Hey guys, welcome back to airman vision. And if you're new, consider subscribing. Today we talked to Andre Acosta, who is a tech sergeant in the Air National Guard as a recruiter. We asked him a bunch of questions that you guys asked us on this YouTube channel about what all the Air National Guard has to offer. And this is what he had to say. All right, so you are in the Air National Guard, and we're going to have you tell us a little bit about yourself before we jump into these questions. So what is your name? What are you currently doing for the Air National Guard? And how can people contact you? Hey everyone, I'm Andre Acosta. I'm a tech sergeant in the California Air National Guard, but primarily I'm a recruiter. And the best way to reach me if you have questions or any interest about the California Air National Guard is just call me on my work cell. It's<PHONE_NUMBER>. Again,<PHONE_NUMBER>. And then could you give us a quick overview of your career just so people can kind of understand a little bit about you and where you come from? Yeah, absolutely. So I've been in the Air Force 18 years, and 13 of those years were an active duty. And then the last five I've been in the Air Guard, also known as the Air National Guard. And it's been a long amount of time, but it felt really quick, you know, but my first duty station was Beale in Northern California. After that, I got an assignment to Osan Air Force Base in Korea. Then I went to Langley, Virginia. Then I went to Hawaii, Hickam out there. And that's where I actually went, Air National Guard, because I was like, man, I'm going to stay here forever and live the Hawaii lifestyle. Then I got a family. I got some kids. Got stationed in Wyoming in the Wyoming Air National Guard. And now I'm home. So I'm born and raised in California and a member of the California Air Guard. This will be my last tour. So I really appreciate Airman Vision giving me the opportunity to just, you know, just talk to somebody who's looking for information, somebody interested about joining and just giving back. Like, you know, this is a good opportunity for me to just dress casually, answer questions casually, and just give you the real and help you guys make some good decisions. That's awesome. You've been a lot of places with the Air Force. So you're going to have a good perspective on future videos if we shoot stuff together. I might be interested in actually talking to you about doing future videos of, you know, talking about how that was going to so many bases that are different to what it was like and maybe what helped you keep pushing through your career with all those different lifestyle changes. I'd love to, man. All right. So we're going to jump into the Q&A section here. And this video is going to be more based on just generic Air National Guard questions, but these are all questions that we got from our viewers here on Airman Vision. The first one is going to be what even is the Air National Guard mission? So the Air National Guard to put it simply is the state Air Force. So we're not going to look any different than the active duty Air Force or the Air Force Reserve per se, but we're going to serve locally, right? So the difference in the hierarchy is we also serve, you know, the governor and then on top of that, there's going to be, you know, the president is one of our bosses, but first of all, we serve the state. So any crisis that happens within your home state and they need Air Force support, we're here to answer that call. This is a huge question that we get a lot is can you choose which base you serve at in the Air National Guard? Yeah, that's the best part. Like I mentioned, I'm from SoCal, and this is literally like 40 minutes from where I grew up. So I chose to be at this base. So when you talk to a local recruiter, you're going to be assigned to that base. So you can control where you're getting stations. That's the main thing with the Air Guard that differentiates from active duty is control. And that's why even though I'd been in for 13 years in the active duty side, I wanted to go guard because for that control, so absolutely you control where you're getting station. Like you had mentioned, you were in Hawaii and you actually got out of active duty to go guard because you got to pick to stay in Hawaii as guard. Exactly. Like you can be stationed somewhere for your whole tour and then you could do 20, 30 years at one spot. So that's pretty cool. How does getting a job in the Air National Guard work? Because active duty, which is what I was, is we kind of fill out a list and say we hope for the best, see what the Air Force wants to give us and then go from there. So is it the same process where you make people fill out a list based on all the jobs that are available or what they qualify for? Or how does that process even work? Yeah. So you know, us recruiters, we kind of all know each other. So I talked to active duty recruiters too. So their process is a little bit different than ours because they have a different machine. So anybody familiar with the active duty, it'll be like pick your top eight. They'll try their best to get you one of those top eight. For us, we have like my basic, for example, here