 Hey everyone, how's it going? My name is Jake and I'm a captain in the Air Force serving on active duty and in this video I'm going to talk about my job. But real quick I want to thank Kyle Gott for letting me upload this video on his channel AirmanVision. I am a YouTuber as well, you can check me out at my channel JakeBro. I mostly talk about finance and investing topics but because I am active duty Air Force I do occasionally talk about military topics. And why did I join the Air Force? Well I'm actually a little bit older, I'm currently 36 and I commissioned as an officer at age 32. And the reason why I chose to join the Air Force later in life is because I wanted to do something challenging. My father's actually also an Air Force veteran so it's something I was always considering. But the reason why I finally pulled the trigger at age 32 is because I was looking to get a job with the State Department as a Foreign Service Officer. These are people who work in consulates or embassies abroad. It's a very competitive job to get and I wanted to do something that would make me stand out. So joining the military, earning a master's while in, this is something that I wanted to do in order to become a Foreign Service Officer later in life. So I had a bachelor's degree and I applied as a non-prior through officer training school. This was a fantastic experience. I commissioned in June of 2016. So I'm currently a captain and I've been serving for four and a half years. If you want to know more about officer training school, I made two videos on this topic on my channel. And when you apply to OTS as a non-prior, they do tell you what your job will be and I was selected for 13 November, 13 N. This is nuclear and missile operations. And what is that exactly? Well, I'm in charge of the security operations and maintenance for the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile system. This is the land leg of the nuclear triad, the other two being bombers and subs. America used to have other ICBM systems like the Titan II or the Peacekeeper, but currently for the land leg of the triad, it's just the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile system. And this is exactly what you think it is. If you've ever seen any Cold War movies of two guys opening locks on a container to pull out like a launch key, that's my job. I sit in a underground capsule about 60 feet underground. There's about 45 of these spread out across Montana, North Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska. And we sit there waiting for an order from the president to launch nuclear weapons. That is my job. These capsules are buried underground ideally to survive a near miss hit from an adversary so that we can then launch back above ground. There's something called a missile alert facility and we have a facility manager, security forces, a missile chef and then potentially maintainers if they have to overnight in the field. Did I want the job? I didn't actually know what it was prior to being selected for it. When my recruiter asked me what do you want to be, fill out this application, select three to five jobs. I remember number one, I chose space. Number two, I chose cyber. Number three, I chose Intel. And I could have just left it at three, but I honestly didn't know anybody in the Air Force when I applied. There was nobody on my Facebook friends list that I could contact and ask questions. So I ended up putting missiles on my dream sheets, not knowing what it was. And if you put missiles, they will select you for missiles. But so far in the Air Force, I've had a fantastic experience. If you commission and you're selected for 13N, as of right now, you will be sent to Vandenberg Air Force Base for your tech school training. Usually you'll arrive and they'll give you a month or two before the next class officially starts. And then training at Vandenberg takes six months. Southern and Central California is a fantastic place to live and experience. You're very close to the Bay Area, San Francisco. You're close to Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, a lot of great federal parks. So while you're stationed here on weekends or during base holidays, you'll have lots of opportunities to explore and experience the local area. And the tech school training you'll receive at Vandenberg for six months is pretty intense. There's a lot of information coming at you and you don't really have a lot of time to dwell on each. And what the schoolhouse has to do is they have to teach you the bare minimum in order to be certified to operate the weapon system. However, when you go out into the field, you're never alone. You're always going to have a commander more senior than you, that is responsible for you. In addition, you always have the telephone. You can always call and ask questions, call and receive help from the people you work with. This is the React console that we operate. So the commander sits on the left, the deputy sits on the right, and you have identical screens. So the left side is the HA. This is where we get our emergency action messages. The right side, we call it the whiskey, and this is how you actually monitor your launch facilities. So each capsule is primarily responsible for 10 launch facilities. However, your console can interrogate and receive status from all 50 launch facilities in your squadron. And what you're seeing on these two bookshelves up here are all the documents and regs that you need to become familiar with while you're at tech school. Nobody can memorize everything. However, you are expected to be able to find the reference and then follow your checklist to respond to any kind of alarm or situation. Once you graduate from Vandenberg, you will be sent to a missile ops wing. And currently, there are only three. There is F.E. Warren in Wyoming, Malmstrom in Montana, and then Minot in North Dakota. Currently, our career structure has a three plus three system where you will go to one of these bases for three years for your initial ops crew tour. And then you will PCS to a different one of these bases for your follow on plus three ops tour. For your first three years, your primary responsibility is just to pull alerts to be out in the field on console learning as much as you can. Your job is to become an expert subject matter expert for that weapon system. Your plus three assignment, then you're still pulling alert, but ideally not as many. And then you have a support job either as an instructor, an evaluator, flight commander, or a different job in one of our support back shops. Beyond your first six years, most 13 ends wind up at one of these three bases. There's either off at Air Force Base in Nebraska. This is Stratcom. You can go back to Vandenberg either for the schoolhouse or the test flight group. And then there's Barksdale where Air Force Global Strike Command's headquarters are. There are other assignments for 13 ends that are eligible. Maybe you can also go to Europe or Asia. But most 13 ends end up at one of these three bases. Otherwise, potentially they've taken an ROTC job or a staff job like at the Pentagon. What can you expect for your work schedule? Well, for your initial crew tour under the old structure, things have been a little bit different because of the recent pandemic. But it used to be that you were expected to pull eight alerts a month and eight 24 hour alerts. How that works