish your dream, it may be time to look down a path that you have never considered, and hopefully there will be someone who will push you in that direction. You may find, like I did, that something that you never considered, is it exactly the path that you needed to take.
