Tech School - The start of a career

I last left off saying that I had graduated basic training and was on my way to tech school. I graduated basic on Friday April 10th and after being with Zell and my family for Saturday and Sunday I left Lackland for good on Monday April 13th at two in the morning. I was very excited to get out of there and onto learning my job. I was also happy to have at least some of my freedoms back like having a cell phone, and ipod, weekends and somewhat more time to sleep. I didn't know what to expect getting on the bus that morning for the 9 hour drive, but I knew that it would be a lot better than basic. I spent most of the time on the bus listening to my ipod and texting Zell and all of my other friends. We stopped at a buffet diner called Luby's and it was probably one of the better things that happened to me in 2 months haha. I ate a lot of food, I tried to not eat quickly, but I'm pretty sure I did. The rest of the bus ride was through Northern Texas, and if you've ever been there, then you know what I saw, a lot of nothing. It was pretty cool to see some oil rigs and just flat open vastness, but I don't really think it is some place I'd like to live. We finally got into Wichita Falls around 1 pm and going onto the base I got a nervous feeling thinking it would be just like basic, a lot of yelling and hurry up. The bus pulled up to in front of my dorm and I was really surprised to see what looked like a brand new building. We exited the bus and were directed by a sergeant to put our bags down on the pad next to the building and go inside this classroom. On the desks were assorted folders and papers with our names on them. We had to fill out a few papers with our names, SS #'s and other stuff. We eventually were sent up to our rooms to drop off our bags, I was on the fourth floor. I lugged my bags up the flights of stairs and then down one of the hallways. The rooms are very nice here. There's two Airmen to a room. Each room is carpeted and has two beds, desks, night-stands, closets, dressers, sinks, medicine cabinets and a bathroom with a shower. Very, very nice compared to basic. It still seems like a 5 star hotel to me. We were then brought out and marched around by a few of the older students who showed us around the base and brought us to places we would need to go to. We all stood out wearing our blues and a lot of the older Airmen walking around in their civilian clothes kept calling us "noobs." Its funny looking back on it now, in basic you want to be out of your civilian clothes and into uniforms quickly, but at basic you want to be out of uniform and into civvies as quickly as possible. The next few days were filled with briefing after briefing, they call it "death by powerpoint" and its all a part of the inprocessing you have to do at each base. After that first week I thought I would be starting classes for my job, but my name wasn't on the list for that Friday. The next week I did details all week, basically cleaning the dorm. Details, are not fun whatsoever. Cleaning a dorm that is already perfectly clean is what you do. I would try to do things as slowly as possible just to waste time. The last few days I had to do details I was assigned to do them at this building near my dorm that is a school for officers to become commanders for maintenance squadrons. That place was awesome. My supervisor there was awesome. He was really friendly and told us jobs to do and also that there was a fridge in the back and we could eat/drink anything out of it that we wanted. He also told us that we had a 2 hour lunch and if we came back early from lunch we could watch TV in one of the classrooms. It was pretty funny to be told all of this by a Master Sergeant when 2 weeks earlier I was in basic with none of these luxuries. Quite the change. I finally started classes on Friday of that week. Back in the last week of basic I found out my job was 2W0X1 which is the Air Force Specialty Code (ASFC) for Munitions Systems Apprentice. I really didn't know what to think of this job at first. I was half disappointed half nervous about getting this job when I really had my heart set on a few different jobs. I learned quickly in basic that you really can't expect anything and you have to take things as they come and look for the positive in anything. The more I learned about Munitions (more commonly called AMMO) the more I became excited about it. The first time I told Zell and my parents what job I got I remember their faces being like "What? Bombs?" and Zell didn't look so happy at me getting a "dangerous" job. Anyways, I started AMMO school on that Friday. Again, not knowing what to expect me and the rest of my class were brought to our classroom in the back of the building for the Block 1 class. Our instructor when he first came in looked very intimidating, he was huge and had a shaved head, but he turned out to be one of the coolest instructors in the schoolhouse. He started out by telling us that if we liked to work hard and party harder, then AMMO was the place to be, haha. They really screw with your head in basic, and when you get out of that and into tech school and see Sergeants joking and hearing things like that, it really throws you for a loop. I remember after the first day thinking that I was in the right place and was really happy I got such a cool job. Each block in AMMO is a week long, and there are 8 blocks in AMMO. After each block (usually on Friday) you take a block test, a multiple choice test (All Air Force tests are multiple choice. Nice.) and you must score a 70 or above to move onto the next block. Throughout each day during the week we always take a quiz (multiple choice again haha) after each chapter, so we're constantly being tested. The first few blocks are learning the basics, like the structure of the workforce within AMMO and the computer systems they use to inventory all of the munitions. To sum my job up in a few words, AMMO basically maintains and issues munitions (bombs, missiles, bullets, flares, chaff, landmines, etc.) from the Air Force weapon stockpile and from the bomb dump at each base. There are several jobs within AMMO such as Trailer Maintenance (fixing/maintaining bomb trailers), Precision Guided Munitions (maintaining missiles), Flightline Delivery (delivery of munitions to the aircraft), Conventional (maintaining bombs), Control (the brains of the bomb dump), Storage & Handling (stores munitions & inventory), Inspection (makes sure the munitions being issued are safe to handle). We learned about all of those jobs in the first few weeks as well as the computer system that AMMO uses to keep inventory of the munitions. That block was quite confusing. The later blocks are learning about storage, chaff & flare, general purpose bombs, guided bombs, missiles, and learning how to drive forklifts (I can't wait for this block). All you learn in tech school for AMMO is the very basics about everything, you go more in depth when you have on the job training and taking your CDC's (Career development courses, basically going more in depth about your job). The schoolhouse is a pretty good place, we have our own snackbar that we can go to and buy a lot of different food and stuff like AMMO coins & Tshirts. The instructors there are pretty cool, there are some that just like to yell and make life miserable, but for the most part, any instructor there is pretty friendly. My instructor, TSgt Heier, is one of the better ones, he's a former Marine but he doesn't really seem like one. He likes to joke around with us a lot but he does teach us a lot. I've asked him a lot of questions and he's always had an answer. I guess I'm pretty lucky. 

