 First off, my name is Caleb Lyons. I was active duty for three years and three months and I separated early under a palace chase, which is something I'll explain later in the video. But palace chase basically means you leave active duty early to go straight into the Air National Guard or to the Air Force Reserve. And I chose to do that. So I left Air Force, what is that? Nine months-ish, nine months early to pursue a career as a police officer, which is, like I said, I'll explain more of that in the video. But initially, I joined the Air Force because I truly just wanted to serve my country. It's something I've always wanted to do since I was a little kid. I've always wanted to be in the military and I've always wanted to be a police officer. So I knew that my stepdad was in the Air Force a very, very long time ago and he told me very good things about the Air Force and so it was just kind of always on my mind that I wanted to join the Air Force. I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I went and spoke to a recruiter. I had, so I'm from the town of Mazeville, Kentucky and I had to travel about an hour 15, an hour, 20 minutes east to a town called Portsmouth, Ohio and that's where the closest Air Force recruiter was for me and I spoke to the recruiter there who I am still very good friends with today as a matter of fact, he's come to visit me since I've left active duty. But I spoke to him and just got the ball rolling and I haven't looked back and I've loved every minute of it. So that's kind of my reasoning because I'm joining the Air Force is just because I wanted to serve. Okay, so I, as I already said, I've been in the Air Force, I was active duty for three years and three months and I just moved to Wisconsin, which is where my wife is from. We moved up here. Oh man, it's been, today's like August 8th or something. So we just got moved up here less than three weeks ago or so. So I moved up here and I enlisted in the Air National Guard just the other day. So I was on terminal leave and enlisted into the Air National Guard. So now I've been in three years and four months or so, but three years and three months of active duty. And my current rank right now is I am a senior airman. So I'm an E-4, tested for Staff Sergeant. Actually, this year before I Palace Chased was my first time testing for Staff Sergeant. And actually I think I would find out if I made it next week or sometime like that. So if I would have stayed in, I would have been pretty excited to find out if I made Staff Sergeant. Unfortunately, when you transition from active duty to the Air National Guard, if you did not already so on Staff Sergeant had at least six months in that rank, I think it's six months, someone else can correct. If you didn't have that rank on for at least six months, you cannot transition to the Air National Guard with it. So even if I did make Staff Sergeant in active duty my first time trying, I can't put it on in the Guard. But the slot that I took in my shop in the Air National Guard as a Staff Sergeant position since I'm already qualified in my job, all I have to do is complete ALS, which is Airman Leadership School. And I would promote up to Staff Sergeant. So again, I don't wanna get too in-depth. I'll get more into it as the video kind of goes along. But that's the gist of it. So I've been in three years, three months of active duty, now like one month in the Guard, and I'm a senior Airman. Okay, so the name of our job is Water and Fuel Systems Maintenance. The AFSC number is three echo four X1. I'm a three echo four five one because once you get into the Air Force and kinda learn a little bit more, it'll make more sense to you. But I've completed what is called my CDCs, my career development courses, which is something you do after Tech School. And I've completed my upgrade training, so I'm not considered like in training, if that makes sense. So I'm a three, four, five one. So I got my five level. So it's like three, five, seven and nine is how it goes. And nine obviously being maxed out in your career field kind of thing. Typically, I think you get your seven level Staff Sergeants get it. So yeah, that's kind of getting on a tangent there. But so yes, that's our AFSC number three four X1. But what our career field does is plumbing work basically, plumbing and fuels work. So I found that at my base, I was stationed at Scott Air Force Base in Southern Illinois, which was only six and a half hours, seven hours away from where I was from in Eastern Kentucky. So it's pretty nice. I could go home every once in a while. But anyways, at Scott Air Force Base, we didn't get to do the fuels part. We only did the water part. So we only worked on the plumbing inside of the buildings on Scott Air Force Base. And things like that. But again, that's another question. I'll get more in depth as we kind of get along. And I can just kind of answer more questions. Okay, so for me, it was kind of interesting. So initially coming into the Air Force, I wanted to be TACP security forces or firefighting because I was a firefighter, volunteer firefighter outside of the military. I'd always wanted to be a police officer, but TACP really kind of attracted me because I liked the adrenaline rush of it, it seemed like it. And I always wanted to kind of have a combat role, I guess I would say. But unfortunately, well, not unfortunately, I would say the way that God worked things out. I got two meps and they did my eye exam and I wasn't qualified for any of those jobs. I didn't have bad eyesight per se, but my eyesight wasn't good enough for those jobs. So even with glasses, it said, I didn't attest their meps and they said my