I'm a 28 yr old female with a college degree. I have not yet found a path that has led to a long term career. I have always had an interest in going into the government sector, especially foreign affairs. I'm at a point in my life where I can take this biggest chance and go into the military.

I'm researching at this point but would like to know what this board thinks about how a woman would fit in either the Air Force or Army? My uncle is retired AF, so he has his side of things but I've known many in the Army and value their opinion and advice as well. Any experience that can be shared?

I'm not female, I'm a Naval officer.

What are you interested in doing? With your foreign affairs interest, are you wanting to do Intel or FAO?

I do not know about Army and AF, but in the Navy, civilians applying to be officers apply to the community they want to be in. Meaning your acceptance to the Navy depends on a community accepting you. So you apply to be a ship driver, supply officer, Intel officer, etc.. this is different than enlisted who enlist, then hope they get the rating they desire out of basic.

It is wise that you want to learn about women in the military as it is a male dominated field with a long tradition of male culture. Your desired track might help in explaining that communities specific culture. I work in the IC and have also deployed on submarines, two very different cultures.

Since I am still researching, I have not yet decided which career I'd like be in. I'm interested in so much! Anything from air support to intelligence. I'd like to travel, maybe even deploy, but I just haven't thought enough to say that for sure.

I do not mean any offense but the Navy is one that I am not considering.

I appreciate your advice and hope to chat with you more!
Thanks!

Navy.

Being open to deployment is a necessity. Nothing infuriates me more than when I see another Officer or my own Sailors trying to get out of a deployment. We are in the military to deploy. It is rough on families, but your mindset must be that we deploy and being ashore (or the other branches equivalent) is a nicety. Join the Navy, See the World meant that you get to see the world while you are standing your 4 to 6 hours on the bridge wing during your watch.

It may come off as harsh, but that must be something you are OK with as we are in the military to be the military.

Talk to those who are in, like you are doing, and find things that interest you. Going in, you want to have the advantage of pursuing what you want, not needs of the service.

What I do in the Navy is called Information Warfare. It is a term going out of vogue, but my counterparts are found other branches. We use to be called cryptologists and at one time, we did cryptology, but that was back in WWII. We do SIGINT and cyber operations. We deploy on air, surface, and subsurface platforms in support of operational commanders. The AF took the lead in advertising that they own the internet, but all branches have personnel conducting cyber operations. Feel free to ask any questions, there's a retired Naval Captain who comes around every so often, but I don't remember if he is Intel or Cryptology.

If I were to ultimately end up doing embassy work, what career path would I need to look into?

NSA? CIA? State Department? USMC?

There are military attaches, but they are a couple of years for mid level officers. Marines provide security. If you are wanting something like that more permanently, look at State.

Yes, State Dept. is where I would want my career to be.

If you want to go Air Force, right now is a really bad time to try to join. I was going through the OTS process and there ended up being an extreme few number of jobs available, none of which appear to be in line with the career path you are interested in. There were 338 total slots available for FY15, 200 of which are rated and another 100 or so in STEM fields. The number of applicants for those few slots was expected to exceed 1,000. It's really bleak out there with the drawdown and "force shaping."

Yikes. And here I was leaning more that way. Thanks for the heads up!

In contrast to the Navy, in the Army enlisted Soldiers get to pick their jobs and officers are assigned based on some Ouija board metric.

The Army is the largest of the services, and therefore has the most locations from which to choose. While it is drawing down like every other service, we still recruit 80,000 new Soldiers every year.

If you're interested in being an officer, there are fairly straightforward commissioning programs for college graduates. You'd go to basic training (9 weeks, soon to be 10) then go straight to OCS at Fort Benning, GA (14 weeks). At the end of OCS you'd compete for branches (jobs) available, then go to that branch's officer basic course (usually 5-6 months).

The Army was long the worst at gender integration, but it has taken big leadership steps in the past few years to even out climate and opportunity. The females I've met who have joined in the past 5 years all feel as though they are treated equally and fairly. Beginning this summer, formerly-closed occupations are being opened to females. Combat engineers are first, next is field artillery, infantry and armor to be opened later. There is virtually no chance of getting aviation (helicopters) out of OCS, however, as those spots are snatched up by USMA and ROTC (who pick first).

It has seemed to me that any federal service (meaning any occupation in the military) is good enough to check the block for getting hired onto the State Dept, FBI, etc. I don't think there's any trend showing more intel officers get picked vs. logistics officers or whatever. The only caveat might be cyber security types with distinct skills that are hard to replicate elsewhere.

I bumped my thread about military linguists so I advise you to read over that thread.

Additionally I'll second what RyantheTemp just posted. I initially tried to commission through OTS but was non selected. The boards over the last few years have been pretty tough/cancelled so unless you have a very impressive resume in addition to having a STEM degree the odds are against you being selected for AF OTS.

Now, I ended up going enlisted as a 26 year old with a college degree because it was the best way I could find to pursue my interests of intelligence and foreign relations.

I chose a linguist position and if you read my other thread you'll find tons of information in there.

Now for the bad news, at 28 you might be too old to enlist in the AF. I would talk to a recruiter because there is usually a waiver for everything but with numbers shrinking I'm not sure there is a waiver for that. (EDIT: maximum enlistment age in the AF is now 39 years old so you are in the clear)

So, you mentioned that you are interested in the Army so I'll just relay a bit of information that I have on their Linguist career field.

