Glad to hear you took the ASVAB. Anyways my branch is Air Force. I originally wanted to have a military career but until after college. That part didn't work out with the college. There was a lot of tech based jobs and electrical jobs I wanted to do but the availability wasn't there and cut off date for my age was getting close, 28 years at the time, I think it changed to 34. So because the date was getting close I rushed to pick the first set of jobs available, one was aircraft mechanic, another security forces, and the last was like a fuel administrator job. I forgot the name of the specific fuel job and "fuel administrator" might sound silly, but keep in mind the Air Forces overall mission is getting aircraft moving and in the air. Almost everything done in the USAF is about ensuring aircraft and their crew accomplish their missions.

Anyways my dumb and urgent self decided to go and be a aircraft mechanic, I'm not a very big person and I'm not very well mechanically inclined. I got to work on a few different types of C-130s while stationed in Japan. Most of the time the job was a 9 hour shift, but aircraft have 24 hour service nonstop, sometimes the shifts would be changed to 12 hour shifts just to complete aircraft generation or ready to fly status. Afterward my shift, I was pretty much welcome to do whatever I want to do, as long as I would be back by curfew time per Japanese mandates and be on time for my shift. I'm not much of a party guy or spend too much time going out, I do a lot of gaming. Being a mechanic was not for me. I'm glad I had the experience and the friends I had but I wasn't going to stay as a mechanic. The job was stressing me out, and getting me depressed. I do admire the very high standards military mechanics have and their can do attitude they have for their aircraft but I couldn't keep up.

So I retained, some call it cross training. It wasn't easy because you have a limited window in which you can get all of your retraining requirements addressed and being overseas makes it harder, as there are two timing windows you have to align. You also have to have a certain amount of retainability. The military doesn't want you to change your job, do all that training and then you just leave a few months later. So I extended my contact for about two more years, this is different that a reenlistment. I got retrained in Information Technology (IT). Probably one of the best decisions I've made, I love doing tech support, it's fun for me. I use to work at a tech support call center and compared to working there and working with military clients, the military clients are a lot more patient, respectful, but maybe a little needy, because from the lowest Airmen to General's, they need their computers up and running. Air Force also have high standards for their networks so it's interesting to work within those requirements. Working in IT has also given me opportunities to be stationed at more bases than just regulated to a set amount of bases determined by the aircraft I work on. I can also be put in positions like combat communications where you're setting up network infrastructure in remote areas.

The Air Force does have the more relaxed physical standards than most other branches, because you're hired for your technical skills than grunt work. If you're in a job that does require more physical demands like Security Forces or Special Warfare, then you have to maintain higher physical goals. Otherwise the rest is up to you and how you want your physical health to be, just pass that PT test.

Sorry to hear about the experience you had with the recruiter. That shouldn't be the conduct they should be having. There is a part of me that thinks it was a RAP (recruiter assistant program) member and not the recruiter themselves. Doing RAP is a nice way to take some extra leave and not have it use up your leave days for a little bit of work, but I wouldn't be surprised if some RAP members act like they don't want to be there. At the time I visited my recruiter the first time they said I probably couldn't join because I had metal plates in my arm. It was some three stripe airman, he didn't know, in hindsight I should of waited to talk to the NCO (four stripes or more aka a E5) there to get my recruitment started sooner. I have never heard of a E4/three stripe recruiter before.

As far as the DEI stuff that might on your mind, I have met more people that care about doing their job well than having to worship a politically driven mandate. The military takes in people that can fit their standards and fits them into the needed positions. We get just as many talks about sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct as any corporate job that's been going for decades now. I will say that the military is very big on resiliency, basically being able to cope with stress. The military has had too many sad stories of people harming themselves. I lost a friend to that, it was extra painful seeing my other friend loosing his mind for a little while because of what happened, he got better at least.