in Southern California, we have 80 different jobs for the enlisted side. So provided that somebody gets the score in the ASVAD, that's our entrance exam and qualifies at MEPs, and we have a vacancy, we'll put them in there. So I guess the advantage for somebody is it's easier to be picky and get the job you want on the Air Guard side, right? And it's also easier to cross train down the road. I know anybody who's been in active duty is hard to cross train and get the job you want, but in the Air Guard, so they're just provided there's a vacancy, it's easy to fill. So you guys have 80 jobs available. So what are the odds if somebody comes in and they want a specific job and they qualify for it with their ASVAD and medically? Are they guaranteed to get that one job that they want? Or do you guys also have like a listing of what jobs are available at the moment? So rule number one, does that job exist at our base? So that's what they got to think of because all the bases have different missions and different air guards have different focus and different mission sets per state. Like for example, here in California, we get wildfires every year. So we have a mass mission, modular airborne firefighting mission, right? So we have aircraft gear to do that, we have different jobs, gear to do that job. But if in a different state, let's say you're in Alabama, you're not going to have that issue. So you're going to have different set of jobs, right? Yeah. So the first thing to think about is what state or what wing within that state has that job. A good reference point is goang.com, that goang.com. So that's going to talk about where the different bases are because we got, 54 states and territories within America. Because each one of those 54 air guard has their own combination of wings and jobs, things like that. So reference that website to find out what's available number one.  That's my job to put people in those spots because we need those people to be able to do our mission. Okay. So with the vacancies, there's not all 80 jobs are not vacant all the time though. So sometimes you may reach out to an international guard recruiter, they might not even have, they might have the job that you want. It's just not currently open. Can that be something that happens? Right. So like, there is a lot of popularity and demand with the air guard once people find out about it and some of the benefits. So like for us, for example, we have about 50 vacancies and it depends if that job is available at that time. Now, I will tell you this, it might be a good idea just to get your foot in the door. And then three years later, you can cross train into that job because we're going to give preference to somebody who's already in and has a positive reputation, then to somebody that we don't really know that's coming to us brand new, right? So, you know, it's funny is I kind of almost compare that to the civilian world where, for instance, if you wanted to work at Google, right? And so you like pick a company you want to work for that be the Air National Guard, you would go on and look up their website and see what jobs they have available. You might want to be a software engineer. But if they don't have any software engineer positions open, but you qualify for another one, you might be able to join that. And then eventually once you're in their system and in the HR system, you'll be able to go over and change jobs once you're in. So it's kind of like a way because active duty does not work like that, right? Active duty be like, oh, you put your application in at Google and then you give them a list of all the jobs that you're interested in and they just pick whatever one they want to give you versus Air National Guard. It's more like an actual company where you're like, oh, I want to work at Google, but my job that I want isn't available right now. So I either join as a different job or I end up waiting until my position opens up that I want and then apply. That's a good explanation. That's exactly it. You know, you start from the bottom now I'm here, right? You got to get your foot in the door first. The active duty, you know, it's a different mission. They got 300,000 personnel stationed internationally. So they're trying to fill as many slots as they can. And it's full time with us. We're going to be more, you know, smaller operation. So everybody knows everybody. So it's just a different goal. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I've never really like sat down and thought about it, but it's just like any other company in America, if you wanted to go and start a job or work for a specific company, you kind of have to see what they have available, because if they don't have a job available, you can't apply for it. So And a nice thing too that we can offer that active duty normally doesn't is a job tour. So being that our base is probably close to the member applying, like once they do get their go through meps and get their ASVAP score and their medical examination called the physical, we can bring them on the base and they can tour different jobs. So you can literally meet your future coworkers, you know, things like that. Like to the fire station and like introduce them to all the equipment that you guys would use if they do want to pick that job. Yeah.  