is you drive to base in the morning, you mission plan, you then trip out to the field. Maybe you get out to sight at around 10 o'clock. You change over the crew currently in the capsule. They then process topside and get to go home. You then close the door and you are underground in this capsule for 24 hours until your relief crew comes the next day. Once again, you change over at some point in the morning. You then drive back to base, drop off the truck, drop off any materials. You then get to go home. So a typical work day for 13 end is really a day and a half. You might get home the afternoon, the day after you leave and you do this eight times a month. Beyond pulling alert, you'll have typically two trainer rides a month and then potentially other additional academic training with your squadron. And that's how it used to be prior to the pandemic. Currently, because of COVID, we go out for one every three weeks. So we'll typically go out for a week and then the next week potentially we don't have to do anything. We might, but they're trying to give us this protected time off. The following week is then the week that we're available to get all of our training done. So when we go out for a week at a time, typically there are four crew members out at the Miss Alert facility, to our top side and rest status and then to our downstairs for a 24 hour shift. We then every 24 hours flip. And when you're down there, there's a lot that you could be doing potentially. You're in charge of daily inspections, processing paperwork, processing maintenance teams on site or processing emergency action messages. We also respond to any maintenance or security situation alarms. And when you're down there, it's you and your commander or you and your deputy. And between the two of you, as long as you're not too busy, one of you is allowed to be in rest status. So there is a bed mod with a curtain in the corner. There's also a bathroom down there, a refrigerator, a TV, a microwave, a coffee maker. And when you're down there, it's between it's a crew contract, you and the other crew member who takes what responsibility at what time. And then if the job necessitates it, you both have to be awake. Otherwise, one of you can be in rest status while down there. Do I like this job? I actually do. I like that I'm an operator. I like that I have a physical hands-on job where I'm not just sitting at a desk. I like tripping out to the field. I like interacting with security forces, maintainers, facility managers, chefs. So I think this is actually can be a very rewarding job. And I like that I am a knowledge expert on a very impressive, very important weapon system, the Minuteman 3. Because we work with nuclear weapons, there really does need to be very clear expectations, what is expected of us in this career field. And I'm just the kind of person who appreciates that. I'm told exactly what to do, how to do it, because deviating from that can have serious consequences. I also like as an operator, I'm in an ops squadron with about 50 or 60 other officers, 30 other lieutenants. So when you commission and you come up to an ops squadron, it's really nice being in an officer heavy career field where there are lots of people that you can socialize with, make friends with, collaborate with. There's a lot of camaraderie amongst the 13 ends. Additionally, there can be a lot of downtime in this career field. If you want to get other things done, lots of miscellers get their masters accomplished while they're underground in the capsule. Or if you just want to catch up on TV shows, there is a TV and the DVD player and you do have a cat computer access in the capsule to be on the internet. And what are the downsides to this job? Well, all three ops spaces are in cold weather climate. So if you're from Texas or Florida, there's nothing you can do about it, you're going to experience some really harsh winners. In my knots, it can potentially get down to negative 20 degrees and you still got to go to work. Additionally, it's not a normal nine to five job. You can't predict or count on what your work schedule will be a predictable office nine to five Monday through Friday. Nuclear deterrence is 24 seven three 65. There are always two crew capsule members downstairs in that capsule. This happens on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. I've pulled alert on my birthday. So somewhere at all times, miscellers have to be covering these capsule shifts. The three ops spaces additionally are in small rural towns for people who like the outdoors, maybe hunting fishing. This is great. But if you're like me and you're an urbanites who's always lived in large cities, then it's an adjustment. It's a cultural adjustment. If you're married and you have kids, these are great towns to raise a family. But if you're single and you're looking for a nightlife, you're not going to find it in my knot North Dakota. What advice would I give to somebody just starting out in this career field? And I would give the advice to when you're at tech school to start forming strong relationships with your classmates, especially the people going to the other two wings. The reason why is because the 13 and community is not a very large career field. And if you plan on doing 10 15 20 years in the military, then you're going to see these people again. There's there's so much rotation happening between such a small number of bases that people that you meet and talk to today, you will see them again in the future, which is nice. But if you don't build those strong relationships in the beginning, then maybe potentially you're going to create more work for yourself down the road when you're trying to get more accomplished later in your career. And just as much as you can learn from each other, grow together. I think being an officer in the Air Force is an amazing opportunity. One that I at age 32 feel like that I have enough prior work experience to really appreciate. I think the pay and benefits for the work we do is fantastic. So no complaints there. And just the general advice I give everyone is to save and invest your money, save and invest today in order to really give yourself an advantage later in life. And would I ever consider changing career fields? 13Ns used to be eligible for cross flow. We are now a self sustaining career field. So there is no cross flow opportunities. But I don't think I would want to change jobs. I put in so much time and effort becoming an expert in the current weapon system that the idea of starting over is especially at my age, just feels kind of daunting. Do I see myself doing 20 years in the Air Force? And the honest answer is probably not. I don't know what my future holds for me at this time. But for anybody who enlists or commissions and only wants to do four or six years, you served your time. You did a great service to your nation. You don't have to explain yourself for anyone for any reason. If you don't want to do anything beyond your minimum service commitment. There you have it guys. I feel like those are the basics for the 13N career field. If you have any additional comments or questions you can reach me at my YouTube channel. Once again Jake Bro, check me out. I respond to every comment on my channel as of now. Potentially, once I get a little bit bigger, I might not be able to. But I'm more than happy to help anybody out, especially future 13Ns.