 Today, we're going to be talking to David about what his job is in the Air Force. He actually has a YouTube channel as well. I'll link it up above. You guys want to go check out his channel. Emergency management. The ANFSE is 3 Echo 9 X1. Why did you join the Air Force in the first place? Because I know it probably wasn't to do emergency management specifically. The reason why I enlisted is because where I was before I enlisted, I was working two jobs. I was working at a warehouse unloading trucks full of dirty people's laundry. That would feel disgusting. I did that money through Friday and then I worked at a grocery store, being a cashier on the weekend. So my days off were the holidays. I was just in a financial spot there. I was going to school for some time, so I had incurred some student loans. I had four credit cards that were maxed out. I was paying all my own bills. Anything I was paying was literally like keeping my head above water as far as finances go. So I was kind of looking a way to help with school and at least finance or like some sort of... Alleviate that stress of drowning and debt. 100%. Yeah, exactly. So debt was huge. And I know that if you were enlisted in the military, that this specific company that had my student loans, they'll hold off your loan as long as you're enlisted. So I thought, okay, that fixes my finances. And then working two jobs, as you can imagine, it wasn't like the most ideal scenario because I was trying to pay off all the credit card debt. Working two jobs, as you can imagine, none of those is what I wanted to do in life when you're a little kid growing up. You don't think I want to unload people's dirty laundry or a cashier. I was looking for something else that had more meaning to it. And then I also wanted to travel. That's one of those perks with the military. Where are you originally from? So it's a small town called Frankfurt, Illinois. So it's south suburbs of Chicago. Midwest then. Yes. So living in Florida is way different than what people back home is. Exceptional. This is my first time ever in the South. So it's like two totally different environments. So basically, I was looking for that hard reset in life. Finances were, I mean, you know, up to here. Felt like I was drowning as far as finances go. The jobs were just kind of suffocating me. I was looking for new opportunity and stuff like that. So that's why I enlisted. So that's something that probably a lot of people can relate with. They're in a spot in life where they don't want to be either financially job-wise, travel-wise. Just all these things. That's exactly where I was as well. So I know we're not the only two in the world that have looked to join the Air Force to kind of reset our life or get our life back on track. So that leads us to today. When did you join? So how long have you been in right now? And what's your current rank? December 7th, 2015 was my first day in BMT. Current rank is senior airman. You're not a staff select right now. Not yet. So you haven't tested yet. So that's testing for staff sergeant to be an E5. So you're currently an E4. So when joining the Air Force, a lot of people, when they get their contract up front, they're hoping that they get a specific job. But sometimes they sign some sort of open contract, either open general, open mechanical, open electric. So did you get this job, emergency management? Did you get it right off the bat or did you sign an open contract when you joined? So I got it right off the bat. It was part of my list, but it was maybe four or five. And I was told that you'll be working closer with security forces, because at the time that's what I wanted to do. My degree was contoured towards law enforcement. Yeah, I guess that's more like the broader category. So you said it was your fourth or fifth job on there. So what other things did you have listed? Just kind of give people an idea of what you were trying to do overall in the Air Force. So I wanted something where I was physically moving about, when you're a cashier, you're moving, you're scanning items, you're bagging, so it was active, working at the warehouse. I'm unloading trucks, I'm physically moving. I didn't have an office. My office was wherever the workplace was. So when I was asking the Air Force liaison at the MEPS Center, I just want something physical. They said, do you like working with your hands? And I said, yeah, but I don't want to be a maintainer. You should have just become a maintainer. You would have been super satisfied, like literally every day, just work, work, work. So they asked me what I am doing at the time in the civilian world. When I told them, they said, okay, well, here's stuff that's like civil engineering. I didn't know what civil engineering was. And so I was looking at things that were before that were fire prevention was number two. I remember that because they told me it was an oversaturated career field and I couldn't get it. I think three and four were structures and heavy equipment. And all that was kind of in the CE realm. I didn't know that at the time. I took his word for it. But I also took his word for saying emergency management. You were close to security forces, which I haven't yet talked to a security forces member. That's right. And you've been in for three years. So this is actually a good time to talk about this. You're watching this. You're trying to learn about this career field, right? Or like, maybe I want to do this. Maybe I don't. Your recruiter most likely only has done one job in the Air Force and there's over a hundred jobs. So it's very, very hard for a recruiter to be like, yeah, emergency management does all this because the most information that they have is just like, they've heard this or that from somebody and that's they've never actually experienced it. Definitely do your research when your recruiter tells you something about a career field because if they weren't that career field, then they honestly