You'll either be a 35P (SIGINT) or a 35M (Interrogator). 35P will go right to DLI after basic and pick up a critical language. 35P will go to Ft Huachuca in Arizona for interrogation tech school before (possibly) going to DLI to pick up a language. In the army you can come directly in as an E-4 since you have a college degree and generally speaking if you are a hard worker you can promote pretty easily in the Army. As for the type of assignments that you can expect... that's a bit more complicated. I saw some of our army graduates from DLI go all over the place. Some of them made it to the same government agency I was working for but others were in Germany and every where else in between. Who knows what deployments will look like in the future but as of the past few years the army linguists were much more likely than us AF guys to deploy.

Another nugget on the army is that they actually have Warrant Officer Linguists (as does the Navy and I think you should look into that) Unfortunately I have absolutely zero idea on how to become a warrant officer.

Finally, if you actually did read all of this, if you have any questions at all about what life is like as an enlisted person feel free to ask away. I know that I grew up thinking that if you went to college you would be an officer if you joined the military. That's not the reality that today's economy has presented us with and therefore there are a growing number of people with college degrees enlisting in the military these days. As far as pay, you won't make as much as an officer but my take home is in the neighborhood of 65-75k and there aren't a lot of jobs out there where I could have made that with my History degree.

[This message has been edited by AggieEP (edited 8/14/2014 9:28a).]

I am reading through anything that is posted. I want to have all the tools to make the right decision. I know I want to join, I just don't know which direction would fit me best.


Ps, I was also an '08 History major......

I strongly recommend you poke around on airforceots.com. It was a lot of help when I was going through the process. You can commission via OTS up until age 35, so you have some time. The way it is structured, you can basically get one chance per year to apply. There have historically been two non-rated boards per FY, with the second board being restricted entirely to STEM degrees. I don't expect to see any more than one non-rated board for FY15, and the application deadline is August 22nd, so your out of luck for FY15.

If you are interested in talking to a recruiter, I am sure my recruiter would be glad to talk to you. She is one of the top AF line officer recruiters in the country.

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Ps, I was also an '08 History major......

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In that case, there are only nine (9) slots available nationwide for which you could compete this year.

I would love to talk to her. If she isn't located in SA, I'll be happy to email her.

She is located in San Antonio.

OH that's awesome! What is her name? Which station? I plan to take some time to see recruiters tomorrow.

TSgt Talia Walters. She's in the 341st RCS main office where the command section is located.

Do you know exactly where that is located? I live in Stone Oak

Just because I'm curious, did you go to Reagan High School? That's where I graduated from way back when.

Enlist into an Intel position. That will open up dia and cia as possibilities after you spend several years in uniform.

Why not apply to the State Department if that is where you want to end up?

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Enlist into an Intel position. That will open up dia and cia as possibilities after you spend several years in uniform.

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I feel like a little more needs to be added to this statement. In my experience it is highly unlikely that simply enlisting in an intel career field will open up that many possibilities in the type of agencies that you are talking about. There are contractor positions open that work along side some of these agencies for sure but that comes along with the insecurity of being a contractor vice a civilian employee.

There are things you can do to make yourself more attractive to some of the national level intelligence agencies though. You need to really excel and be clearly better than the large pool of military candidates that think their intel experience will get them hired on. Secondly you're going to want to establish some legitimate contacts within the agencies so that you aren't just submitting a random online application.

Agree with EP. That said I think your odds are better enlisting for a specific mos than rolling the dice as an officer.

That is all great advice, thank you. Some things I definitely had not thought of.


I am from Longview, so no on the Reagan.

I wanted to apply to the State Dept as a civilian right out of college but you could say I enjoyed college too much to be a desirable candidate at that point in my life. Now, I've been in the working world for nearly 5 years and I've grown up a lot. Still, I do not have the experience it would take to go in.

You are joining at one of the worst times for military officers. It's going to be super competitive. Not to deter you, but that's just a fact of life.

Aviation and Intel seem to be the most popular of the branches no matter what branch of the military you join.

Ever thought about going Reservist/Guard? Or even enlisting? I can talk to you about general stuff on the Guard side.

It looks like I may go enlisted right now. With the AF, I'll have until 34 to apply for officer. With the Army, that cut off is 28 and not before my 29th birthday which is in June, so that deters me from that.

29?

No. Commission by 34.

You probably already know this but I just realized that they recently (like 1 month ago) changed the maximum age for enlistment into the AF from 27 years old to 39 for all enlisted AFSC's.

I need to go back and edit my previous response now I guess I've been a little out of the loop as I PCS and missed this big change.

TXAGChick, looking at the GoArmy Website. If I were to go to OCS, I have to be admitted before my 29th birthday.

I'm not eligible for Direct Commission.

[This message has been edited by Pirate04 (edited 8/14/2014 9:38a).]

You're right. I don't know what I'm talking about.

Good luck.

I didn't mean to offend you. I want to make sure I have the correct information. I'm sorry.

If you e-mail me (in profile) I'd be happy to share what I know, and put you in touch with someone who can probably explain more than I can.

Caveat: I enlisted, and am now a WOC, not an OCS candidate (this is in the Guard; ) but I was the latter at one time

[This message has been edited by TXAGChick06 (edited 8/14/2014 1:08p).]