I mean, I got so much easier to sell the Air National Guard than it is active duty. Because especially if you're trying to shop around for a job, if you get somebody and they're not like say they're like, I want this specific job, you're like, but that's not available right now. But here's some that are like, let me take you on base, let me show you what it's like, right? I feel like it's so much easier than they go and they see it and they're like, I could do this. Right. And it's like, yeah, I do want to do that. But like, I just saw this, this is available right now. Oh, let me get that. So I'm like, active duty is not like that, right? You're kind of like, we're buying the car before we didn't seen it without.  And I recommend people do that. That sounds awesome. That's, I didn't know that either. So I'm learning probably as much as you guys are on this interview because I don't know almost anything about the Air National Guard. So this is going to be a pretty eye opening. Another question that we got from our viewers was, can you only sign a six year contract plus the two years of inactive? Like that's what active duty allows you to do sign a four or six year, but it's an eight year commitment. What does the contracts like length look like for Air National Guard? Yeah, so our initial contract is only six years, right? So that's the somebody brand new to the to the military, the Air Force, all we offer is that six year contract. And I know six years is like daunting, right? Because you're like six years forever. But when you, you're not, you know, in the air guards part times, you're not wearing the uniform every day. When you actually consolidate the amount of days that you're wearing the uniform, it's like a year and a half. Yeah.  And then thereafter upon re-enlistment, you can do a one year or a three year. Yeah. So as, yeah, like you said, six years, but it's only part time versus active duty for or six years, five days a week, you know? So like the six year, it's even kind of goes back to like that car reference where it's like, it's almost like test driving it, you know, where you don't have to fully commit to like your whole life to it because you're part time in the guard. So you can live a normal life and just do your one weekend a month. So that six year really isn't as scary. You're just pretty much committing that one weekend a month every single year. Yeah. Exactly. Try it before you buy it. You can definitely test drive the car, so to speak. And even if, you know, it's not working out for some reason, you know, it's only one weekend a month and then we're super flexible. We want you to be happy. So if that means cross train options, you know, we can definitely entertain that too. So that's why like some of the stuff we're talking about, man, that's why they say like air guards best kept secret in the Air Force. Yeah. Because you just got so much flexibility, so much more control than you did, than you or I did in active duty. Yeah, active duty, you have very little control. It's pretty much all at what, what they want, when they want it and how they want it. And because you signed the commitment to say like, I'm going to do this job all the time, no matter what you asked me to do, right. And so like you're saying it's, even if things aren't going well, at least it's only that one weekend a month and not, you know, 20 some days that, that month, where you're, you know, stuck in that, that pattern where you're like, I don't like this job. Right. It's a little bit easier to stomach when it's only that one weekend a month, even if it's not something that you want to do super long term. So what is a quick overview of the process of joining the Air National Guard? Like how would somebody go about joining? Yeah. So the first thing is reaching out to your local recruiter. If you don't know where your local recruiter is or where the basis are or what basis closest to you, just go on that website, goang.com and then they'll connect you. You can also, you know, for, you know, just look up your state guard. That's an easy way to start. So here in California, you just go to California Air National Guard and then they'll connect you with some recruiters or, you know, in your case, Kyle, you know, Alabama Air National Guard is just another example. And then once you connect with your local recruiter, then they'll, they'll collect your information, they'll make sure they'll pre-qualify you essentially and then send you off to, to MEPs to take our entrance exam, the ASVAB and then do a physical, which is a medical examination. Once you've completed both of those pieces, the ASVAB and the physical, and you have a qualified rating, then you can go shop for jobs. And that's the best part. That's what I was talking about. You can do a job tour. You know, could you know exactly what your scores are, what you're eligible for, things like that? So that's, that's the fun part.  