Surprise! Gwen’s Career Change

In my soon to be for­mer job, I work close­ly with top lead­ers in the Air Force. I’ve come to real­ize I real­ly miss being in the Air Force, so this seems as good a time as any to announce I’m head­ed back into the best branch of the Unit­ed States Mil­i­tary! I put a lot of thought into this deci­sion and I’m real­ly excit­ed to see where my new career takes me!

IT’s Getting Stale

I’ve been in IT ever since my first stint in the Air Nation­al Guard. Orig­i­nal­ly, I want­ed a career in law enforce­ment until I fig­ured out IT was eas­i­er, less dan­ger­ous, and paid way bet­ter. It was a good career to get me start­ed, but it’s start­ed to get stale. I feel like most of my days are spent clean­ing up the same prob­lems again and again. After 5 years, I’m itch­ing for a new challenge.

Wasted Potential

I feel like I did­n’t real­ly live up to my poten­tial the first time I was in the mil­i­tary. For one thing, I was in the Guard which was great, but led me to a life half in the mil­i­tary and half out. I also joined on the enlist­ed side of the house. I was 18 and did­n’t have a col­lege degree, so that was my only option. I made it to E4 rank (E4 mafia rep­re­sent!) before I got out. I was strong­ly encour­aged to com­mis­sion by my lead­er­ship instead of get­ting out, but I was pret­ty burned out and was­n’t in the right mind­set to com­mis­sion then.

Now that I have a col­lege degree and a few more years of per­son­al growth under my belt, I feel ready to take on the chal­lenge of becom­ing a com­mis­sioned offi­cer. I’ve had a lot of qual­i­ty chats with Mil­i­tary Dol­lar and Sav­ing Sher­pa about their careers and learned of pos­si­bil­i­ties I did­n’t even know exist­ed! I’ve been chat­ting on and off with a recruiter for the last few months to see if I can score a slot in a spe­cif­ic career field and I think there will be an open­ing here in the next 6 months.

Increased Stability

As a con­trac­tor for the gov­ern­ment, my job could be elim­i­nat­ed with lit­tle to no notice. The civil­ian IT land­scape can be pret­ty feast or famine. I’m afraid if I stay with my civil­ian IT career, I could find myself unem­ployed and strug­gle to find employ­ment. The last time I looked for a job, it took me 3–4 months longer than I thought it would. I’m def­i­nite­ly feel­ing gun­shy after that.

If I com­mis­sion with Active Duty, I’m pret­ty much guar­an­teed to have a job for as long as I want to stay in. I might not get paid imme­di­ate­ly for the work if the gov­ern­ment shuts down, but they true up the back­pay so it’ll be fine in the long run.

Speak­ing of get­ting paid, offi­cers in the mil­i­tary can earn pret­ty good salaries. A Cap­tain who’s been in 6 years makes almost $6k a month in base pay. Add in all the oth­er ben­e­fits like BAH, oth­er incen­tives, allowances and Tri-Care and I’d be mak­ing more than I do now! My expens­es would drop a lot too with being able to live on base. I’d also be able to get paid health care when I retire and the sweet, sweet mil­i­tary pen­sion. Since I was in for 6 years the first time, I’d only need to be in anoth­er 14 years to be able to retire. Com­bine the pen­sion with the mon­ey I’ve already saved for retire­ment and I’d be set! I could be 100% retired by the time I’m 42. That’s still pret­ty ear­ly by any­one’s definition.

Fitness

When I was in the Guard, I had to stay in shape for the annu­al PT tests. Now that I don’t have that incen­tive hang­ing over my head, I have let myself go. Sure I do active things like play­ing soft­ball and rid­ing my bike to work, but it’s not what I did when I was in. I’d have access to fit­ness cen­ters on base and be around oth­er peo­ple with sim­i­lar incen­tives to work out.

Travel

The career field I’m look­ing at join­ing has a strong like­li­hood of send­ing me over­seas. Not to the Mid­dle East to deploy (although that’s a def­i­nite pos­si­bil­i­ty too), but to be per­ma­nent­ly sta­tioned at a base in Europe. I love Europe and would love to be able to trav­el eas­i­ly among the Schen­gen area to explore. Ski­ing in the Alps? Done. Week­end trip to Paris or Ams­ter­dam? Super easy! Want to hang out on the beau­ti­ful beach­es of the Mediter­ranean? Just pack your floaties!

I would also have access to Space A flights. “Space Avail­able” flights are only avail­able to active duty mil­i­tary mem­bers or retirees. As a for­mer Guards­man, I don’t qual­i­fy right now. If I got my 20 years and retired, I’d be able to snag a seat on any mil­i­tary flight and trav­el wher­ev­er I want. I’ve seen Nords put this to good use in the past and can see how much mon­ey it’s saved him.

Potential Downsides

Now, life in the mil­i­tary isn’t all sun­shine and ros­es. As I men­tioned above, I could get deployed. I did­n’t get deployed to the Mid­dle East in my first enlist­ment, but that was a more a fluke than the norm. Being deployed is risky depend­ing on where you get sent.

I’d also have to find some­one to take care of my kit­ty Bartholomew while I was gone. Giv­en the strong bonds formed in the mil­i­tary, I’m con­fi­dent I could find some­one will­ing to watch him until I’d return. I’d miss him ter­ri­bly but it’s not like I could take him with me.

There’s also the bureau­cra­cy that comes with being in the mil­i­tary. It takes a long time to get things done and a lot of unnec­es­sary hoops and paper­work some­times, but I know what to expect and how to han­dle it this time around.

There’s also the risk the mil­i­tary sends me some­where I have no inter­est being and I get stuck in a place like Minot, ND for a few years. (Noth­ing against North Dako­ta in a gen­er­al way, except I per­son­al­ly have no wish to live there. It’s COLD)

Over­all though, I think the pros out­weigh the cons!

April Fools!

I’ve thought about join­ing the mil­i­tary again, but hon­est­ly, I real­ly like being a civil­ian and hav­ing the free­dom to do what­ev­er when­ev­er I want. It would be dif­fi­cult to have my cur­rent life while in active duty. I love liv­ing here in Wash­ing­ton, DC and would­n’t want to risk mov­ing away. Espe­cial­ly giv­en some of the very remote bases out in the world.

Being a gov­ern­ment con­trac­tor to the Air Force is enough for me right now. I’m around the cul­ture and sup­port Air Force per­son­nel while also get­ting to wear cute civil­ian clothes to work. It’s pret­ty much ideal.

I also don’t like to think I’d take a pay cut of near­ly half my cur­rent salary for a few years until I gain enough years in ser­vice to get decent pay. The addi­tion­al ben­e­fits are nice, but not quite enough to con­vince me. I’m hap­py with life as it stands now!

Thanks for read­ing! Would you go into the mil­i­tary? Did you play a prank on some­one today? Sound off in the com­ments below!