eyesight wasn't correctable with glasses. So unfortunately, I wasn't able to go in in any of those jobs or even try for any of those jobs. So I went to meps the depth. I was in the delayed entry program for quite a while, about a year, because I had to lose 100 pounds to join the Air Force. I was like 200, 285 or something pounds at one point, no, 290-ish pounds at one point. And I lost about, like I said, about 100 pounds. I got down to like 195-ish or whatever. I'm six foot tall, so my max weight was like 203. So I had to get down below that to actually get into the depth or I guess get into basic, I should have said. That's a long way of saying that, no, I did not have this job at the depth. I came in as open mechanical. I wanted, once I found out I couldn't do those jobs, I wanted to be a part of what's called CE Squadron, the civil engineer squadron. I wanted to be a CE guy. So I said, okay, well, I'm gonna do open mechanical because I knew that CE jobs were mechanical jobs and surely with all the different career fields, you've got HVAC, plumbing, PowerPro, electrical structures, heavy equipment operator. I'm sure I'm gonna say, oh, firefighting is in and EOD for some reason is in the CE Squadron. Not hating on EOD, it's just kind of strange. They just don't do like neither just fire. Those kind of stand out a little bit, but they, yeah, that's a different story. But yeah, so there's so many different career fields. In CE, there's two more that I'm missing, emergency management and EA's, which I cannot, can't remember, they're really, really important and I feel bad that I can't remember their career field right now, but there's a lot of different career fields. It's kind of what I'm getting at. And the mechanical side that assigned to the CE Squadron. So I said, okay, I'm gonna come in as open mechanical. So I got to basic training and found out while I was in basic training, what my job was, basically what works, what happens if you come in as open, some people come in as completely open contract, but then there's also open certain career fields. You know, open general is like everything. And then I came in as open mechanical. So it was an open contract, but I was gonna get a mechanical career field. So I came in and I got a, you get, I think it's like the third week of basic training, maybe fourth week. You get a sheet of paper that you put 10 jobs that you would wanna have on that list. And that's kind of how they designate what you get. Now for me, I didn't even put water and field systems maintenance on the list. I don't even remember seeing that job. I put like heavy equipment operators, number one, a bunch of CE jobs on there and then aircraft maintenance after that. So again, I had no intentions at all whatsoever doing this job. I never even heard of it. But somehow I didn't put it on the list. This is what I got while I was in basic I found out and I didn't really know what it was until I got to tech school and opened up the book the first day of class. And if I remember right, I think it was like a toilet or something kind of like that. And I was like, no, there's a toilet that was drawn on the board in the classroom. And I was like, I think I'm a plumber. So that's how that went for me. But yeah, so that's how I got this job. Let's be a short answer. As I already said, no, it wasn't something that I wanted to do. I'd never even heard of it, didn't really know anything about it. But in my time in the job, I found that I really loved it and that's why I've continued to stay in the same job in the Air National Guard. Even though now moving to Wisconsin where my wife is from, I've been hired as a police officer at a department and I'm in the police academy. I'm not doing anything obviously related to plumbing or water and fuel systems maintenance. I'm not doing anything related to that. But I found that I really liked that job. So I wanted to stay and do it as much as I could with the Air National Guard. So this is another easy one. I kind of get ahead of myself sometimes. So as I already said, the other jobs I wanted to do is like I said, security forces, firefighting and TACP. And then my eyesight while I was at MEPs disqualified me for all of those. So when I came back to the depth, I had to choose a different career field. And I'm not sad about it at all. I don't look back on it. I try not to live my life with regrets. I just think that everything happens for a reason. And I end up where I'm supposed to be for a reason. It's turned out that I've landed myself in a beautiful state that I've never been to before, Wisconsin, because of where I got stationed as a plumber. While I keep saying plumbing, I should say a water and fuel systems maintenance technician. And now I'm working, I will be working as soon as I graduate the academy for a department that amazing and the people are gonna be amazing and I'm gonna be doing a job that is amazing. So regardless of where the Air Force took me, I wouldn't be where I am now without the Air Force. So I think in general, I'm not a recruiter. I don't need to recruit people into the Air Force. But in general, whatever job you land in, the first time, if you absolutely cannot stand it, I would say either wait and take some time, get into it more, get more involved, volunteer for more things involving with it on your base and in your units and the people that you're working with. And if you still don't like it, then number two, retrain. I mean, there's gonna be opportunities while your active duty. I mean, sometimes it's a little difficult, you know, like air traffic controllers, jobs like that, you can't retrain, but there are, you can, but it's just