 Why did you join Air Force? So that way people can kind of relate when they're looking into a job. So I joined in January of 2016. See, it was like the summer of my graduation and I was like seeing everybody else go off to college and have these plans and I really didn't know what I was doing with my life. So I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna join some type of military. My brother was in the Air Force for a few years and then I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna pursue that. He did education with the housing, he got all that stuff. And I was like, well, I'm gonna do that because I can get my schooling paid for and I don't gotta go into debt or anything like that. And I joined about six months after I graduated high school. Okay, so you're still pretty young then. You're 22. Did you just turn 22? I turned 22 in October. Okay, so like six months ago. Dang, super young. And you just re-enlisted? Yes, on Thursday. Dang, so 22 and you're already on your second enlistment. Man, that's wild. So what is your job name or job title and what is the AFSC for that? Some security forces, the AFSC is 3P0X1. Did you end up getting this job straight out of debt or did you go in as open general and then find out you were security forces later? I had this job straight out of debt. I knew I was gonna be security forces about three months before I shipped out. Was this one of the jobs that you had wanted? Was it on your list at all or how high on your list if you had it on your list? I believe there was eight choices you could choose from and I had it as my eighth choice. Here's your last choice. So what were the other seven if you can remember? You don't have to like rack your brain too hard but what other things did you kind of wanna do? There was structural, there was services, weather, pharmacy tech, aerospace medical, finance. You were all over the place. Those are all so different. That's crazy. That's funny because like most people usually have like a specific thing they're going for in like that area and all of those are pretty like all over the place. So did you do a lot of research before you had filled that out or are you kind of just like, oh these sound cool, this sounds cool? I did a little bit of research. I really understand how like the recruiting process worked but I did a little bit and I looked into all these jobs. So when you initially signed a contract did you sign for four or six years? I signed for four years just because I didn't know if I'd be like a year and I'd really hate it or I'd really like it and I didn't wanna be locked in for X amount of more years but and then like the benefits are okay and stuff for you to sign six over four but you get more option if you like at the end of your four. Did you do a lot of research for the four versus six thing? The only thing I really knew was that if you signed six years you got you put on A1C right away and you had a little bit, you made a little bit more money but that's about. Did you watch my video breaking down the contracts before you joined? I watched a lot of your videos but I can't tell you if I watched that exactly. Okay, well I think you made a smart choice signing four because like you said you get a little more paid to sign the six but in the end you are locked in for those extra two years so you get less freedom so you're basically getting a little bit extra money to give up a lot more freedom. So with Air Force jobs a lot of people wanna know where is tech school for this specific job and how long is tech school? So tech school for security forces is at Lackland Air Force Base so after you complete BMT and Airman's week you will drive a minute down base and you will be at tech school. So it's neat and because you're on base and you stay at Lackland, tech school is 13 weeks long if I remember correctly. You're actually there for about 15 weeks if you complete the course on time because you have like the first two weeks of like phase training and stuff before you actually get sent to your tech school. Just under four months? It was a little under four months, yes. So if you could briefly explain tech school how it was, if you enjoyed it, was it tough or hard? Just in general what was tech school like overall for you? So tech school wasn't bad. I actually pretty much enjoyed it. It was my first time away from home and actually not being yelled at in BMT and it was a nice change of pace. So you'll do like Monday through Friday, you'll do class work and security forces. You have so much you learn there. You do M4 firing, M9 firing, heavy firing and you'll do Nuke security. You'll do law enforcement training. You'll do deployment training. You'll do all sorts of things and then on your off time, you know a lot of people went down like the Riverwalk. They hung out around base. Santa Antonio is a pretty nice place. A lot of people loved it there. There was just so much to do for tech schoolers and Santa Antonio really embraces like the military culture. So people did that. And then that's a good end of the one thing about security forces that you won't get once you complete tech school. If you work Monday through Friday in tech school, then after that your job can really vary on what days you have off and holidays off and all sorts of other things. The base needs security 24 seven. Yes. And then it never sleeps. It sleeps through storms even every day. 24 seven, 365. So for security forces, where all can you be stationed? Some jobs you can be stationed everywhere. Some places you barely get stationed because depending on the demand or what jobs are available there. So what's the security forces situation like when it comes to being stationed places? Security forces you can be stationed everywhere because every air force base needs security to some aspect. And you can also be stationed at Army bases. I've been stationed at an AC base before. So it really is almost anywhere. You guys can get stationed at places that are even military specific too, right? That would be like satellite bases and stuff like that. Or like really remote bases. Any air force base that has assets, we have to have people there to protect them. So you can get some pretty off the wall locations sometimes. What's the craziest place you've ever heard of anyone being stationed? It's just so many people get people in Korea, Japan overseas deployed to many different locations but some of them I haven't even heard of until I came here, Africa, Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan. So some bases that aren't even like common knowledge to most people. And then you find out like, oh, you've been stationed there? I