Urgent and Interesting Situation

MDDADD said:
Hesitated posting them because I suspect many here would disagree. Kinda funny because the “man with a plan” campaign has been ridiculed on this forum while I listened to a highly decorated senior career combat officer use the line to tell the kids to think beyond the military even as they consider joining.
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I do need to respond to this because I think that you hit a very good point here. I agree that sometimes these kids are told to forget thinking about the long term on this forum and to only consider the next step in the process. I agree that this is wrong. While it is important not to lose sight of the "near rocks", you still need to keep the "far rocks" in view to keep an overall direction.

My son applied only to USAFA because he wanted to fly fighters, and it would be his best chance of that. He didn't apply for AFROTC, although they did contact him after he got his USAFA appointment. He did apply to backup schools, but never as a real plan, just as a necessity. He never lost sight of the pilot slot as his real goal, and as much as we hear on this forum "officer first, job second" that was not the reality for him. The goal of a fighter cockpit was what drove him to be successful. His plan also involves flying for the airlines after his 20 years in the AF and that is why he got his commercial instrument license as soon as he could after UPT.

Although things may change, having a plan is how we reach our goals.

Stealth_81
 
I agree with a lot of what you say. Adding to the difficulty of picking one SA on the go in is that a lot of the programs to "get to know" the SA (i.e. overnight visits, diversity visits, CVWs,etc) are not available to the child unless he/she applies. So, its hard to narrow it to one at that stage of the game because its hard to have all of the necessary information. I am pretty sure you can't get an inside look at USMA (i.e. overnight) unless you have an offer.

What if the 18 year old is certain they want X career but when the get to the academy that feeds X career they hate the place and ca't complete the necessary 4 years to get to X career.

I agree that the nomination facet of the process is where it gets messed up. A kid goes through all of the trouble to apply and visit and interview and complete all of the applications for each SA, only to have the MOCs force them to rank or list only 1 and then coordinate noms to make sure they only get the one opportunity.
 
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