hurrah good news

[bedlamsbard]

GUYS GUYS I CAN JOIN THE AIR FORCE. My eyes, despite my fears to the contrary, are just within regulation badness. This is very cool.

This is also a nice addendum to the fact that the first of my friends, upon being told that I'm planning to do AFROTC in college, told me that this was really cool and she was going to tell her dad, who used to be a drill sergeant in the Army. He still drills down the marching band every year. All my other friends? "That's really weird. Why would you want to do that? Aren't you going to die? Are you going to be on active duty? That's really unexpected for you," which is...not really the most encouraging thing I've ever heard. In, you know, contrast to my parents, who are enthusiastic about the whole thing, but they've heard me rationalize the whole thing out. And y'all heard about my AP Gov teacher (who doesn't know I'm planning on doing AFROTC), but my AP U.S. History teacher, who I talked to at the end of last year, is all for it. Of course, he's the one that was career Army. I guess it is kind of weird for my friends, but, well. It would be nice to have a little more support from that end of the spectrum.

In other news, to celebrate, I feel I should and will keep a running tally of all the random crap I have to look up to write my Spaceforce novel for, at the very least, the month of November. Starting from a few days ago.

75th Ranger Regiment and battalions 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.
Fort Benning, GA. Home of the 75th Ranger Regiment and the 3rd Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment.
Fort Stewart, GA. U.S. Army post attached to Hunter Army Airfield.
Hunter Army Airfield, GA. Home of the 2nd Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment, also one of NASA's alternate landing strips for space shuttles. (Where Beau Lorne is stationed.)
Rock Hill, SC. Satellite city of Charlotte, NC. (The Lorne family clanstead.)
various South Carolinian cities in the vicinity of Charlotte in order to find the perfect one to be the Lorne family clanstead.
Distance and travel time from Rock Hill, SC, to Fort Benning, GA. (Important in determining where Beau is stationed; see below.)
Time and distance from Rock Hill, SC, to Hunter Army Airfield, GA. (Important for future plot point.)
Army Combat Uniform. Latest Army combat uniform; replacing phased-out BDUs.
Company Commander. Rank and duties of a company's commanding officer. (What does Beau Lorne do?)
First Sergeant.
Arabic Swearing. (Beau, again.)
Armored Personnel Carrier.
U.S. Military Aircraft.
UH-60 Black Hawk.
M113 Armored Personnel Carrier.
U.S. DoD Aerospace Vehicle Designations. (How do they decide to name an ASPC?)
U.S.A.F Aircraft.
U.S. Army Service Uniform. Latest Army service dress uniform.

And that's just the stuff that was useful. A lot of the stuff I looked at wasn't.

Comments

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

How are you planning to do the AF? I thought you were going to university next fall? Are you doing the two-weekends-a-month thing?

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I'm planning on doing AFROTC -- military training and college at the same time. Here's (http://www.afrotc.com/overview/programs.php) a bit about it. Basically, it's about seven or eight hours a week of military training -- classes on military science (for the Air Force, specifically about the history of the USAF, etc.), as well as physical training. After sophomore year, then you go to Basic, and then junior and senior years is officer training, and once you graduate, you're commissioned as a second lieutenant in the USAF, with a commitment of four years of active duty afterwards.

The two weekends a month thing is, I think, the National Guard, which I don't want to do because then they ship you off to Iraq.

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

Wow. Crazy. Cool, but crazy :D. TAKE PICTURES OF THE SHINY PLANES!

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

If I go to a school with an AFROTC program; not all the schools I'm applying to do. Brown doesn't; neither does Wellesley. *twitches*

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

Wellesley I can understand not having it, but I'm surprised that Brown doesn't. I thought most universities in the states did.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

A lot of schools have Army ROTC; Air Force and Navy aren't as common. A lot of the schools that I'm looking at that have it -- Stanford, Vanderbilt, Davidson, Williams -- only have it as crosstown registration, which means that the program is actually at another school, but you can take it while enrolled at the school you're at. That seems like a lot of trouble, though, especially since a lot of those schools aren't actually...crosstown. Some of them are cross-state. (Williams; the ROTC detachment's actually at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In New York.) Looks like only three of the schools I'm applying to actually have an AFROTC detachment at the actual college. (In other words: oh my god, Yale, accept me.)