 So, I joined the Air Force because I wanted a career, I wanted something that is stable as far as what I can do in my life and pretty much give me something with like purpose. Not that I was like aimlessly going through life, but I was going out of college, Air Force was actually my goal to do, I was just lucky and blessed to get a job that I liked and everything. I've been in the Air Force for eight years and currently I am a Staff Sergeant. Have you tested for tech yet? I have not. You haven't? So is this next year going to be your first year? So yes, 2020 would be my year for testing for tech. So my job is cyber transport and it is 3D1X2. So I was fortunate enough to get this through DEP. It was one of my top jobs that I wanted and so my recruiter like hey you got this job so fortunate there. Do you know what number it was on your list? I believe it was probably one or two. Super lucky. Yeah, so I decided to go with six year. I just figured it would be just a better way of having a job like so, you know, so I could put on a resume. I've been in six year versus four so I just figured two more years wouldn't hurt me. But you've been in for eight years so that means you're re-enlisted. So I did extend and then- You haven't re-enlisted yet? I have re-enlisted. So I did another four. So you ended up likely enough that you weren't looking to- Correct. Yeah, go get a civilian job just yet at least. Just yet. Yeah. I miss my SRB though. That sucked. Oh, okay. For those of you guys who don't know that's a signing and re-enlistment bonus, so did they drop yours? So I was just unfortunate because- Or your time. Yeah, so I was just not in that window. I already had my extension and so I really did that so at that point I was already needed to re-enlist and so they dropped an SRB like four months after I re-enlist and so I was totally out of it. How much money would have you gotten if you were re-enlisted? I don't remember but it was- You feel like I tried not to think about it. Yeah. Yeah, so going through college I was studying information systems, business oriented but so I was studying all the computer science stuff and so this was actually something that was related to what I was learning in college and yeah. So I was fortunate enough to get a computer job so I was really stoked about it again. So I was looking into again more computer related jobs so all my things was computer related but the other jobs I was looking into I believe was Intel but me knowing what I know now I would probably look into public affairs so I love taking pictures and all that stuff too and then protocol I'm like I'm a big Air Force blue guy so I don't mind like knowing all the protocol stuff and then maybe medical if I had to choose and then since I had a short time being a unit deploy manager they'll probably be up there as well so yeah. So my tech school was at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi. So when I went to tech school it was averaging around 8 to 10 months I stayed there for 11. That's a long tech school. So other than weather we have a long tech school as well. When I was in tech school at our time there was a lot of airmen that was going through so there was a lot of time between the school houses. We have three school houses to go through like eight blocks each almost averaging. You have to be in AFI was it Air Force instructions or whatever between the school houses and so you're waiting your school date so you're kind of like held behind so that's why we had a large backup date but I was also doing some research with the airmen who do it now and it looks like they have a three to five so also the folks who are going into tech school now there's like a process in which they can test out early at a blocks so they have like a fast paced program so it's kind of also dependent on the person how well they can study the material and test out. Previous certifications or something like that so they just like they already know the knowledge so they just kind of let them skip ahead yes and then also add with since we're doing an AFSC video I want to add that our career is in talks to change. It's AFSC so combining career fields so right now again we're at three delta and so we might change to a one delta seven so that again it will just be a cyber oriented job and then combining career fields. Not to be in the future, they have a set date yet, do you know of? All of this is rumored so in the future it could start to change? Correct yeah so just kind of if you were listening earlier I'm a big Air Force person I'm pretty blue so I love tech school I'm the type of person who was in drill team get involved even after tech school I was in like on a guard and everything so I'm pretty Air Forcey when it comes to that and so I kind of liked the military aspect of it and you know when it comes down to tech school since we're there so long I had like longer friendships with folks and that I still keep contact with today and so that made it better and everything and it was again it was kind of like going through college again so that was it was also fun for me doing all of that yeah I think it was just more of the experience of being there with your friends for that many months long so I have to because it was like something you really wanted to do yeah you're interested in so the tech school was probably like informational but also interesting to you at the same time yeah it kept your attention and I mean it's it's the part like easiest part of your Air Force career like you they tell you what to do you just do it and you study and it's you're not really stressing about anything and so yeah I'll also add a Keesler it felt like Hogwarts because there's your you're going against four different squadrons and since we're a drill team drill team for us was like Quidditch so like we we compete against all the other four three other squadrons and then we had to drill down like every quarter so like it was an event to do like in Keesler just to watch it like within the squadron so it was it was entertaining in that aspect because you get as much as you have like Ravenclaw pride you have your own squadron pride and so it may be cheesy now but I had I saw fond memories of it so yeah that's awesome so since we're a calm job we can pretty much go everywhere so it's not limited to anything really we're a jack-of-all-trades composition and it kind of like you learn about like the OSI layers and you learn about networking the backbone of it and everything it's kind of difficult just because when you go to a different base they pretty much teach you whatever they your shop focuses on so you might work on networks you might work on computer systems as like administrative you might work in the server room which I did in my first base and so in my first base I was running like cat five cables through the server room through the different computers we were tied in with a fiber optics group to so really again we're like a mishmash of all our jobs it could also be specialized so I'm stationed at Creech when I got to Creech I was part of the RPA so remote piloted aircraft communications maintenance so we had to focus on the RPA computer systems can't go too much in detail with that but it was very specialized to what we didn't learn in tech school so you you're here at Creech learning about a whole new comm system that you didn't learn anything about and that could be the case with a lot of comm like cyber transport you may go to another base and not learn anything in your tech school and you might even be put into a different AFSC like possibly programming or comm sec so communication security and so you might just be put into a job that you're not really you didn't really learn in tech school but or that was just one chapter in your book and then now get to learn the whole thing so so totally different changes in what you learn also at Creech I was doing some satellite management again not totally in my career field but something that we had to do and I am currently doing help desk