have no idea. Hence why I'm not talking about emergency management. David is because he actually is that job. I could tell you stuff about it and then you join and be like Kyle was totally wrong because I honestly don't know because I didn't live through that. I was a maintainer while I was in for six years. You were saying you're like the recruiter told me this and I was like cool. And then you get the job and you're like that and nothing but your recruiter I'm assuming wasn't emergency management. It was it was the liaison at the maps office. Okay. And they probably weren't emergency management either. I think they were fuel something. So they were something in maintenance. So they probably had no information about emergency management other than like the little snippet that the Air Force says about it and they were just like probably works with security forces like emergency security forces response emergency management response. What do you do? We manage emergencies. Yeah, maybe so that's probably where they got their information. So just take what the recruiter says with a grain of salt. Don't fault them for it most of the time because honestly they're just trying to get the information but they're not an encyclopedia. They can't know everything and they only know what they've done. One of the only reasons why I went along with what he said is because in the civilian world if you see something where there's like a major accident there's actually police interceptor cars that say emergency management on them. And I remember like oh that's cool. So he's I thought he was right because in the civilian that's probably what he fought to exactly. Yeah, so but in the civilian world and in the military sense the emergency management and emergency management over here in the civilian world are two different things. So you joined straight out of debt with that contract. You didn't have to go to BMT and find out later because you signed an open contract. So when you signed your contract how many years did you sign four or six? I signed for four year. Okay and why? What was the main reason you signed four instead of six? Did you come in as an E3? I did. Okay so that would have been a big reason why to possibly not sign a six year because you're already coming in as an E3. There's no incentive to sign the six in that sense. But is there anything else that influenced you that might help somebody else? So I only did a four year because like I said I needed help with school. I wanted to continue my education but I was financially strapped at the time in the position to do that and I wasn't going to take out more student loans. The military helping me out with that. I could defer those loans while still getting the free education. Signing the four year with that I already I needed help with school and I could do that in the four year period. I didn't need six years to get the bachelors. Coming in I had 60 some odd credits. That's why I signed a four year because my original intention was help with finances and school and travel was kind of like a tertiary option like that was going to happen regardless just being in. I could get everything done in the four year so I didn't need to do six. I was going to ask you if emergency management was something you wanted to do and we kind of already talked about that you said yeah because the way your recruiter explained it you were like that sounds like something I want to do so other than that like you didn't originally join like the Air Force being like I want to do emergency management. Right so I originally wanted security forces and the reason why I wanted that is because not only was my degree kind of going towards that already but just like as a person I felt like like my mission in life was I want to help other people and I want to like I want to be that kind of shield in front of one of those things where I was like you know what I want to be in that position where I can help other people individuals families or even loved ones to not have to go through terrifying experiences like that to be that person up front where I could be like you know I have a skill set where I could help other people and protect them so that no one when they go out at night they don't have to worry about are they going to get jumped are they going to get robbed stuff like that so I want to be that shield for other people so that's kind of the reason why you signed emergency management because you thought it kind of had something to do with protecting people in that manner which it kind of does we'll get into that in a little bit right so you still are kind of protecting people just maybe not in the mindset that you originally had right it's not the I'm not a first responder I'm an emergency responder so those are two totally different things and it's not necessarily in the title of emergency management it's in like the job that I do so something that's really important for people that are taking a job is they want to know where the heck is my tech school at so after basic training they're going to go to tech school where are they going and how long so after graduating you're going to go to Fort Leonardwood Missouri you're going to be there for approximately four months you actually know that ground transportation is also at Fort Leonardwood yes I mean other jobs are at Fort Leonardwood because I just interviewed interviewed bully juice which is ground transportation yeah and he was like Fort Leonardwood and I was like I didn't even know we had tech schools there before Leonardwood is a basic training base for the army so that was probably hectic because there's always trainees everywhere but there are me trainees and you're like this teeny little detachment there but how many other career fields actually do their tech school there so this is all new to me Air Force specific I'm guessing yeah okay so there's ground transportation yep they're there emergency management there are they call