didn't know that was a place. Dang. Are you hoping to eventually, cause it's usually being listed so you're on your second enlistment. You know, I'm assuming you're probably planning on saying it for some length of time maybe or at least you're on the fence with that. Would you be open to going to one of those really remote places or kind of crazy bases that people usually don't hear about or go to? Absolutely. I would love to go back overseas for a little while. I'd love to be deployed to at least get my experience there as well. But after that, wherever the Air Force sends me. So we talked a little bit off camera about all the different departments that security forces can be, all the different aspects of it. So a lot of people just think you're checking IDs at the gate. But in reality, there's dozens of things that go to security forces. So I'm gonna let you try to rattle off as many as you can of the different things that you guys can actually do in your job. So on top of being a gate guard, you can also be a patrol, which is like patrolling the base, protecting it. You can do caddim, which is like training people how to fire the weapons. So you'll do not only security forces, but the rest of base populace. You'll have canine with, you'll be working with the animals. Then you'll have, so Charleston when I was there had boat patrol. They had Raven mission, where you would protect the C-130 in hostile areas, dagger, Korea, you can be security units. You can be a trainer, you can be a flight trainer, security for like a nuke base. Armory, you can arm up people every day because they have to have guns to go to work. You can do presidential security. There's even like office jobs that you'll work in, security forces that help support the mission that we do. You can be a trainer, you can be a technical instructor, you can be, there's just so many in security forces that, and even nowadays, I'm still finding out about that while it actually exists in our job and it's something that we can do. So it's, that's something that you'd have to research to find out what else we can do because it's just because there's so much we can do. So when people sign like a security force kind of drag a lot of people think, oh no, we're checking IDs all the time. No, there's just so much more that you can get involved with. So what would a typical day in security forces for you at least be like, if you were to sum up like in general, because I know right now you've been like in processing and all that stuff. So your day might be a little bit different, but once you are done in processing all that to the space, what is your typical day gonna look like? So it varies by shift, like what time you come in. So I work the morning shift right now. So you'll arm up, you'll get your M4, your M9, whatever weapon you need for the day. Then you'll go to guard mount, which will be the flight chief will pass on anything that we have from the following shifts. And then you'll post out, you'll be posting out as a security unit or the gate or the patrol. And then you'll just work whatever that job has for the day. And then usually it's either an eight or 12 hour shift and then someone will come and relieve you. You'll come in, you're training your weapon and you'll go home. That's when you're working gate guard or you're working patrol or something. You said you've also worked flight line patrol as well. So it's pretty much the exact same thing. Same thing, just a different post. You still come in, you arm up. You do the guard mount with the whole flight and then you'll post out. You'll do the flight line. You look for people to do stupid stuff. So what advice would you have for somebody that's looking to go security forces or maybe just got security forces that doesn't know much about it? What could you give them as far as advice to handle this job and be successful at this job? So there's a lot of advice I could give. I guess I'll just focus on three things. It's one is you're gonna have a lot of positive and negative people in security forces. I think if it's important for you is to surround yourself with the positive people and they can help braille you up and do whatever you need to do. My second one is if you are not a gym person, I highly suggest that you start going to the gym and working out because wearing the gear all the time and your weapon and the constant grade on your back and your body can start to tear down your muscles. So it's important to be physically strong so you can be able to do this work every day that we do. And then my third thing would be if you got security forces and you didn't want security forces or whatever your situation may be, you should probably look into, if you're just gonna do your four and get out, well do college classes while you're in. While you're sitting at the gates, work on your college homework or find something that's gonna benefit you when you get out. If you want to retrain, look into how to do it or however you want to do it. There's plenty of people that have retrained. There's people that have gotten out. People are commissioned. They're all successful. So you just gotta be able to have a plan and stuff. So I think a lot of that can be something to just having a positive outlook and kind of trying to move forward. Even if it's something you want to do, still surround yourself with positive people. And if it's not something you wanted to do but you're in it to have a positive outlook and a positive mindset going into it and maybe use it to spring you forward into your next thing. And you'd be surprised. Like if you're a positive person, a lot of good things will happen to you. Like you might get put up for different patrols. They might send you places because you're constantly coming to work and embracing the suck and just dealing with it and just pressing forward every day. So being positive can really uplift you. If you're negative, everybody around you is gonna be negative too. So at least if you're smiling or at least try to be happy, other people rather are gonna feed off of it. All right guys, that was my interview with a security forces airman. What would you guys call yourselves? Like do you guys have a name? Defenders. A Defender. Okay, so I was drawn a blank because I didn't hang out with any security forces people when I was in. So Defender, if you want to be a Defender, hopefully this video helped you guys. And if you guys appreciate it, be sure to give it a thumbs up. Click the subscribe button down below. Share it with anybody that might be in your depth or anyone that you know that might be interested in security forces. And we'll see you guys next time.