This thread has been going for a long time, and I feel that issues are being lost in the pages.
First off, like anything in life you need to lick your wounds. It hurts, however, we all know that the initial pain dissipates and you may feel differently tomorrow.
Take the time to lick your wounds. Accept that
TODAY'S dream died.
When you are ready, accept that
TOMORROW'S dream is alive and well.
Some of you did plan B and applied to colleges with strong AFROTC programs, some didn't.
Address now Plan B.
Is AF totally out of the picture?
~~~If so, than be thankful that you didn't get into the AFA. It is not 4 yrs of your life, it actually can be 14 yrs of your life (Pilot commitment is 10 yrs after graduation). You don't get to say I want to be stationed at Elmendorf or Ramstein, you get stationed where they say you go to.
If you can close the door on the AF because they did not give you an appointment, than it wasn't a fit IMPO.
Are you going to go AFROTC and reapply?
~~~If so contact the incoming det now. Be frank with them and tell them this is your intention. There is this fallacy that if you do tell them you screwed the pooch with the det. That is a fallacy. They want happy ROTC cadets, and they know yr after yr some will apply. By talking to them now, you
HELP yourself/child. You inform them that this is an AF commitment issue, and not a money issue. I have never heard of a Commander purposely not noming a cadet for ROTC.
Be open to AFROTC.
~~~ There are many cadets who walk in and are unsure if this is the right path over the AFA. Many that walk in with the intention to re-apply to the AFA.
They are 18. They still have to emotionally grow. Follow their lead. Just because they swore up and down the lamp post that they would never stop until they got into the AFA in April, doesn't mean that they will feel the same come September.
As a HS student they can only envision college, as a college student in ROTC they experience it. The child you drop off at college is not the same you talk to 30 days later. JMPO, but with 2 in college, those 30 days were the biggest personal growth experience I ever saw with our kids. They truly were now adults in how they carried themselves, how they thought, and their goals.
FINALLY, as a spouse of an AF officer for 21 yrs, a mom of an AFROTC cadet (he opted that route), I can tell you the hardest thing is to relinquish control and live by fate.
It
absolutely stinks! Yet, the one thing I know is I can get on my rooftop and scream, but that won't change a thing. I can pray to G*D and it is still going to be the same result. I can trust in fate and what will be their path and know that they will end up where they were meant to be. If you can't trust in fate now, ask yourself if they want to fly fighters how you will feel when they are in combat? I can tell you, because I saw it 1st hand, there are spouses and parents who believe they were trained and will get home. They worry, but they live. Than there are those who are obsessed with the news and fear when they hear that they will be doing no-fly zone.
I had the in laws who were the latter, and I finally said to them if I obsessed over his career/flying I would go insane. I had
to believe in fate, and I accepted the fact that if this was the day, I could lock him in the closet, but it was still going to be the day. Morbid I know. However, it also was how we felt about our DS. If he was meant to get UPT it was meant to be and that was his fate. Yes, as an AFROTC cadet he got UPT. Now we say if he is meant to get his dream airframe, it was meant. Nothing, we do as parents will have an impact. It is all on him, and even in that situation he could graduate no. 1 out of UPT, but if the AF only has heavies, he will fly heavies...that is fate.
Trust me the trusting in fate lowers your blood pressure and the bottles of wine you need to accept reality.
Also anyone ever associated with the military will tell you that it is not what you know, it is also timing (aka fate).
Think about it, if your child was born 1 yr earlier the appointment rate would have been higher...in other words fate.