difficult. You know, it's an underman career field, but there's opportunities out there to retrain. I would not say get out of the Air Force because you don't like your job at that time. Unless you're like at a special circumstance, like I was where I wanted to be a police officer and I knew that there was gonna be an opening coming in the civilian world. So I put in to be released early so I could get that position and it just so happened that it worked out and I'm where I'm at now. You know, I'm in the police academy and I have the job that I wanted. I would not recommend getting out just because you don't like your job. Give the Air Force a chance to move you or to change jobs. And another thing, which I'll let me wait and see if another question actually asks that and I'll address it. Okay, again, so I signed a four-year contract. I was tempted to sign the six-year contract, but at the time I was like, okay, I know I've always wanted to be in the military and I know I wanna be a police officer one day, so let me just kinda test the waters and see where it's at. So I signed a four-year contract and I had every intention of finishing out that four-year contract. I'm not a person that likes to quit before I'm supposed to and I'm not a person that likes to break a commitment. But I don't think of it that way really for what I did. I did what's best for my family and it's worked out for me and I'm still serving in the Air Force. But I palace chased, which is something like I said, you'll find out once you're active duty a little more information about it. But four airmen that are at least halfway over their contract, so for a four-year contract you have to be at least over two years, six-year you have to be at least over three. You can apply for what's called palace chase, which allows you to separate from active duty early to go to the Air National Guard or Air Force Reserves, but you have to go straight into that. You don't get all the way out, which I didn't wanna do anyways. I still wanted to continue to serve in the Air Force, but I, through networking with my wife's family and friends and just learning information about up here where I knew we were gonna move to when I got out, I found out that there were some openings that were gonna come up in a police department. And I knew that a lot of officers were starting to retire in this area around this time. So I said, I'm gonna put in for a palace chase because I don't wanna get up there at the end of my four-year contract and be waiting years to get a job because of how competitive it is up here for policing. So I put in for palace chase and my commander who I was very blessed to have too, she was an awesome commander, Lieutenant Colonel Scott, what was her name? Now Colonel Scott, she was an amazing commander and she approved my package to come to the Air National Guard and separate from active early. It was tough because I really, really loved the Air Force and they talk about people that bleed blue. I was definitely one of those guys and I still kinda do bleed blue. I love the Air Force, but it was tough. I knew I was doing what was best for my family and I knew I wasn't gonna make a full active duty career out of the Air Force, but I know I'm gonna try to make a career out of the Air National Guard. And by career, I mean stay in as long as I can, past 20 years in the Guard, because it's just part time and I can still deploy and be involved with the Air Force. So that's what I did. So I served three years and three months active duty and separated about nine months early and now I'm in the Air National Guard in Wisconsin, which is a completely change from where I grew up in Eastern Kentucky. So there's that. Okay, so Water and Fuel Systems Maintenance goes to Shepherd Air Force Base, which is in Wichita Falls, Texas. I hear so many people talk bad about Wichita Falls, but to be honest with you, I loved it there. I like Texas a lot. Texas is an amazing state. Anybody that's watching this, it's from Texas. I'm sure you'll agree. It's just a great state. I love the people there. But Shepherd, the base didn't really have a whole lot to do. I mean, they had an Ereman's Club, which is something you'll find out once you're there. It allows people to come and hang out and play pool and stuff like that and buy alcohol if you're 21 years of age. I actually, I don't even know, I could be wrong, but I don't know that you can even get in there if you're not 21. No, I think you can. I don't know, they might've changed it. But anyways, they have an Ereman's Club on there and there's a little shop at, with a GameStop and things like that. Like a lot of guys had their Xboxes and their dorm rooms and stuff. But really, I found that you're just so busy trying to study and just go and explore the community that you're in for like the new place that you just didn't really have time to play Xbox. So yeah, so anyways, I was, like I said, at Shepherd Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, which is a really nice one. It's got its rough parts, but it's a really cool place to be. It's really beautiful out there. The sunsets are gorgeous. It's really flat, which is, you know, Texas and Oklahoma kind of thing. But there's places that you can go and explore. There's a, I think it's called the Wichita Mountains Refuge Range or something like that. It's just about an hour, maybe 45 minutes north of Shepherd Air Force Base in Oklahoma. And you can go hiking there, rock climbing, it is absolutely gorgeous. I've got pictures with my classmates from Tech School there together. I mean, it was just gorgeous. So take advantage of that. You know, there's taxi services you can get