I found out the 3rd week I was here that I would be stationed at Minot AFB in Minot, North Dakota. Now a lot of people have a pretty bad notion about Minot because it gets very cold there in the winter and it's in the middle of nowhere. I was a little disappointed at first to get Minot, mostly because I was hoping to be on the east coast and to be somewhere warm. However, like I said earlier, the more I learned about it, the more excited I became to go there. Also the more people I talked to that had been stationed there (like my instructor) the more I learned that it is actually a pretty nice base. Its just not the warmest place and near any major city. I'm fine with that though, I'd rather be in the middle of nowhere than be in a crowded city. The one thing that I haven't like so far about Minot is that its pretty expensive to get there. The city of Minot isn't too big (about the size of Bangor 36,000 people) so flying into there is expensive. But other than that, it has pretty much everything I need. It even has a Scandinavian Festival in October (How ironic is that? I'm going.) Minot is a bomber base, it has a squadron of B-52's there and another one on the way. A lot of the base is being rebuilt including new dorms and a new base exchange (shopping center) so it will be nice to have everything be new. I found out last week about my job within AMMO, I will be working in the conventional shop, which I am happy with. I also found out about my sponsor, basically a sponsor is a person who is already stationed there and they help you out with any questions you have about the base. My sponsor will also be my supervisor I believe, and from what he and my instructor at the schoolhouse have told me, work right now is pretty easy in Minot. Which means I will be able to complete my CDC's during down time at work. Also from what my instructor and sponsor told me, the AMMO troops at Minot deploy to Guam. The next time they deploy will be in February of 2010. No clue if I will be included in that deployment. But chances are good that I will be. I'm excited for that too. One of the reasons I joined the AF was to see the world. Anyways, enough about Minot...

