 Hey guys my name is Caleb Walsman, I am a senior airman in the Arkansas Air National Guard United States Air Force. So the main reason I joined the Air Force, not gonna lie, I mean it was partially like yeah I wanna serve my country and all this, but most of the reason I joined the Air National Guard was for the benefits. I was like, heck only working one week in a month, two weeks in a year, and I get all these different benefits. I get to pretty much go to college almost for free, man that sounds like a really good gig. So that was one of the initial reasons I first joined. It over time changed, but that was the initial reason I joined was honestly mostly just for the benefits. My current rank is senior airman and I've been in for about three and a half years. The title of my job is fire protection and AFSC is three Echo 7 X1. So with the guards it's actually kind of a little different. I was initially going in and I was actually kind of wanting to do security forces at first, but then kind of talking to my dad because both my dad and my uncle are firefighter paramedics for city department. So after talking to them for a little bit, I just kind of shifted over and I was like, okay, you know, I'm going to try a firefighting and see how I like it. And I've loved it ever since. So I always, when I was a kid, like I said, my dad's a firefighter paramedic. When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up and be a firefighter, but then towards high school it was kind of like, I don't know really what I'm going to do with my life, you know. But then I always had an act that, or I always had a feeling like I wanted to help people. And so it was this in a way kind of did sort of line up with what I was wanting to do because it's just after I saw it and talked with my dad and my uncle. I was like, you know, I think I will actually really like this shot. I'm going to go ahead and give it a shot. Like I said, I've loved it ever since. Like I said, at first I thought about being security because I thought maybe on the civilian side of things for my civilian job while I'm in the guard, I would be a cop. But, you know, that sort of changed after I decided to go fire instead. I signed a six year contract. To my knowledge, the guard only signs a six year contract for your first enlistment. I think for the ones going forward, you can sign a four or six. Maybe you don't hold me to it, but I know for guards starting out, it's pretty much you have to sign a six year contract. The tech school for my job was in San Angelo, Texas at Goodfellow Air Force Base. Tech school was approximately four months. I believe my set of orders was like 120 or 130 something days. Honestly, I loved tech school. The absolute worst thing about tech school was getting up so early because whenever I was going through with the first phase, I pretty much had to get up at like 415 to 430 ish in the morning. So be prepared for that if you do sign up for this job or you're signing up for this job. But besides that, honestly, I loved tech school. San Angelo isn't a very big town in Texas, but it's a small enough town where you actually you start to actually like learn where everything is. And so it's easier when you go off base to go to places because a lot of times you can just walk to places or get an Uber real quick. And then, yeah, actually just going through the academy and doing practical stuff was awesome. The power the death by PowerPoint stuff that you have to do, you know, to actually learn the fundamentals of firefighting and your medical procedures and all this. That was honestly the worst part was having to go through the death by PowerPoints, but actually going outside and putting on all your gear, doing search and rescue, doing, you know, above and below great fires, attacking them and all that was the most fun. I've probably almost ever had it was it was a blast. So pretty much with the job, fire protection, you can be stationed pretty much about anywhere because I don't remember what reg it is. I don't know if it's an FPA. I don't know if it's an FAA thing or whatever. But if your base especially has aircraft, it is required to have a full time fire department, whether that be a civilian kind of like what I do on the full time side or military. So you can be stationed at almost about any base. And a lot of bases, I think, actually have both. They have both state and military. So you can pretty much be stationed about anywhere. The basis of your job is you were there to protect the people, the property and the environment. That's going from everything from aircraft, structural buildings, like I said, the people. So you were there to protect them and be the firefighter and first responder for any emergency. So a lot of your job will be training over stuff like that. You'll be you'll have to check out your trucks, make sure your equipment and everything's good to go for the shift or for the day for on drill status or whatever, you know, that's the basics of it. You you don't actually get in certain hours of week. How much you work? Most active duty bases to my knowledge, there's kind of two shifts they go off of. It's either a 24 24, meaning you work one full 24 hours on and then have one full 24 hours off or 48 48, which is just two days, two days. Now, I know a lot of times active duty also does this thing called the Kelly day or rotating Kelly day. And to my knowledge, pretty much all that means is every couple of weeks, two or three weeks, you'll actually have like three to four days off in a row instead of just your normal one or two days off. So you'll you'll get some time off. It gets you a little bit more extra time off pretty much is what that does. About every single certification you will get in this job will instantly be able to transfer to a civilian department and they will love it because they won't have to send you to an academy to get all your initial search done while you're doing like you're on the job training and stuff, you'll be getting your driver operators, which is pretty much just your certification stating you can drive this truck and you know how to operate this truck. And that'll also transfer instantly to a civilian department. They're obviously most likely when you get on to an apartment, they're going to want to test your knowledge first, but you'll already have the search and they won't have to send you through the academy. So pretty much about any sort transfer over to a civilian department. I say this is definitely a highly deployable job because like I said, you pretty much any base or airport that is running aircraft, they are required to have fire protection. So I already know I came out of the academy about a year and a half ago and I already know about four of my classmates that have deployed and I'm actually getting ready to deploy this next year. So I don't fully know what the tempo is. I know I know my base every four years as of right now we deploy. But like I said, this is a very highly deployable job. And I think there's a lot of volunteer opportunities too, especially for guard for deployments. I really don't know if I'm going to do this for 20 years or not. The main reason being if I stay kind of at my base full time like I am, I might as well stay in the guard too, you know what I mean? Because I'm already working there. But if I plan to go to a civilian department, city department here in about a couple of years or so, then I don't know if I'm going to stay in just because that's kind of going to hinder and put more weight on my shoulders of having to go to drill and then get deployed and missing out on my city department stuff. So I don't really know if I'm going to make this a full on career in the military or not. I know I'm going to make it a career in the fire service. I just don't know if the military is going to be involved the whole time or not. I would definitely stay in this career field, like I said, ever since the Academy I've loved this job and especially on the volunteer department. I used to be on the calls I'd go with them and stuff. It's it's awesome. And even the little calls we've had at our base and the airport. It's it's awesome. Nothing, in my opinion, can beat that adrenaline rush and actually getting to go and kind of help and make a difference in people's lives. So specifically talking to someone before they go to basic and tech school, I would highly recommend if you have one nearby, get on a volunteer department because then you could already start to bump up and get some knowledge before you even go to the Academy. You'll already kind of learn how the gear works and how to use it. And you may even be able to go or already go on some structure, fires or medical calls before you even go. So that's something I would recommend. And I also recommend this to a lot of our newer airmen coming in at our base. Like I said, we're we're guards. So it's a lot easier to get on a volunteer department, but I know active duty. It's kind of up to your supervisors, I think, on if you can get on a volunteer department. The volunteer department is awesome because, like I said, you get more training. And another thing is, honestly, you're going to most likely get more calls than you are on your actual base, because the worst thing about this job in this career field in the Air Force is your run volume. You don't get a whole, whole lot of calls, but go into a volunteer department or city department, you're going to get a lot more calls most of the time. So that's one of my biggest things I'd recommend them getting on a volunteer department. So guys, if you want to feel free to message me on Instagram, my Instagram is Caleb Wassman, the Caleb's with a K. So it's K-A-L-E-B-W-A-S-S-M-A-N. Feel free to message me on there if you have any more questions. I know even just a short video like this, it's hard to get all the information out. But if you have any more specific questions, feel free to go on Instagram. You can follow me or not. I really don't care. But if you want to feel free to message me there and I will try to get back to you as quick as I can. Thank you so much for having me.