One of the questions that we got from one of our viewers, which I thought was actually a pretty good question is, do you get a military ID because you're only working out one weekend a month? Do you get a military ID that would allow you access to an active duty base or other bases? And basically, like active duty gets where they have a common access farm, which allows them to get on to all these military installations. Are you treated the same way in international guard and getting that same amount of access to military installations? Yes. Yeah. So on the ID, it will say your branch, but it won't say what component. So, you know, the active duty is obviously an active duty component reserve and guard are considered reserve components, but on the ID cards, they don't differentiate. And you have full access. So like, for example, out here, we have two active duty Navy bases, which have, you know, discounted gas. They have a Navy exchange, which is kind of like a, like a test, like a best buy and a target combined in the one store without tax. And LA, I don't know if you know anything about LA sales tax. It's almost 10%. So, you know, having no sales tax is like 10% off on everything. So that's a big one. And then the gyms, I love the gyms out here. So yeah, it's a free membership to multiple gyms, essentially is what you're getting. Exactly. Yeah. So short answer, you get the ID card and you get full access just like an active duty member. So that was what they were going for us. I think people wanted to know, like, are they able to shop on base or be able to use the gyms? Because some people, especially in the guard, you have people that don't live directly next to the base because they only work there one weekend a month. So they may live near another base or another installation closer to home. So I think that maybe was the reason I got that question is, would they be able to basically access the base closest to them if their guard base isn't actually the closest location? Yeah, I'll hear people always trying to get the discount Disneyland tickets, man. That's hot out here. Yeah. Disneyland tickets are like $150 each. On base, you get a discount too. So that's kind of nice. Heck yeah. The next question that I have is, can you choose when you go to basic training? Because active duty, they pretty much just give you a slot and go, Hey, this is when you're going, even if it's like six months from now, or if it's two weeks from now. And you might be like, Whoa, that's really fast. But if you say you're available to go in active duty, like any time in that timeframe, I'll just give it to you. You have a little more control of when you go to basic training when you're in the guard. You have a little bit more influence, but they try to get you to go as soon as you can because you can't start your career to its fullest extent until you knock out basic training and tech school, thereby making you a fully trained member of the Air National Guard. So to give, let me take a step back and give you kind of the full perspective of the timeline from a recruiter standpoint. If somebody talks to me day one to the point that they're enlisting on average, that's three months. And then for us, from the date that they enlist to the date that they're going to basic training on average is about six months. So that's a big distinction between active duty right there. Because active duty day one of your enlistment is basic training. For the guard, day one is the day you sign the contract. So I know if you were like six years, yeah, but you're not even going to basic training for another six months. So you're still coming to drill, getting paid, but we have time to prepare. You can start getting paid before you even go to basic.  So yeah, see, that's different. So my wife, McKenna, is she's actually dept in already. So she's already been in maps, everything, you know, sign that she wants to join, been approved. We're just waiting for a job and her ship date. But she's not getting paid. She's not like, right, we're all like, we're just kind of like in this abyss of, you know, when are they going to give us a contract? So we're just kind of waiting because she doesn't have that, that job start yet or any of those benefits of serving because she's still not at basic and basic. Like you said, that's when that's when it actually starts. But regard, you guys actually start before basic. Yeah. So the day you sign your enlistment contract is day one of that six year contract. That's definitely another nice added bonus right there. It makes that six years not as seem as long. Yeah, exactly. And then per per regulation, we do have to get the member to basic training within a year. So there are some credible reasons why so we can write into their contract that we can delay, you know, their basic training. Some credible reasons are if we're enlisting a high school senior. So we do have to wait until they graduate high school. So the earliest the high school senior can can join the air guard is September of their senior year. So the very start of their senior year, they can list into the air guard and we'll write into their contract that they're not eligible to go to basic training until June when they graduate. Right. So that's a credible reason. It's all going to be kind of base specific for as far as reasons. But if you know if you're having the birth of a child, for