 What's up guys it's Josh and we're back again with a highly requested video. Today I will be talking about why I chose to do Air Force ROTC in college and specifically why I chose to do it at Yale. Alright, so if you've seen some of my other videos you probably know that I do come from a military family. My father was in the Air Force for 22 years and he only just retired when we moved here to Virginia before my junior year. He was a pilot in the Air Force and he actually flew B-1 bombers which was pretty sick. Because of his career I was born in a small town called Wichita Falls in Texas where my dad was completing his pilot training. But my first memories were in Rapid City, South Dakota where I lived from ages one through five. I remember anxiously awaiting my dad coming home every day from work and I would run up to him and hug his big green flight suit and I also remember like me and my mom taking trips out to the Air Force base to see the giant beast of an airplane that my dad flew. I was always extremely proud of him. As a young child most people think that like police officers, firefighters, professional athletes that those are the coolest jobs you can have. Well I thought my dad had the coolest job on the entire planet. On the days that my dad was flying my mom and I would go sit out on the back porch and just wait. We'd begin to hear a low rumble we'd look up we'd see my dad flying really low right over the house and right as he got over our house he'd kick in the afterburners and just zoom off into the sky. We wouldn't even hear the boom until he was already past us because he was breaking the speed of sound. It was crazy. I was enthralled. The funny part was though I never really saw myself being a pilot or even being in the Air Force for that matter. I always associated the Air Force with my dad. Although I thought it was cool I wanted to be independent and grow up to do my own thing. What I failed to realize was that the Air Force was almost as big of a part in my life as it was in his. When I first learned to read at like age four in my South Dakota kitchen I remember there was this one mug that sat on the counter and it said, home is wherever the Air Force sends you. Although I would like read that on a daily basis I never really knew what it meant but it soon hit me pretty hard. The Air Force dominated my life. They had ultimate control of wherever I ended up and wherever I went to school. It was always a waiting game to find out where we ended up getting station next. And for the next decade we just bounced around between the four places I'd lived. Every year or two we would just pack up all our things, put it on a truck and leave. It was a tough lifestyle just having to leave all the friendships that I had formed behind. I tell people that I enjoyed it and oh it was a great experience meeting all these people but honestly it was really hard and making friends in a new place it's just rough. You see my dad went to the Air Force Academy. He got recruited to play football there. Like I said earlier I didn't want anything to do with that so I set my sights on schools like Stanford, MIT and Yale. As I grew up I discovered this newfound appreciation for the work that my father had done for our country. Although the constant deployments were rough and having to care for my four younger siblings almost drove me insane. I had this incredible respect for my father and for the entire military. Around the beginning of my sophomore year I began looking at colleges. I finally opened my eyes up a little bit and actually considered the Air Force Academy as an option. I knew it would be rough but I had this feeling deep down inside me, a feeling that I wanted to serve my country. Yes I had big aspirations in life but I felt like I had this duty to give back to the country that had given so much to me. Even with this feeling I'll be completely honest the Air Force Academy was still not my top choice of colleges. I did end up deciding to apply to the academy but I was ultimately unsure of where I would end up. Those of you that don't know applying to a service academy is a grueling process. Not only do you need an appointment to the academy itself which are highly sought after you also need a nomination from one of your congressmen. Each congressman only has a limited number of nominations that they can give for each service academy so there's hundreds of kids going for these limited spots. How the congressman handled this is they have their own application for their nomination. Each congressman had their own website where I had to fill out a bunch of forms and submit my own essays. I applied for my two senators and also my local congressman for this district. Each application was literally as much work as an entire college application. So when you added it all up the Air Force Academy application was like four applications in one it was ridiculous. If they like your application enough you get invited to go interview at their office and then you get grilled with tough questions from some of the nation's most respected leaders and staff. But I don't regret a single minute of it because if I didn't go to those interviews I would not be sitting here today. So I was sitting outside the office of my local congressman Gerald Connelly just sitting in the lobby chilling. I was in between interviews and I struck up a conversation with one of the head staff for the office. He asked me what schools I was applying to in addition to Air Force Academy and I listed them off and then he hit me with the question have you thought about the ROTC scholarship? I guess I'd viewed my college applications as either the hardcore military option at the Air Force Academy or just going to a normal college and having a normal civilian college experience. I guess I never realized that I could just do both. From then on I knew I wanted to apply. In fact the deadline was only like two weeks away so I didn't have much time. I filled out the application, did the fitness test, had an interview and I did get everything in on time. Months passed by I found out that I had gotten rejected to Stanford but I did get into UVA and Georgia Tech. Ivy League decisions were still a ways off but one night I got a call. My mom handed me the phone and said that someone from Yale and I'm like instantly freaking out. It turns out it was one of the cadre from the Air Force ROTC detachment at Yale. I spent the rest of the night asking her questions about Yale and ROTC life at Yale and honestly I was hooked. I thought this was a good sign and it gave me a lot of confidence that I might have a chance at getting accepted. A week later I get a similar call from MIT's detachment and that boosted my confidence even further. Then Pi Day rolls around. I opened my MIT application and it turns out I got rejected. So the cadre at MIT kind of just hyped up this whole experience for nothing. It was really disappointing and I kind of thought Yale was going to turn out the same way. At that point I gave up all hope and just set my sights on either Georgia Tech or the Air Force Academy. In fact I wasn't really even stressing on Ivy Day. I just kind of assumed the worst. But if you've seen my other videos you know the story. Obviously I got accepted to Yale and it was just a huge surprise. I had also received a nomination and an appointment at the Air Force Academy so I had a tough decision on my hands. After a great conversation with the cadre at the detachment and an even better visit to Yale, I think I had made up my mind. I'm now proud to call myself a Yale Air Force ROTC cadet. I look forward to my next three and a half years in the program and then my service in the Air Force afterwards. All right I hope you guys enjoyed that. I spent a lot of time writing the script for this video because I wanted to tell the story right. I do plan on making more videos on ROTC since it is such a big part of my life here at Yale. If you have any questions for me make sure to leave them down in the comments below. I'll make sure to answer them. If you liked the video give it a thumbs up. If you're new and you haven't pushed the subscribe button yet, what are you doing? All right I'll continue to have more daily content for you guys in the future. Let's see how long we can keep it going and I'll see you guys soon.