There is an Academy Liaison officer stationed at or near Ramstein, I talked to a bunch of European ALOs at the Paris Airshow last month. And at least one was Ramstein based...and they get a lot of appointments from Europe.
If you put an application in online, an ALO will be appointed to you. If you don't want to do that...ask your supervisor...I don't have access to the ALO list anymore, but if you really can't find one, then let me know, and I will try to find one.
I was not a prior-enlisted guy, but many of my friends were, and some of them were very sharp and did extremely well.
1. Everyone I know hated (or at least strongly disliked) part of the academy experience, and appreciated the rest. The good time was the camaraderie that you build with your classmates and squadron mates.
2. For you as someone who has already completed boot camp and tech school and could even be above the drinking age, it will be completely different to what you have become comfortable with.
...academy life for you will be like 4 years of boot camp...but no TIs...only folks younger than you in your face...you will have to suck it up and bite your lip...then demonstrate your maturity. There will be prior-enlisted upperclassmen, and they will give you even less of a break...but it can be your opportunity to shine and make a good name for the prior folks.
3. What I struggled with the most, and most of the prior-enlisted guys fell into this category, was academics...it is a heavy workload that hits hard and never lets up. If I had good study habits etc, it would have been a bit less painful...but I didn't know my weakness until I got there.
My question to you is what is your goal in life...you have probably figured out by now that the Enlisted track and Officer track are different...for example if you are a maint troop, then you can stay enlisted and eventually be a senor NCO on the flightline...or go to USAFA, and upon graduation be that butterbar maint officer in the office and go up from there.
If you don't have a good goal, you will find reasons to go back to your enlisted status rather than graduate.