example, we'll wait for that till you go to basic training. In some cases, if you're like in a program, you're in a nursing program and you it's hard to get back in that program, we can wait till you know till the end of that program. But the main thing to keep in mind is we have to get you to basic training within that first year. Otherwise, it could result in an administrative discharge. So we definitely want to avoid that. We want to get you there within a year, but you do have a lot more flexibility. A lot of wings will wait until the end of your semester. So if somebody's a college student, we can accommodate that in most cases. Yeah, it just just let us know ahead of time and it will do our best for you. Okay. And so kind of rolling off of that is the next step would be tech school. So how does that work? Can you choose when you go to tech school? Because you guys are a little more flexible with when you can go to basic training if you have stuff going on. What if that same situation is happening happening for somebody after basic training?  But then when they get done with basic, say they're a few months out and they don't want to be gone at tech school when they have the birth of their child. So can they choose? Can they drag that out as well? So in most cases, we try to do it back to back. So that way they're coming back fully qualified, fully trained member. That's traditional with what active duty does. Active duty you go, it's one, two right away. But there are some exceptions to that. We call them break and training. So how we book basic training in tech school is we try to book tech school dates first because tech school dates are harder to fill.  So if somebody picks an AFSC, that's a job that has the next available tech school date is over a year. From now, like let's just say you choose like let's say flight medic, any of the flight jobs usually have longer waits or load master. That next school date, that tech school date might be over for a year from now. So what we'll do to make sure you're still in good standing with us is we'll send you the basic training first. And then you'll knock out those eight weeks and basic training and send Antonio Techist and you'll come back with us to the unit and drill for a little bit until we get you those dates. So sometimes we can accommodate that with the scenario that you said where somebody's got an expected birth of their child. Maybe we can send them the basic training really quick and then we can kind of delay tech school stuff. What you guys would do is try to book the tech school based off of when the child's supposed to be born. You would book the tech school after that and then you could book the basic training anytime from like now or like immediately to because if you do that, then you're making sure the tech school location's booked. It's solidified and it's not interfering with whatever life event that they were trying to not miss. In most cases, we're just going to try to get them through back to back, but there are extenuating circumstances like we mentioned. The main thing is we got to get you the basic training within that first year. So if we can get you there and then we can wait a little bit for tech school, you know, that can happen. A lot more flexibility than active duty, right? Yeah, I definitely think it's the best case scenario to go back to back anyways. Like you shouldn't want to not do that because that way like it's going to be everything's going to be the most fresh in your mind because when you get to tech school, you're going to be with everyone that just finished basic. So when you get there, it's a little less strict than basic, but it's still they try to keep things as sharp or like it was at basic where everything is very precise.  So I think that might be, you know, something that's important to is definitely you shouldn't want to have that gap between the two. Yeah, and we get that question a lot. The most common reason why is because somebody's in college, right? And they're like, Hey, can I go to basic training in the summer and then go to tech school the following summer because they don't want to fall behind in college. Now what I recommend for that type of enlistee is just, you know, sacrifice a an extra semester, maybe do a summer and semester and knock them both out because you're not going to get the educational benefits until you're fully trained. Yeah.  So yeah, so definitely that's what I encourage people to knock it out or take a gap year right after high school and then go in college. Yeah, definitely smart because like you said, with the college benefits and tuition, we're actually going to be covering that in a separate video. So stay tuned for that where we talk about the benefits of college and tuition that Air National Guard has to offer. Can you pick which weekend you do drill or like which weekend out of the month that you serve? You said it's that one weekend a month that is your obligation. Do you have the choice of what weekend that is? In most cases, your whole calendar year is forecasted out. The weekend is assigned and that's because the whole base comes together on that weekend. Normally that base would not be occupied to the extent that it is unless it's that drill weekend. It's like the whole base comes alive on drill weekend, but there are, you know, alternatives. So like out here in SoCal, a lot of people are like, man, I got to go to Coachella, right?  