There are two different worlds at tech school. One world is the schoolhouse. The other is the dorms. The instructors at the schoolhouse teach us about our jobs, and the MTL's (Military Training Leaders) uphold our military standards at the dorms. The dorms aren't stressful, but I guess you could say there is a lot of extra BS you have to put up with. Compared to basic, its nothing. We pretty much just have to keep a clean room, make our bed, clean the bathroom, stuff like that. I have no problem doing that stuff. It's the "whole dorm gets punished because someone else screwed up" deal that bugs me. Our squadron (dorm) is the 363rd. We have students training in AMMO (me), Armament (putting the weapons on the aircraft), Nukes and Plans & Analysis. To tell a little side story, AMMO and Armament...well we are very competitive with each other. They sort of put that idea into us at the schoolhouse. They're load toads. We're better than them haha. But anyways, there's been a few times where someone at the squadron has gotten into trouble with stuff like drinking or damaging property, and we all get punished for it, like for example, we all got put on lockdown 2 weeks ago for the whole weekend. Meaning we couldn't go outside or anything for the whole weekend. It wasn't bad I guess, I got my homework done and a lot of studying in, but I guess it was me getting punished for someone else's mistake. Oh well. I guess its just Military stuff I'm still getting used to. Marching around everywhere is another big complaint. To form up an entire squadron and march them somewhere takes a really long time. It would take me maybe 10 minutes to walk somewhere, and to march there in the squadron it would take 45. A lot of time is wasted "forming up" and marching. But yet again, its just another military necessity I need to deal with. 

Every week we have a floor meeting on Thursdays, it starts around 9pm and lasts for about 45 minutes. It doesn't involve much. Just my MTL telling us things that have happened the past week that he doesn't like (which is a lot haha) and every Sunday night we have a GI party, our whole floor cleans the hallway and our rooms. Slowly but surely we earn our privileges and freedoms back at tech school. We have 3 phases in tech school. Phase 1 lasts from when you get here for two weeks, Phase 1 is the most restrictive, you have to wear your uniform any time you leave the dorm, you have a curfew of 10pm, and you aren't allowed to go off base. Phase 2 is another 2 weeks, you can wear your civilian clothes outside of the dorm, have a curfew of midnight on the weekends (still 10pm during the week), and can go off base but must be in your dress blues. Phase 3 is the least restrictive, you can do everything in Phase 2, with the exception of no curfew (well, you just have to check in at 7am on the weekends) and you can go off base in civvies. You "phase up" by getting satisfactory room checks, passing open rank inspections (being formed up outside and MTL's check everyone individually for proper uniform wear, shaving, etc.) and not getting into trouble. Most punishments people get are being phased down to phase 1 again. It would really suck to be phase 3 for a long time then to be phased down and have to wear your uniform again and curfew, blah I would hate that. It's pretty hard to get in trouble, you have to be doing something really stupid. But still, people do a lot of stupid things haha. 

A typical day here is me waking up around 520, I shave and make my bed. Then I head down to the chow hall for breakfast. Breakfast is pretty good. I get a lot of food, but I don't eat a lot of it (I'll explain in a minute) then I head back up to the dorm, brush my teeth, send off a good morning text to Zell then go back outside to form up. We stand in formation for awhile, march over to the schoolhouse. Do our AMMO call (Give me an A! A! Give me an M! M! and so on haha). And then go inside for classes. We usually get a snackbar break around 830 (This is when I eat that saved food from breakfast, apples and nutri-grain bars), have class, take a quiz and then go on our 90 minute lunch break at 1030. We march by class over to the chow hall and then individually walk back to the schoolhouse. I usually get back to the schoolhouse around 1115 so I study for the rest of our break. We have class, take another quiz and then around 4pm we get dismissed and change for PT. PT isn't too hard (which is why I'm getting out of shape) it usually involves us running around the tarmac, which is kind of cool running around C-130's and F-16's and doing pushups, crunches, squats etc. Then we form up, march back to the dorm and get dismissed. I go upstairs, take a shower and go to dinner, followed by talking to Zell for a bit, then bed. Not all that much in a day but it goes by pretty quick. Tuesdays and Fridays we don't do PT so we just march back to the dorm after class. Overall, it really isn't too bad here. I'm just anxious to go home on leave for a bit and then go onto Minot and get into the operational Air Force. I've been told numerous times being "operational" is much better than being in the training stage, I can only hope that is true haha. But so far I'm very happy with joining the Air Force, I have no regrets with it at all. Now that I've caught myself up with everything I can do more blog entries on what I've been doing the past week and anything I've missed in here. If you're still confused on anything after all of this, just leave a comment and I'll explain the best I can. 

Here are a few links that can better explain everything I talked about...

Minot Air Force Base

USAF AMMO

2W0X1 Munition Systems