them dirt boys I think it's structures technically it's the heavy equipment have operators or something I don't know the exact title for it but I know I know it was dirt boys yeah it was called a dirt boys and then the EA's are engineering assistant so there's four jobs total that yes Air Force wise that's actually more than I thought for me I was actually on a Navy base and Pensacola which was like super crazy to me but there was three jobs that were stationed there for tech school also little no don't base you're joining a job just off of where they go to tech school there were people that joined my job because they're like yo I saw tech schools in Pensacola Florida so I'm like I'm doing that and it's like four months and then after that you go wherever the Air Force wants you to go so like some people joined for that four months that there six years and I'm like what are you doing so yeah definitely don't base it off just because you're going to Fort Leonard Wood and you're like I don't want to go to Missouri or whatever like don't base it just off of that so talking about tech school after that you go straight to your base how many bases can you go to are you limited like some jobs are limited to certain bases or is yours a job where they kind of need you everywhere so what's nice about mine is that being emergency management they need that support everywhere right we have a section called plans and part of those plans are how is the base going to respond to those disasters you don't have emergency management at your base you know yeah you have plans how are we guys going to respond like our em program we call it emergency management program is ran by high-ranking individuals that they need to know like hey em how are we going to respond to this yeah so that's a component in emergency management so you need that at every base okay now not every base is all military there are some bases and I'm blanking on it right now is that they're all civilians however that em component is still there thanks so you can go to probably some bases that other jobs don't even have access to 100% see I'm learning new stuff every time I interview one of these people about their job is yeah there's a lot to it that you might not meet at surface level and once you get into it you're like well there's a lot more to it than I thought so going into there's a lot more to it than I thought let's explain your job to or I'm gonna let you explain your job to these guys where they can understand it in like a few minutes like two to five minutes of like what the different sections of your job are because some people think when they join they're going to do one thing that's it their whole career but that's usually not it with most jobs so what are all the different kind of components of your job and what do they do high-ranking title is readiness and emergency management flight so readiness and emergency management are actually broken down into two categories you have the readiness and emergency management readiness is like prime beef section or like the expeditionary section or the deployable section that deals with helping people deploy and then the emergency management side is broken down from there training which I'm in right now we have the plan section mentioned that earlier we have the logistic section which handles equipment and then we have the operation section which handles our EOC or the emergency operations center so that's kind of like the sections you can expect to work in and each of those have their own specific duty and then as E.M. or E.M. as a whole share other responsibilities that are E.M. related okay so when you are saying plans what do the plans actually include so for plans some of those sections there's a specific rank needed because they expect a certain level of know-how of the job and you'll be working with the installation emergency manager who will be working in that office with you so they have the connection to the commander to the group commander to the wing commander of how E.M. is coming up with these plans and how they work with all the different units or so that isn't that's more of a desk job not a hands-on job yes very much so you're more so in taking in information about like how the base is either set up or how many people or whatever I like how many supplies you're just kind of like crunchy numbers maybe like like for people like if we have write-up teams like what kind of units are going to go where who you know like what are those contacts like who's going to talk to what what about M.O.U. is M.O.A. is memorandums of understanding an agreement with like the county would you say that that is one of the most like desk job wise in your overall career field or like what what would you classify because you said you want to join for hands-on yeah so what is the most hands-on section out of emergency management and what is the least and you're not in logistics right now I have been I've actually been on logistics most of my career that's how I started out and then when I was deployed I was in the logistics section and the plan section which is rare for an A1C at the time yeah but I was working with an NCIC staff sergeant who mentored me in a direction to operate at basically an E5 level okay but the most hands-on would be logistics the most desk job I would almost combine them as far as like operations and plans they do different things but they're the both very desk job heavy you would say training is like kind of hands-on but like you're basically like a teacher in a way so you're you give like a three-hour lecture about how to do your job and you kind of show people how to do it yes but everyone does that all the sections do so like as an as actually part of the EM Tech School the last block of instruction isn't even EM related it's instructor related so I am technically like I'm not an MTI but like a military and instruct like a certified military instructor so a lot of times like