Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Living on base

Marylese,

When you read information about your base I would take it for what it is, someones opinion or point of view of their experience at that particular base. Our base and I believe most bases have different housing for Officer's compared to Enlisted. You may be reading enlisted members experiences of their homes when it comes to critter's etc. Although, some bases do have really old base housing. I know the Air Force on a general spectrum is in the process of building new homes on bases throughout the world. The Officer housing where we are stationed is brand new, but the enlisted homes are very old and have all kinds of critters roaming in them!! Check out your base website. You should be able to access base housing photos.

Some con's to living on base:
-The military member can feel like they don't escape work. We haven't found it to be a big problem but that can be a valid argument for some.
-Restrictions on what you can do to the home you live in, although you potentially face that problem if you lived off base and rented too.
-Only military members are your neighbors. Sometimes, I miss having a little more diversity and stability. We just lost 4 of our neighbors over the summer.

Pilot Select doing JAG instead comments

To answer your question of whether Top Gun has heard of anyone set to do pilot training but then going to JAG instead is No. This is his advice though. Call the Chief Recruiting Attorney, Captain Laura DeSio at 1-800-JAG-USAF (800-524-8723) or email her any questions at laura.desio@pentagon.af.mil

Pilots who begin pilot training but then decide that they don't want to be pilots could be discharged from the Air Force. Top Gun says if you want to do JAG and just came out of ROTC then he'd suggest getting out of the Air Force for an education delay, go to law school, then apply for JAG. Another route could be FLEP, Funding Legal Education Program which you could ask the recruiting JAG officer about.

Good Luck with your decision. We are surrounded by Pilots in training at our base!

Friday, September 24, 2010

Top Gun is TDY

Top Gun has been TDY for 2 weeks and gets home late, late tonight. He went to a 2 week trial course. It's suppose to help him be better in the court room. It's great training. He was able to participate in a few moot courts. But we miss him here!

I'm about to head to his office for a potluck lunch. I ask myself why am I going if he won't even be there, especially when I am so busy lately?? It's just a sign of how much I love the people he works with and I have a good time hanging out with them too. They do these kind of lunches fairly regularly and I think they are great!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Homeschooling!!

A reader asked if there are a lot of families homeschooling. I will not use the word 'a lot' but I will say I was surprised when I found out how many families homeschooling their children that are military. Five of my friends at this base alone home school their children. Two of those families are JAG's. I am sure there are several more that I don't know. There are a lot of great reasons but one that seems to be consistent is just that, the consistency of their children's schooling. Moving a lot can be difficult for kids and if they're homeschooling it can be the one thing that stays constant. That is the favorable argument at least.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Once we interview how long til we find out??

There is a board that meets once every 2 months or so. Depending on when you interview during those 2 months will determine how long you have to wait to find out if you've been accepted into the JAG (contingent on you passing a bar exam). Unfortunately we don't know any more specifics on when the board meets. So say you interview a week after the board met you won't find out until 2 months later. But say you interview and the board meets the following week, well then you're a lucky one and could find out within a matter of weeks.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

When can you move, # of days AF gives you to move

Stacey,

Technically, you could move to your base as soon as your husband leaves for COT, however most don't move to the base until after COT or during JASCO (at least that is what our recruiter said). Because you'll have a few months between COT obviously you'll get to your base before JASCO but for those like Top Gun who did COT and JASCO back to back moving during/after JASCO is more precedent. I moved to our base while Top Gun was at JASCO b/c school for my kids was starting up. There is a down side to not moving together all at once though.

When you move you get up to 10 days to find and move into your new housing. But once you sign the lease you're expected to start working. Which means after not seeing Top Gun for 9 weeks, he met up with us at our new base on a Friday night and was at work on Monday morning. If we had all moved here together, we would of had up to 10 days to find a home. Some work the system. They'll find a house but ask the renter to not have them sign the lease until the 10th day so they can have all the days off. But say you get a house on base and there's one available immediately, then you'll sign a lease and have to start reporting to work even if you only used 2 days. The key phrase is you get "up to" 10 days.

As far as how many days you get to actually move to your new location, well that is determined on how far you live currently from your new base and if you move yourself. You get something like 350 miles a day to travel (don't quote me on the 350. I will find a definite answer for you) We had the Air Force fly us out but if we would have driven ourselves from California to Texas then we would of been given something like 6 days to get here. Then the 10 days would have started from our arrival date.

As far as base housing wait lists, just call up the base housing office and ask them. I was given what number down on the list we were and the odds of us getting a home weeks before I arrived to the base. You'll have to fax them a copy of your orders and what date you'll be there and they'll place you on the waiting list.