So what you would do in that scenario, if it did fall in a drill weekend, you know, you could talk to your supervisor, see if you can take a drill absence. So maybe like, hey, can I reschedule and maybe, or just not get paid for that drill weekend? You actually don't have to attend every drill weekend. You know, you really to meet the minimum, you only have to go to eight out of 12 per year. We do encourage you to go to all 12. Of course, you'd be nice to get paid, right? Because you're going to get paid for each time you wear the uniform, but or you can do drill makeup. So maybe the the following month, instead of doing two days, you do four days. So there's definitely so much flexibility like that. There's even scenarios where people maybe live or or work or go to school internationally. So they're out of the country or out of the state and we'll do something called power drill. So they'll do their six weeks back to back and they'll suffice for the whole year. Thanks. So you wouldn't have to report for for 11 months? Well, yeah, like 10 and a half months at that point, if you do all six weeks all in one go. Yeah. So you just got to talk to your unit, make sure they know what you're doing and you have an approved reason. But I've heard of those reasons, you know, like, like somebody's going to school in Europe, things like that. Or maybe you just want to take six months off and backpack, right? Or something like that. There's definitely not an active duty at all. You definitely can't do that in active duty. So that is definitely a huge benefit to that where, you know, some people, like you said, might not want to have to do that one, one weekend a month, if they have certain things that they were doing, like taking a semester abroad, you know, it's like, exactly, that's going to have to work with that, that experience or that opportunity, they can still do that and still meet their obligations with the international guard just by compiling all of their drills into like one section. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, man, best kept secret in the Air Force. That's really cool, actually. I should have gone guard. It's not too late. I don't want to lose this, though. This is something I might enjoy. So we just mentioned the one weekend a month, where you can kind of adjust that based on if you have an approved reason. What about your two weekends or your two weeks of drill that you have to do per year of training? Is that the same concept? Can you pick when you do that or is there like a set time where you have to follow that obligation? Yeah, and you're talking about, we call it annual training when you hear like one week in a month, two weeks a year, we're talking about that two weeks a year. Most people do it in the summer and we can accommodate that. Now, there's a lot of trip opportunities. Sometimes your annual training is like a TDY that's a temporary duty to some different location to do that job. So if you're, let's say a med tech, which is like a medic, you could do that job. We're on the coast here in California. So a lot of times we'll go to Hawaii and we'll train over there.  So there is flexibility. We do try to get you on these trips because I think learning to do that job elsewhere is super helpful. But if you can't jump on that trip, we can just host you at the base and we can accommodate that. So again, super flexible. Most people do end up doing it in the summer. I find that just because maybe it's a break between college or spring break is another popular time. It's probably the easiest time for most people, especially if you have families or something where you're not going away during the school year, during certain activities where they need to be present for that. How does promotion work when you're in the Air National Guard compared to active duty? You were in active duty, so you definitely understand that aspect of promotion. Is it the same in the Guard or do they have this separate criteria of how they promote you guys? So the prerequisites are the same like for somebody who's never been in the Air Force, there's going to be expectations of a certain proficiency in that job and then how much time you've held the previous rank. So for example, to make Sergeant, there's an expectation that you have that certain skill level of that job, which would be a five level, which would mean you've been in the career field and you met the checkpoints, things like that. And then also you have to have worn the rank for a certain amount of time. Now the big difference is you don't have to test. In active duty, there's a test that you have to take to promote. In the Guard, you don't have to take that test. Now to be fair, and once you start getting up in the higher ranks, in the Guard side, that person has to be a vacancy. So that's the challenge there. There's no vacancy like that. Let's say that you want to promote to Master Sergeant, but there's a person in the Master Sergeant billet and