I Tried to Join the Air Force: What Happened *Story Time

They quickly denied my ass 😭 too many tattoos, didn’t like the tattoos on my hands and behind my neck, overweight they was not messing with me 🤣🤣🤣

YO!!!

what's your rank rn?

Goin through the same right now. Met with my recruiter in his office to asks questions and kind of start the process. Been trying to contact him for few weeks now wanting to know what docs to bring for the follow up meeting, but no reply(texts,calls,emails)

I’m just going to gather up as much documentation that I can, and just show up at his office in a cpl months with all of it in hand and see what he says🤷🏾‍♂️

In a nutshell, it sounds like the Air Force met their quota. The military can be very racist, especially the elitist branches like the Air Force. The first piece of information they got was your demographics and you inquired about Officer school. They don’t mind if you enlist but if you ask about Officer school you will be met with great resistance. Believe me I know.

I'm glad you chose the army sir.

I can see why they rejected you. You’re not a composed individual. 😊

So it seems like you didn't meet standards, at all. Each time. And we're just supposed to let you in? Gtfoh...

This all just sounds odd. Your degree typically doesn't matter, there are Air Force pilots (who are officers) who have degrees in photography. Your AFOQT scores really matter for job selection as an incoming officer. You can have a degree in marketing and become an intelligence officer or, if you qualify medically, a pilot slot in UPT (undergraduate pilot training). That being said, the Air Force is known for being difficult and long in process for officer applicants from the street. A lot of USAF officers come from the Academy and ROTC, remaining officer candidate slots are reserved for USAF enlisted folks and then applicants from the street. It's a big complaint among hopeful officer applicants I know who want to be pilots from the street. Air Force recruiters really don't want to work with officer applicants because there's a lot of paperwork and hoops to jump through. They'd rather that you join as enlisted and then apply to Officer Training School from within (DON'T do this).

Right now the US Navy is putting officer applicants into Officer Candidate School pretty quickly. I know people who applied for Air Force pilot training and never heard anything after a year and couldn't reach their recruiters, so they applied to be Student Naval Aviators and made it within three months. Army is also a very large branch of the service so you'll have better luck there.

Myself, I started Air Force ROTC at university. Pilot slots were rare at that time and I wasn't going to make it so I left the program. A year out of college and I applied for an officer pilot slot through an Army recruiter and got selected within 90 days. Honestly even if I had gone Air Force I would have volunteered for helicopters so they would have sent me to the Army anyway. Air Force doesn't train helo pilots so they have the Army do it. I like the Air Force, but they are rather exclusive when it comes to officer candidates.

I actually have an idea what went wrong with your AF submission.

The website the recruiter uses is called AFCEP and it is maybe the worst designed site in the entire DoD.

It requires Google Authentication upon each login and times out after 15 or so minutes requiring you to log in again, and if you fuck up the password you can be locked out of the system for 24 hours.

Also it is fickle about inputs. You likely put in everything needed and it just spot back you missed some item erroneously and the recruiter didn’t know better. Guidance from AFRS on how to submit is barely available and often outdated, with little or no help from the office responsible. In other words, your package might’ve been fine and your recruiter just didn’t know better due to the entire system he is using to submit being confusing.

If your package was rejected you won’t hear any feedback either.

Retired AF O6 here...your situation is not what would say the AF desires or wants but can occur IF you applicants do not fully understand how AF OTS recruiting goes. Similar to other branches but you have to consider the AF Officer pipeline and organization structure to fully understand how applicants fit into the recruiting structure. Happy to explain it you for you to accurately educate your viewership.

I am so happy to know I wasn’t the only one to have this experience 😂 I was sooooo done with them.

You just reduced my anxiety I'm thinking about joining the Navy Back-up Plan Army