a running joke for us is like oh your EM here teach this because I'm certified to know how to see how to teach yeah so that's actually something you probably didn't even think of when you join emergency management so it do you think it's been more hands-on or less hands-on than you thought originally probably less hands-on okay and so but have you what's your overall like feeling with your job has it been something you're like glad that you had or you've enjoyed it even though it wasn't exactly what you thought is it something where you're like you're not sitting here like this is the worst job ever but and I think you've had a lot of experience because like you said you were kind of trained to be an instructor before you should have been an instructor so it's kind of helped you progress in life we actually talked off-camera how you said you used to not like public speaking or anything it scared you at first and now it's like a normal thing yeah I mean I still get like the butterflies before teaching it's only because I expect a good performance out of myself because I've been doing this for a couple years so once you start doing this the butterflies go away just kind of like you're in the motion yeah yeah once I start and it's like okay this feels familiar now okay so definitely not exactly what people would think with emergency management even myself I'm like oh your emergency management you must do like some crazy like when emergency happens on the base like a hurricane hits you're the ones out like moving stuff that's what I originally felt it so that's what I always thought so and even now it's totally different than what I would have imagined so you're more so on the base to help the base react in a way and not necessarily you're the ones reacting correct so that you see I mentioned before while it is kind of like operations or ops kind of owns that or runs that all of us emers will work in there and the EOC what that is is there's however many representatives in there from different units there's like an LRS representative there's a med group representative there's you know all these different representatives there from the base that they designate as these EOC reps representatives right so for example when the hurricane came through and hit Tyndall they were asking us hey you know we need resources so they called the EOC we talked to security forces hey security forces can you send people out to help Tyndall yeah I'll get you know someone there right away or you know however it goes down so we were like like the like the talking point for them so like Tyndall was like hey we're hit you're the closest base can you help us and then I was in there talking to security force hey LRS can you get some trucks security forces guys over here pick them up and bring them over there so in when I'm doing that part of my job that's when it was more hands-on that's when I was like hey this is I'm helping people this is where I was like I feel good about you were like kind of directing people to go do the help but you aren't the people on the ground helping correct so you're kind of just like the way I would explain it is like you're the you're the person kind of like calling in the air strike but like not not like you're the ones like helping people but you're like calling it in like they're like this person you're like these people go mm-hmm so that's pretty cool so one of my bigger questions I want to ask interview is are you planning on making this a career or is this just a short-time thing because you originally said you were doing it just for short time right so have your ideas changed over time are you questioning it now or where's your mind at now that you've been in versus your original thought you already said I'm joining I'm doing that for might get out after two to go guard and so now you're at three and a half so you didn't do palace chase correct so you know what's your what's your overall goal what did you turn this into I just had to extend to take an assignment which I was okay with because like I said yeah I was gonna do my for and get help and then go on about my degree and getting what I want to do with my degree but for the opportunity for traveling came up I don't mind extending for five months to take an assignment okay so so that's where that took me so now okay I'm in longer than what I expected so what am I gonna do with that now really depends because for me to stay in there have to I would have to find something else not saying I don't enjoy it but to find something else where the job kind of really grabs me to work because now I'm gonna be 28 and it's like I want something I'm gonna keep doing yeah I don't want it like I did this for help and it wasn't necessarily my first choice like we said I want to go for something like Secret Service wise yeah but then I found out about OSI and they do stuff that's in the Air Force like Secret Service so I was like oh that's interesting but then doing that I have to re-enlist yeah so now you're talking about another four years yeah I want to do four years I you're still kind of on the fence I'm still kind of on the fence so you're still trying to process everything right now way options so you haven't decided yet I haven't decided I don't mind extending because in your enlistment you can extend for up to one year for four years and then and then it's like hey you have to re-enlist so I could still I don't mind going okay one year I'll take this assignment one year I'll see if I can cross train one year let's see what this base is like yeah so it really depends at that moment but as of right now I just plan on doing that assignment I have coming up okay and then looking at other options outside of the Air Force my last question for this interview is going to be what advice would you have for somebody that is watching this and they're like hey I'm actually interested in this job I've watched it all the way to this point so you know I might