they're not going anywhere anytime soon. Then unfortunately, you're not going to be able to promote even if you meet all the other criteria. So it's a give and take there. So once you get up there, you're waiting for somebody to retire and then everyone shifts up a level. Yeah, hopefully. And then you can fill in that lower slot and then just keep going there. But it is nice not to have to test. I know on the active duty side, I tested for a lot of promotions. So that whole testing side is gone. So that's kind of the advantage there. Another huge question that people ask a lot is deployments. So does the Air National Guard deploy at all? And if so, what is that tempo? How often is it, which I know might depend on your base's mission or the job that you have specifically, but can you shed some light on that? Do you guys even deploy like active duty does? Yep, we do deploy. And so when you talk about hierarchy or deployments versus going to be active duty, then it's going to be reserve and then guard. So we're third in that hierarchy. Now, it's going to be more volunteer based with the guard side, because we're primarily a state organization and it is part time. So if somebody's really focused on not deploying or then they have a credible reason, a lot of times that'll be fine. Like if somebody's a student or things like that. But we do, of course, encourage the experience. It's a good experience. It's actually kind of competitive on the guard. It's all going to come down to that job. Because first of all, like security forces member isn't going to have the same deployment tempo as an administrative person. So each job is going to have a different tempo. But on average, we have access to deployments at about a four-year window. So every four years, your office might have an opportunity to deploy. And they might, let's say there's 10 people in an office, one person will get that slot. So a lot of times, guys will be competing for it. Guys and gals will be like, hey, I want to go. That's good tax-free money. I get to go out. Maybe it's the desert. I get to free food. I get to work out, get some extra stacks and extra money for six months. So if somebody doesn't want to deploy, it's a high likelihood they probably would never need to. But if you do want to deploy, there might be a wait list. It's just kind of interesting. Because people do want to go. There's a lot of benefits. That's some good money to be had. So then if you do have a job or a mission where there's lots of deployments, like you said with the wait list, so they might go, okay, you three want to go. But you two already went on the last one. Or you two went back to back. And so we're going to let this third person go now. Is that kind of how they would organize that? If it's like, well, this person still hasn't had the experience yet. You guys have already been on two or three recently. Exactly. Spread the wealth. You definitely want to diversify the experience in an office. Things like that. And of course, who's the most qualified? Who has the most experience? Who's most applicable? But yeah, it's crazy. Some people are like, man, I really want to go. Let me get on this next one. So it's a lot different than active duty, right? Because active duty people are like, I don't want to go anymore. So we had, thankfully, the units that I was in, we had a little more say up because the units that I was in, one of them was non-deployable. And the next one that I was in, we would only deploy two guys at a time. And we had a shop of about 13 guys. And so some units will deploy like half the shop. But for us, we would deploy just over 10% of our shop at a time. And we would do two deployments in a row and then have a break. And then two deployments in a row and a break. So in like a two-year time period, we would only send six guys out of our 13. And so sometimes guys are only there for two or three years. So you could be there and then not even deploy at all. But they would, in my unit, they were allowed to go, hey, I want to be the next stop or I want to go here. So I actually had a wedding coming up and they had slotted me for an appointment. And I had asked to not go on it because I had two weddings. My friends had planned their wedding back to back so I could go to both of them. And we had like four or five other guys in my shop alone that wanted to go on the deployment. So they ended up letting me step aside and let somebody else fill that slot. So pretty much like we had like a list and order that they were going to send people. And so then like, it was my turn, but then I was like, I have all this stuff going on. So all right, they moved me to the bottom of the list. And then they just went with the next guys. So that was a nice thing about my, I've seen some active duty units where, you know, you don't have a choice. They're like, you 12 are going, good luck.  