so more of the lower end but still fun issues and they like submit a ticket yeah so like doing print servers on mapping printers putting my monitors together it's like a pretty basic and like calm yeah yeah so that's not like the very intense like in-depth stuff yeah like the most like surface level yeah so it's very help desk and it was it's interesting just because I've been in eight years and it's only now that I am actually doing my calm job that's more related to what I'm doing so it's kind of interesting it's cool so yeah so that would depend on what your shop does what your squadron does so let's say I was working in the pay rock at Creech so the persistent attack reconnaissance operations center and so it's a mouthful and acronyms right so at the pay rock we're doing like satellite management and authorized service interruptions notes and everything and so I was more dealing with satellite management right and so when you're in that particular job was a 24-hour ops we had we went from working 12 hours working to traditional shifts so day swings mids so depending on your manning and everything so that was a 24 hour ops right and so you can be fit into that one or right now I'm in help desk at my new squadron and we are pretty much Monday through Friday 8 to 4 so super easy super cake yeah so one of one of the best things for cyber transport is and not to be biased but what I think this is the best calm job is because we get to have a Cisco certification security plus through tech school so it's one of our school houses that we actually do and it's requirement for us I believe the only other calm jobs that require security plus is cybersecurity and cyber ops and so again that's very marketable on the civilian world and because it's mandatory for us we have to keep renewing it when when you expire I think it's around every four years or something and so again it's something great to have on the outside because you we are calm and communications it's pretty much it so anything that we can translate that easily to the outside world is awesome it also depends on where were you at what base you're at what your shop is about so me being when I was in aircraft communication maintenance squadron doing RPA calm it was very hard to translate that to the civilian world but me doing a help desk or network administrator or whatever that would probably be a easier translation to the civilian world company that uses the internet correct yeah very yeah so very commercial things that require a Cisco security plus will probably be your best option so really you can apply to any job it just depends on your experience and what you can put on your resume so there's not really a limit what jobs you can do is just more of your personal experience and what you are capable of doing so so again this depends on what squadron you're in your shop for my first base we didn't have we were closing we were changing we're reorganizing the unit so we were non-deployable at Creech at ACMS there was deployments available and then at payrock there wasn't a lot of deployments available to us and then at my new squadron we have deployments on the regular so again it just depends on what squadron you're in and your job probably be like four to six months more on the four four month end you're probably gonna look into pie deploying maybe once every other year and again it depends on your manning and everything so I know my current squadron deploys a lot and it just they they're willing to work with their members and their and their folks to see if that doesn't work with your schedule they can probably throw in another sergeant to take your place so they're my current squadron is willing to work it out and so yeah I always address this as like a soft yes I'm always going to see where I'm at in each enlistment see where my life is at and if it aligns with the Air Force and so far like I was meant to be in the Air Force and again I've been very blessed and thankful for and very fortunate to have the mentorship and the bases that I've been at so it just depends where I'm at in the next enlistment but for the most part I am looking for doing this for the full 20 years so so if you know this you're getting this job ahead of time so not through BMT or anything I would suggest trying to do your best to study the materials like if you know like so knowing now you have to do a security plus certification start learning about the the verbiage and the basic ideas and lessons about Cisco and and computers and all that so that you're you're a little bit prepared going into tech school because I researching through other sites and you can look up in Facebook there's a 3d 1x2 cyber transport Facebook group that you can follow you can even if you're just a new airman you you can just fall you can join and ask questions and so one thing that I asked in that group was like hey what how can I prepare and some people were saying like again like it was saying like studying ahead of time especially if you have no computer background behind you so since I was studying it in college I had a little bit edge I still had to learn and figure out the more further details and lessons but at least I was had my foot in the water the best way you want to do is keep on having a resume for yourself writing it and knowing what you can do to make yourself more marketable right and so you don't want to be in a position where maybe you injured and now you have to be out of the Air Force or something and so keeping a resume on what you do and your job field is always something great making yourself marketable if you are serious about the con field and and communications you might want to learn to get other certifications the Air Force is great on academic tuition assistance so you can go into colleges that offers other certifications you see in a A plus and all that stuff so definitely something that you want to look into if you want to make yourself even more marketable another advice I would give and this is the more of a working trait I don't expect everyone to do this it's more on your personality but just try to be very positive I'm a very positive person I'd like to see the more optimistic side of things and so that just helps you be more resilient to be you know if days suck and there will be days that suck in the military every military person knows this so being a positive person will definitely help you out and those days do hit you so constantly learning about your job getting involved again I'm pretty blue so but I get to I'm involved in a lot of private organizations like I said I did a lot of honor guard stuff like I'm still doing honor guard stuff and so getting involved again that's more personality if you're not that type of person to put yourself out there that doesn't really work for you but if you are that type of person who is a go-getter and wants to be out there that's always good and it kind of gives you a halo effect so um halo effect is something like the your senior leadership don't really you're not in the spotlight in a bad way so if you're in the if they have a positive image of you and a positive reputation reputation of you you're less to be hassled you're less to be and they'll give you more slack you know like if you're late or something and obviously you don't want to take advantage of it but if you're late like hey Lozada is not like this so he'll he'll we'll let him slide and so by having a good reputation for yourself is always a good thing I'm not saying get this brown nose every nco that you meet but definitely be on the good side and it just helps you out so knowing your job and being involved is definitely a great way to set yourself up for success so yeah you can follow me at my Instagram at hey Mitch Mitch Kyle can put the description below or whatever I also have my own YouTube you can find it again at hey Mitch Mitch I also have a joint Instagram and YouTube with my friend from tech school we're both here in Vegas and it's called it's mandatory fun so you can check that out