ahold of and go and see Wichita Falls, the city, go to the mall, go to restaurants. The area is really pro-military because there's an Air Force Base there. But be careful because they know, I think it's kind of gotten around that it's a Tech School base. I mean, the majority of it I would say is Tech Schools. So they kind of know they can take advantage of people because some people are 18 years old or 17 and just straight out of their house and straight out of high school and they have no idea how to handle the real world. So be careful, but have fun. So I think it was about four months. If I'm remembering correctly, I got there. I got to Tech School in the middle of July of 2016 and we graduated, I want to say, like the very first week of December. I think it was when we graduated. So it's about four months. Let's see, so August, September, October, November. Yeah, about four months. And it's tough and learning is tough and I was never really good in classroom settings and reading books and things like that. It's tough, but it was really fun. I had a great time and I'm still, I would consider some of my classmates from Tech School my best friends. It's a lot of fun. You're gonna make a lot of friends there. So don't rush it, enjoy it while you're there. So Tech School for me, I really enjoyed it. At Shepherd Air Force Base in Texas, I bought a longboard, which I have the coordination of like a baby giraffe. So I'm not coordinated at all, but I bought a longboard and I used it to ride with my friends all over the base pretty much. And that was how we got around because people had cars, but a lot didn't. I mean, you meet those guys that are like 18 years old, have their first job, and they go out and they buy a brand new Mustang. Don't be that guy, okay? Please don't be that guy. And I'm not dogging on the people that do, but actually I kinda am dogging on the people that do. Don't make a dumb financial decision when you're in Tech School. Save that money and set yourself up for success in your future endeavors and things. Cause I used to be that guy, I live paycheck to paycheck, don't be that guy. But anyways, that's on another tangent. Yeah, so that was how we got around pretty much was longboarding. And we had a, there was two guys in our class that had vehicles. So we use their cars like on weekends and stuff to go to other places and go see places and things like that. And it was a lot of fun. So yeah, I would say I completely enjoyed my Tech School experience. I volunteered to be a rope. There's different ropes in Tech School. I can't remember what all they are, but there's leadership ropes. So it's green rope, yellow rope and red rope. Red rope being the highest, yellows and you know, middle and green is like the entry level. And they're kinda like, you're not an NCO by any means, but I would say like kind of what you represent is kind of like an NCO. You're a leader. March the flights to class and you ensure that people are doing what they're supposed to do and following what they're supposed to do and doing what they're told kind of thing. And you're just kind of there to help the MTLs do their job. And MTL is a military training leader. They're not an MTI, but they are an NCO that works full-time in the dorm rooms, in the dormitories to kind of keep the airmen under control and keep them out of trouble and to help them really and to be leaders. That's what they're there for to ensure everybody's doing what they're supposed to do and going where they're supposed to go. So yeah, I volunteered and I made it up to yellow rope and the guy in the class right behind me when I was about to graduate actually made red rope because the guy right in front of me in the next class in front of me was the red rope. So I knew I wasn't ever gonna make it to red rope just because they're not gonna give the red rope to a guy for one week. But I was happy to serve as the yellow rope and I really tried to, a friend, to everybody in the squadron. I tried to make friends and I tried to make sure I was doing right by people, but I also wanted to ensure that people were doing what they were supposed to do. Not because I wanted to be some wool-following crazy person, but I just, I wanted people to do well and I wanted to see people not screw up because I heard stories about so many people screwing up in tech school and there's just so many opportunities when you leave there, don't mess it up. But yes, I completely enjoyed tech school and I loved every minute of it. And honestly, I don't know really how this would say it, but I would go back if I could. Like if I could go back in time and just enjoy it one more time, I definitely would, so. I think we're pretty much anywhere. I'm sure there's a few bases that we're not at, you know, like the Air Force Academy. There's definitely bases we're not at, but a lot of bases have us, I would say. I'm trying to think off the top of my head of the bases that don't have us. Like Wright Patterson in Ohio, they don't have our career field, at least for active duty. They have either a guard or reserve unit there, but they don't have an active duty unit there. But pretty much most of the bases that you'll find in the United States will have our career field. There's not very many you'll find that don't. Bases that don't have us typically don't have a civil engineer squadron or if they have a civil engineer squadron, it's just a fire department and a EOD shop. I could be wrong there, but yeah. So I don't really think there's any, you're not gonna find that many limitations with our job. I mean, if you're coming into this job worried that, oh man, I'm not gonna get to go to this state or