I'm 32 years old, in good shape, and just made the decision to join the AF reserves. I have a meeting with a recruiter in two days to bring in the necessary paperwork for dependents and such. I have a CAP Mitchell award, a 4 year JROTC certificate and I come from a military family, so I'm fairly familiar with the process and lifestyle.

I've been a cop for 11 years and have quite a few certifications from that, but I don't want to do SF. I live in Austin and I know there's a transport unit at Lackland, so I'm thinking about the Loadmaster route.

I need any and all advice, suggestions, criticism, or anything else that people in that career field can throw at me...

Thanks.

If you like to occassionally travel then you'll love Loadmaster. The total training time is about 15-18 months depending if all the schools line up in place. You'll find that most flying squadrons are really a friendly environment to be in. Lackland has C-5s so there really isn't a requirement to deploy to the desert like say the C-130 unit at Ft Worth. Anyway it's great career move

Advice: You might also look into Guard units nearby; there are different benefits for each (Guard/Reserve).

You might want to get a cover letter and resume together. I had to interview for my loadmaster slot, you may have to do the same.

The Ft Worth unit is a guard c-130 unit. An Air Force recruiter won't even mention that to you. The C-5 unit would also be much closer to where you live as well.

I forgot that I posted this since I migrated over to the AFEF board till it closed down.

I made it through everything and enlisted on 01JUL. I head off to basic on 16SEP as a 1A2X1 for the 68th AS at Lackland.

I'm looking forward to the change, but not so much to being the grandpa in basic...