1
As you all know I'm in the USAF, and I struggle with something every single day -- is this whole experience worth my time?
A little background -- I'm currently a C-130H Crew Chief, or more commonly known as, in the civilian world, an aircraft mechanic.
This is my plane: Built in 1986. Aircraft 0413 (86-0413).
I am currently stationed in a unit, called the Blue Dragons on Little Rock AFB in Arkansas. This unit has commonly been called the "black hole on the AF", because it destroys nearly everyone's hopes and dreams of doing cool stuff during their enlistment. Before coming here, I heard stories from people, who have been in much longer than I, about traveling the world, deploying, and enjoying their enlistment. All of those things are what I joined to do, and I have done absolutely none of them. My experience in my 3.5 years has been absolute shit. I have never deployed, I sure as hell have not traveled the world, and I'd rate the enjoyment I've gotten out of my enlistment so far as a 2 out of 10. . .I feel as if my whole experience thus far has been a complete, and utter waste of time. Unlike the rest of the AF, my job has absolutely zero instant gratification. Other Crew Chiefs have the satisfaction of knowing they generated an air sortie that medevaced Marines, or other allied countries soldiers, and maybe even delivered cover fire against ISIS/Al Queda. My mission consists of helping train pilots, flight engineers, and load masters. In the grand scope of things, my mission is very important, but the thrill of doing this job isn't there. My plane goes up for a few hours, flies around a flag pole, and comes right down -- what's the fun in that? My unit has no morale, no real mission, and there's next to no way to get out of it. There are very few ways out of my unit which are: separating from the AF, or retraining into a different career field -- I had to do the latter of the two.
In January I'll be on my way to Luke AFB, which is in gorgeous Arizona, and I couldn't be more excited about that. There is one downfall however, and that is that I'll be right back in the command I'm in here at Little Rock -- Air Education and Training Command [AETC]. I'll be doing my same job here, with longer hours, faster work, and on a different air frame. The F-16 "Viper", or "Fighting Falcon".
I'm not going to complain about my upcoming assignment, but I wish I were heading to the real Air Force. I wish my plane was dropping warheads on foreheads (humor me here) of terrorists. Knowing that my plane, at the cost of suspected terrorists lives, saved good people. I guess the only good thing I get out of my enlistment (so far) is free school, and that I can't complain about because that is a tremendous opportunity, which I'm grateful for. I wish I deployed like the people that came before me, and most of all I wish my job mattered.
This is all stuff I just need to get off of my chest, and possibly discuss with people.
This isn't meant to criticize your worldviews, but I find it pretty wild that you dream that the planes you work on can be used to kill people, and the fact that they aren't, upsets you. I mean, I totally understand that you want to make a difference, and that you want your work to be important (I want my writing to be that too), but geez lol.
This could easily turn into a much bigger argument, so I won't continue, but I will say that I hope you find satisfaction in your work and life.