I had posted on a previous post and got no reply so i decided to start my own. I am leaving June 10th For sheppard Airforce base for my AIT as a 68A, I was wondering if there are any 68A out there that can answer some of my questions about it. I have looked on-line and found really not alot of information so this is my last shot to get some info before i go do it for myself. I would like to know what the AIT is like? How to go about getting the right Certifications so I can be a medical equipment repairer as a civy? What there is to do in Witchita Falls for those weekends I will eventually have? and just some basic input any would be great thanks.

I hope you don't mind a mom of a BMET replying. You posted a couple weeks ago, and no one had replied, so I figure a reply from a mom is better than nothing.

Here is a link to the school:
http://www.cs.amedd.army.mil/bmet/basic_course.htm

People in this career field are called "BMET"s. They are called that both in the civilian community and within the military. It stands for Biomedical Equipment Technician. If you do a google on "BMET" you will see that there are a lot of companies wanting to hire BMETs.
You might could google BMET here on military dot com and maybe find a few posts on it also. The career field is called 4A2X1 in the Air Force. You might could do a search on this site for 4A2X1 and see if that comes up with anything. The Navy BMETS are all retrainees. They start out as regular corpsmen, then go to the school to specialize in the BMET field.

One piece of advice I would like to throw out there for you is, when you graduate BCT and get your plane ticket, make sure it is to Wichita Falls, Texas. With so few people in this career field, apparently the Army didn't know where Sheppard AFB is, LOL. First they gave my daughter a plane ticket to San Angelo Texas. She was talking to me on the phone as she waited to board her plane, and happened to mention that her ticket was to San Angelo. I told her the Army was sending her to the wrong base. So then she had to go back to BCT for the night. The next morning they gave her a plane ticket to Wichita Kansas. The third time was the charm, though, and she actually got a plane ticket to the right place, LOL.

The base is only about ten miles south of the Oklahoma border, and not too far from Fort Sill. I believe some of the Army students in her class would drive up to Sill to buy uniform items once in a while.

My daughter had various restrictions the first two months or so there. After that, she could wear civies off duty and leave the base in the evenings and on weekends.

Wichita Falls is not that big of a town, but it is decent sized. Seems like my daughter would go to the mall, the movies, out to eat, or to wal-mart a couple times a week. Dallas is about a three hour drive, so she went there a couple times. Once she went to six flags in Dallas, and once she went to a concert in Dallas. She sometimes mentioned that she "went to the Lake". Not sure what lake, LOL.

When my daughter first got to the airport at Wichita Falls, she called the Army CQ desk and they sent someone to pick her up. The number is posted somewhere on the wall in the airport.

You asked about certifications . . . . My daughter showed me her diploma after she graduated from the school. A national guard fellow student buddy of hers got hired on at a hospital just a couple weeks after he graduated the school, and I assume all he did was show him his diploma.

Ohter random stuff about the BMET school . . . .

Cell phone service there is kind of bad, unless you have verison. My daughter often had to go outside and stand in this one certain place in order to get cell reception, LOL. We sent her a cell phone booster antenna thing for her room, and that helped a lot.

The students all marched from the barracks to the school in the mornings and afternoons. It's about a mile, maybe a little less, from the barracks to the schoolhouse. Daughter was always complaining about when her Army group would get stuck marching behind and Air Force group marching to the school. Apparently Army people march faster than Air Force people, LOL.

The Army BMET students would do something special on Thursdays, but I forget what exactly. I think it was that they wore their "battle rattle" on Thursdays.

Umm, what else? The males are billeted on the first and second floors, and the females are on the third floor. No males allowed on the third floor.
The rooms are two person rooms, and four people share a bathroom. The rooms are oh, about ten feet by 12 feet, plus a sink area.
No food or drinks allowed in the rooms, ever ever ever. Apparently because of ants.
There are wild rabbits all over the base.

The base library has wireless internet service, and there are always lots of people all around the outside and inside of the library using their laptops.

Thanks for all that info ma'am lol.....I am leaving for bct on 2 june and thats all greaaaat info to know about ait for when i am done in 9 weeks!

btw i looked up sheppard afb on a map and it would be lake wichita that she probably went to either that or lake kickapoo lol

Thank you for your posts it helped a lot I have already been through BCT, but i am leaving June 10th for Sheppard thanks for the advice i will put it to good use.

Knockwurst, I have one other question for you where did your daughter get based and does she know where the other members of her class ended up?

My daughter is in Korea. There are two Army BMET shops in Korea. She is at the south one. She and the other BMETs at her base go around to the other Army bases and fix the medical equipment there.
There were 8 Army people in her class, but only three were active duty Army. One went to Fort Bragg, and I think the other went to Fort Carson.
When my daughter was in-processing in Korea, she saw a former BMET student at the in-processing place. He had flunked out of the school,then retrained as a truck driver and was in-processing at the same time as her.
I love hearing my daughter's stories about what she is working on at her assignment. I can actually picture the stuff she is talking about, unlike so many other military career fields, LOL.
This week she is working on defribrillators. A few weeks before that she was working on ventilators. She also has mentioned working on pill dispensing machines, blood storage equipment, and the water lines for dental equipment.
By the way, my daughter is getting knee surgery at the end of June for something that happened at the end of AIT. When they were doing the field exercise at the end of AIT, she jumped off the back of a truck and ruptured a tendon in her knee.
I am glad my posts were helpful to you. Sorry you didn't get more input from soldiers who are actually in the MOS.

Your posts have been very helpful thanks alot, Yeah I am not sure there are alot of th BMET mos Soliders out there, it is a rare MOS from what I have heard on other posts, but thanks again.