Second battery of questions: Which platform are you on? Can you tell me about ALO? Where are deployments? These are about living situations, ALO, and Deployments. So as for your follow-on questions: If you live outside Eglin, than you already know a ton about what its like to live near the beach. I loved my time in Panama City, guaranteed you will too. There are 4 main options on where to live: First is on base, where you take all your BAH (Base Allowance for Housing) and put it towards rent on a house, bills taken care of, but you dont get to pocket anything extra. You can room with someone however, and pocket half your BAH, but if you have no dependents the house selection is a little lower quality than something off-base. Pros and cons really, however I did not live on base. For a non-married guy, I would not recommend it. Second is Panama City Proper, where you have a bunch of apartment complexes where a ton of LTs live. Youll hear Waterstone, Eagles Landing, Arbors, and a bunch of others. Lots of variety in neighborhoods, I would say St Andrews is the nicest area. Pros are that it is halfway between pretty much everything, youll probably live close to most of your friends, and you can get most of your errands done relatively quickly. Cons are that PC is pretty trashy in most places, and youre not really near a beach. (When I say not near, I mean not across the street). Third is Mexico Beach, where I lived. I absolutely loved it so I may be a little biased. My roommate and myself got a vacation rental for an extended period, so it was fully furnished, three stories, and about 100 yards from the beach. We lucked out. However there are a lot of rentals and apartments in Mexico Beach that you can literally roll out of bed and onto the beach. Some bad things about it are that you are far away from most things and there arent a lot of options as far as bars and restaurants are concerned. However, I still loved it, we had a ton of beach bonfires while we were down there (on the Port St Joe side of the town line, thats where its legal). Finally you can live in Panama City Beach. Im sure youve heard of spring break there, so thats where all the clubs and touristy stuff to do is. Pros are that everyones pretty much going to go there most weekends, so not a lot of driving for social events, but your commute is going to be pretty bad, especially in March. Really fun though. I would try to familiarize myself with the area through Google Maps or something, get an idea of driving times and where malls/restaurants/things to do are. Youre used to the beach so you might not find it as exotic as I did; Im from New England, but youll have a great time there, especially when you make friends with everyone in class. That was a lot on places to live, but youll be really informed now. On to job stuff: Im at Tinker right now, just about to finish up IQT (Initial Qualification Training). Ive had 6 flights on the AWACS so far, and once Im done with MQT (Mission Qual, simulations of real war) I will be heading to Kadena for my first assignment. I absolutely love flying on the AWACS, you get very close to the crew and start working as a team very fast. Its extremely fast paced and intense, since youre mostly controlling air-to-air engagements. Youll usually being doing at least a bit of mission planning in the air, so as youre listening to your crew discuss details, youre also listening to ATC pass words about your fighters, and getting set up for the fight. Then the fight itself is incredibly intense, and a 20-minute fight can leave you drained. As you said though, youll learn more about the platforms when you get down there, and youll constantly be learning more and refining where you want to go. NATO AWACS is all that plus dealing with a lot of different countries, but combined (multi-country) operations is the way we do things, so its great experience. Plus youre in Germany, so its hard to complain. As far as ALO goes, its almost a guarantee that you can do it. I have a buddy who just left for Pope last fall and is doing a 3 year tour with the Army, and it looks fun. Its not a career change, but just a tour on the ground. You will learn an insane amount of integration and get a ton of great experience. A lot of my friends want to do it, and Im definitely considering it as well. For deployments, most are to the Middle East. Cant get into details over Facebook, but the ones to the Middle East are supporting the operations we have over there. Those ops are dying down though, so expect more diverse trips in the future. Thats all I can really get into for that, but if you go to Tinker, JSTARS, or a CRC, expect to deploy pretty quick and get some good experience. Kadena and Elmendorf dont deploy right now, just a lot of TDYs. I would recommend making your page the FY 2015 ABM group, since all of your class numbers will be 150XX, where 15 is the fiscal year youll graduate, and XX is the number class of that year. Youll probably be somewhere between 15007 and 15012, depending on your EAD. Stand by, Ill round up some contact info for some cadre down at Tyndall you could contact with more questions, and I can point other ABM selects in your direction when it comes to meeting and sharing info. Thats a great idea, and it will set all of you up for success down there. Doug
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 03:13:31 +0000
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