put it down on my list what would your advice for that person be something I didn't know coming in now that I know is it's a lot of public speaking it's not based on your section it's everyone in E.M. will have a chance to teach do you like public speaking now I think even if I knew that I would still try it out only because I wanted to challenge myself too yeah because I needed to break the barrier I was in I wasn't a confident person before I enlisted and even after enlisting I was like I need to work on me as a person yeah so I knew public speaking is probably one of the most key things to get confidence so after doing it for a couple years I feel like I have confidence now where I can stand up in front of people and talk confidently about you know any given topic I can do something off the cuff and be like oh hey you know I can tell you about this so advice would be if you don't like public speaking and you're not willing to take on that challenge probably not the best job probably not the best job because let's I would say keep an open mind though and 100 possibly be willing to I would build yourself into that right it's never gonna hurt you long term right and actually an almost any job depending on the job but almost any job most jobs eventually you're gonna be some sort of instructor yeah or even to get a job you're gonna have to do an interview right so you're gonna have to talk in front of someone else so even at that point it might not even be a bad thing because you could set yourself up to be killing interviews right from your own job right getting used to talking in front of somebody so don't just look at things like I don't like public speaking so that's out of the picture right but definitely I think that's a great great advice as far as like keep it on my mind when you're gonna be public speaking regardless if you want to or not in the career field because I literally told my supervisor he was like yeah we're gonna have you you know do some like some class teaching at the time not knowing any better I was like oh I think my efforts are put better you know somewhere else he goes no you have to like you do that's your job you do this yeah so and it's not just you know like Sebron classes it's like EM rep courses it's control center operations courses so like when I go back to work this upcoming work week like I'm teaching a class somewhere else that I have to go to in front of other people the seventh special forces group that I talked about the base around here I have to I did a hurricane brief for them three days in a row for three days in a row I was in front of army Rangers teaching them about hurricane safety and where they go if the Rangers have if the Rangers are like hey we can't be here anymore because of whatever mission capabilities you know happen that they you know that the hurricane damage and they have to go somewhere else I was briefing them hey I'm your Rangers here's where you go and they're listening to the whole senior airmen Air Force thing so that's actually pretty cool and it is when you look at it like that you start getting your confidence it's like oh wow like that's though that's like I tell Army Rangers what to do more or less yeah I tell them where to go so some other advice just know that you will have to be public speaking at some point now obviously I want to reach a certain rank your focus shifts some other things coming in this crew field it really depends on your base how active you are like for where I'm at an Air Force base now actually here for CE there's only three military squadrons all the rest are civilians so like plumbers electricians structures all civilians so I actually work closely with EOD here and fire here so we do a lot of training together which is really cool for me because it's not like that everywhere else yeah so like other places again it depends on the missions like I think Peterson Air Force base in Colorado they have air shows so like EM will go out in staging case of an emergency and they need to set up an EOC on the spot like that that hub I was talking about before so they'll actually go out and set up for that but there's not those here your job and the business of the job may differ depending on the job the base you go to so that's another thing that I think is unique with this job okay so like if somebody were to be like yeah that's a really busy job maybe that's their own experience but not every base is going to be like that right and so and a really good example I think is in Germany like between Spengalum and Rammstein is that Rammstein excessive super busy from what I was told yeah yeah I wish though a super busy Spengalum different mission not as busy but they're in Germany and they're like they're like an hour or two apart I think they're like they're two hours yeah pretty close to each other but totally different somebody's like yeah I was stationed in Germany it was crazy busy but this was I was stationed in Germany it was super slow yeah this is excellent I'm talking about so it really depends as far as emergency management goes what where you're at at the base and what their mission is so basically keep an open mind as far as public speaking goes and then also keep an open mind as far as busyness goes if you're like a busy body and you have to be in a busy place might be a good job but also could be a bad job because you might get stationed somewhere that isn't as busy but overall do you feel like this this job has satisfied you and your overall experience of what you wanted to do in the Air Force as a whole like because you originally joined just kind of like help yourself financially but you feel like it's helped you beyond that like become who you are today for a better version of you 100% that just the kind of person I am I'm always like like positive thinking like you know even if you have a bad day there's something you pull out of that you know so the public speaking even though I still don't like