something, you probably would be able to. So don't think that we're limited because you can pretty much go anywhere with our job. Our job is to do pipeline work. So you work on the plumbing. So you work in bathrooms, you work on drinking fountains, you work inside of the walls of buildings that have leaking pipes or anything like that. And actually a lot of times I found that we were working pretty closely with HVAC because they have some water lines that go to some of their assets. And there was a lot of confusion. Sometimes HVAC would be like, well, yeah, but it's your guys' asset. It's not ours and back and forth sometimes, but in the end the job gets done and you work together. But yeah, so basically what you're doing on a daily, at least for what I did, some guys have a different experience because my base didn't have fuel systems that we actively got to work on. But what we did on Scott Air Force Base, I'll just speak of Scott Air Force Base and a lot of bases kind of have fuels contracted out. So I'll just speak for what I know from Scott Air Force Base. We did the plumbing lines. We helped with sewer lines and water lines like that. There was a contracting company on our base called American Water that actually did all the main water lines, water main brakes and things like that. But there were opportunities to go and help there. And I've got to do a dig before and replace a sewer line on base, a sewer main that was broken and a lateral line that was broken. But a lot of the work that we do is really just going and working in bathrooms and working fire suppression systems is a huge portion of it. That's something that I didn't really get a lot of exposure to but the guys that have said that it's really, really cool and that it's a lot of fun but you get to work on fire suppression lines and pretty much every building on base and maintaining them makes sure they work, you know, safety for people that work there. And then fuels side, like I said, I can't speak much on it because my entire activity experience was just the water side other than tech school. But fuels, you get to work on the fuel systems that bases have or that supply the trucks that POL works on or the aircraft, you know. So there's like on our base, there are big fuel tanks that had all of those. Well, you're not in tech school yet. If you're watching this video, I wouldn't think but in tech school, you'll see like all the check valves and fuel valves and everything that are on a fuel system. They're really, really complicated but it's really cool if you can kind of get it down and remember it and whatnot because you can take that to the civilian world and just make bank in the civilian world. Those jobs pay so well if you get out. But yeah, so like I said, I don't have much experience with that side. I mostly did the water side and that's kind of all my friends are on the water side but I have friends that have worked at a fuel shop too and absolutely love it. And I had an NCO in my shop that was a go-getter and he was really good with fuels too and he understands it. He's getting ready to move to Nellis Air Force Base which is a Red Horse Base out in Nevada in Las Vegas. But yeah, so I'm going all over the place talking. But yeah, so basically that's what the job did and it's a really cool job once you kind of get into it and start doing it. You get to work with your hands, you get your hands dirty and I don't mean with human feces dirty. I mean, sometimes you might get it on you but it's a job where you learn how to stay clean. I'll say that, like you learn to wear gloves a lot and you don't want to take that stuff home to your family, obviously. But yeah, I like getting dirty, I like getting in holes, I like getting dirt and mud and just working hard. So that's what I got to do with that job. Okay, if you want to be successful, be positive. I don't know a bigger thing to say than that. Like if you want to succeed and pretty much anywhere in the Air Force, be positive. Really invest your time in the Air Force. Obviously keep time for your family but put forth the effort and it's not hard to succeed in the Air Force. It's really not, just work hard and have a positive attitude and be willing to help those around you. When somebody needs help and somebody's asking for help or even if they're not asking for help, be willing to be there for somebody. Be a good wingman is what we say in the Air Force and that's really, that's an easy question for me to answer is that. That's the advice I give to all the new airmen that I had that came into the shop. I just said, hey, be positive, be ready to learn and go out there and just work hard. That's all you can do. All right, so really I have social media. You can feel free to hit me up. My name is Caleb Lyons. My Instagram name is Caleb Lyons24 I think is my Instagram name. But yeah, if you want to find me, I'm sure I can get the info to Kyle got here on his page and yeah, and we'll figure out a way for you to get in contact with me. But please, if you have any questions at all I love telling people about the Air Force and obviously if you can't tell by the video, I like to talk. So yeah, thank you so much for watching this video, for wanting to learn more and I really wish you the best in the future with your Air Force. And I hope you're able to make it a career if it's for you. It is a very good life, a lot of good benefits and just so many opportunities. Really, you get to network so much which is something as you get older you find is really, really important. So I just wish you guys the best and just thanks for listening and really, truly good luck and go out there and kick butt. See you guys.