Untouchable
I'm untouchable now. As of August 26th, I'm out of the reach of United States Air Force. My enlistment was for 6 years, but after I was separated, I had to remain on the Ready Reserve list for 2 years. The Ready Reserve is not like the regular Reserve or National Guard. Basically the Ready Reserve is just a list of recently separated active duty personnel that on occasion will get called back to duty in times of war or national crisis. I'm not sure that the USAF has ever exercised its right to call on the Ready Reserve, but the Army and Marines are using them right now. In fact the Marines just called up 2500 Ready Reservists last week.
Since it is such a rarity, I wasn't really nervous about it until the last month when Israel and Lebanon had their little spat. Given my specialty code of 1N357C, (that's a Hebrew Cryptologist to those of you who don't have all AFSCs memorized) I was slightly nervous. I guessed my chances of getting called back went from about .001% to 1%. Still unlikely, but a great increase of possibility. Iran's recent attitude problems just added fuel to the fire. Had Israel attacked Iran (which I expect will happen in the next 24 months) my chance of recall might have gone to 50%.
Anyway, August 26th came and went and now being called back to service is out of the realm of possibility, save for a draft.
I am glad I had the opportunity to serve in the Air Force. I learned Hebrew, obtained an A.A.S., finished my B.S., earned a living, lived in some places I would have otherwise never lived, had some fun experiences, made some interesting friends, had two kids for which I never saw a medical bill, got to experience some unique church communities, and contributed to the U.S. strategic and tactical intelligence effort. All in all, I wouldn't go back and spend those six years any differently.
Still, I'm glad to be done with my service and glad to be out of the AF's reach to be recalled.
Since it is such a rarity, I wasn't really nervous about it until the last month when Israel and Lebanon had their little spat. Given my specialty code of 1N357C, (that's a Hebrew Cryptologist to those of you who don't have all AFSCs memorized) I was slightly nervous. I guessed my chances of getting called back went from about .001% to 1%. Still unlikely, but a great increase of possibility. Iran's recent attitude problems just added fuel to the fire. Had Israel attacked Iran (which I expect will happen in the next 24 months) my chance of recall might have gone to 50%.
Anyway, August 26th came and went and now being called back to service is out of the realm of possibility, save for a draft.
I am glad I had the opportunity to serve in the Air Force. I learned Hebrew, obtained an A.A.S., finished my B.S., earned a living, lived in some places I would have otherwise never lived, had some fun experiences, made some interesting friends, had two kids for which I never saw a medical bill, got to experience some unique church communities, and contributed to the U.S. strategic and tactical intelligence effort. All in all, I wouldn't go back and spend those six years any differently.
Still, I'm glad to be done with my service and glad to be out of the AF's reach to be recalled.
posted by Eric Livingston at
9/01/2006
2 Comments:
Thank you for your service and for not getting killed.
Yeah the whole not getting killed thing turned out pretty good. Luckily I wasn't in the line of fire. I just sat in a dark room all night and stared at a computer screen.
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