doing it yeah the confidence it's brought to me is gonna be tenfold for the future my future self yeah now the confidence that I bring across people are like man he's good and I'm like I was so nervous like you don't understand how nervous I was and that I was a little coward when I first started yeah you have no idea I mean like the shaky voice like sweating and everything yeah and now it's it's you know less but anyway you just have learned how to control yourself more exactly yeah and that's something where not all jobs are gonna be tested especially at an A1C level my job we never did public speaking right almost ever like I had to do it like maybe once or twice when they'd be like hey Sergeant guy you're gonna brief the like weekend safety brief or whatever and so then they would make me like read this thing in front of our whole shop but it'd be like 30 guys and it was all guys I knew so it was like big deal yeah but that was like the most public speaking I ever had to do and even then I didn't like doing it I'm just like you stole me on the spot like right now like hey read this I'm like oh okay yeah mine is like I'll be you know on the computer one second the next minute they're like oh hey cap someone has an appointment you have to teach us three and a half hour course oh okay let me get ready all of a sudden yeah you know let me mentally prepare myself in four seconds right but some other things that I think it helped me is so another thing about this job and I don't think it's actually advertised on your first website is that I'm actually has meant tech certified so actually part of that tech school is you go to a part at Fort Leonard Wood where they teach has met awareness ops and technician so actually that has meant tech certification what they told us in tech school is it's a two-year certification we got in two weeks you take a test every other day and you you study like no one's business and it's two weeks of your whole time there so like when you're doing that that's your main focus you do em stuff em stuff em stuff and then it's like oh it has has met time that's like has met I forgot what they call a block we just said it was has met and then you do that for two weeks and then you get has met tech certified which is I have like a certification from the NFPA saying your has met tech certified I can respond and recover to different disasters like chemical spills like trains that fall on over and have has met that fallen out so that was one of the thing that I didn't know about the job that I thought was holy crap it's working in like they call it like level a suits is like the type of protection you have and it's like those big bubble suits that you ever see people out in that's my job as well whoa so there's kind of hands-on so it is kind of that emergency or response stuff that you were talking about yes but you don't exactly do that all the time but you have the certifications right because depending on the base like I said before is they may have the civilians do it or a lot of times like like for this base here it's the fire department's job like they have that show so they do that like we may come on as like a recommendation like yeah here's what you should do and then we'll go into you so you want to do it as a civilian though you have the certification so you can get out and is it have you seen or heard people it's easier to step into that job getting out there's actually a very good example and I don't remember the person's name and I don't think it would matter actually but I this particular person this was years years ago but she had you know she came in she did her foreign got out she got out as a senior airman and she had this hazmat tack and worked don't remember where but it was some big company and was making like 80 grand out of like right away like right like right away right out of her four years went to this company and was making like like some crazy amount of money at very young age with the certification because they had military experience because my job emergency management is actually actually directly related to FEMA in the civilian world like the Department of Homeland Security there so it transfers pretty well into the civilian world it's not one of those jobs where it's just a dead-end job once you get out of the military you're like now I can't even use this it's actually a direct correlation because of and I could riddle off all these DODI's and AFI's but there's a specific instruction from the DOD that says every DOD installation will have an EM program from there we have what they call NIMS National Incident Management System from their Air Force took that and made AFIMS which means you know now here's how we operate for the emergency management so it is a direct correlation to FEMA for the Department of Homeland Security and that's what my bachelor's is focusing on now because now I have all the schooling for it I've been doing this stuff so you're pretty well set up if you did want to get out you're like you're not too worried about getting a job because it will transfer and that's why I'm at that point where I'm like I got what I wanted I'm going to be doing my foreign extended to take the assignment for travel which I don't mind doing but I completed what I've wanted now and I'm going to finish my bachelor's while I'm in Korea before I get out and I have that direct correlation I can go anywhere with this certification with this experience and it's just right you know right there that's super awesome so that's good information for somebody like a tip is this job can transfer so it doesn't have to be something they're like well if I do it then I'm stuck because if I get out how am I going to use it so if you guys enjoyed this video or appreciate it be sure to give it a thumbs up also go check out David's channel as well I'm going to link it up above I'll have a link in the description check him out show him some love subscribe to his channel