But so yeah, it's my experience is pretty similar to the guard is what I'm understanding from this is you're saying that, you know, you have the opportunity to ask if you can be the next one. It's not just a you're told, you're fallen told and you don't have a set. Exactly. And it's kind of nice, right? I think to have that consideration and, you know, some flexibility there. So yeah, you sound like you had a good shot, man. Yeah, yeah, it definitely takes away a lot of anxiety and stress of like, not knowing or knowing, you know, the moment they want to pull the trigger, like you don't have a say in it. So that was definitely something that was was good about the units that I was in. But I've, you know, I've heard different stories with active duty. So that's kind of like a hit or miss in activity, but air guard, you know, it's kind of a standard. What do you want to do? Oh, I got school going on right now. Or, you know, I'm about to graduate. I'll go after I graduate. But right now, let me knock out this last semester. I don't want to go on this deployment. As long as they have somebody else that can fill that slot, then, then you'll be good. Yeah. And usually, like, like I mentioned, a lot of people want to go. So yeah, especially if you're working part time, like sometimes, like you said, that's tax free money, it's active duty pay. So you're making like pretty good money when you go over there for that, that period of time.  And you also get access to some different benefits the longer you have active time. We could probably shoot a whole another video on that one too. But yeah, so there's some incentives too for guard members to get on those deployments. A really interesting question that we got was, can you choose to serve your one week in a month at another base, not your base? Because somebody, the reason why they asked, they said, what if I want to go on vacation with my family to Florida, right? And your station in California, the Air National Guard, would you be able to go? Hey, I want to like parlay my, my vacation with my drill weekend, but in Florida, because that's where we're going to be on vacation. Is that an option? I didn't think so. And so I'm not for sure it might be, but I was just like, man, that's a really good question. Like I saw something I would have thought of, but the way they laid out the question, I really liked it. So I wanted to make sure to ask you, is that even something that is possible? Possible? Yes. Definitely uncommon. Realistic? Maybe not. You would need approval on both sides. Okay.  Kind of thing. But if you can justify it properly, like you want to do your drill weekend with another out-of-state unit, same job, of course. And usually a good justification would be like training purposes. Maybe they work on the same aircraft or the same thing. You want to get their, their take on it. Or they do a different style of repairs and stuff. Yeah, it's doable. I've heard of circumstances like that. Usually it'll be when somebody's transitioning from like a different state to this state, in the process, or they're still living in their local state and they want to get drill credit for that weekend and then out-of-state guard unit. So I mean, like I said, I wouldn't use my vacation as a justification, but it is, it can happen. He answered, yeah. So that's actually a really interesting concept is you can maybe travel around a little bit to different bases with that intention. If you reach out and find other bases that work on different airframes, for instance, if you're, I was aircraft structural maintenance when I was in. So if your unit works on the F-15 and there's another unit that works on the F-16, and you're interested in learning a little bit more about that airframe, you could pitch that as an idea of, hey, it's actually a good idea to let me go and do drill weekend here because I'm going to get experience on an additional airframe, which is going to help me serve the Air Force better. I do have a question with that. Like you said, that's probably like a rare instance. Like that's not very common. But how would the travel work for that? Because I'm like, man, if we pay for it all and they cover it, right? Like I feel like people would be like, yo, I'm trying to be like training here, training there. I'm trying to go everywhere for training like, but would that not pocket for you? Yeah. So in most cases that the travel would be out of pocket. And of course, we have to make sure that both units, the leadership, are signing off on this to begin with. You're not just randomly choosing locations. But provided both units are good with this, right, the member would probably be responsible for travel. But then like a hotel state, if that unit regularly gave hotels for people who are out of the area, like our unit does, like if you live an hour away from our unit, we'll provide you a hotel. So that hotel would be complimentary. But your flight or the drive wouldn't be, but the hotel would be covered. Right. Right. So it might not be worth it to try to go all over the place to do these trainings if you're having to pay for your plane tickets to fly all over for it. Yeah, you got to balance it all the way right there, just in that plane ticket. What I would try to do, honestly, is again, talk to your leadership and just get a TDY, like a temporary duty, and it'd be longer than that one week and it might be a week. And those are more, those are through the base as a whole, not just you doing it one off. Right. Right. And then, you know, you could bring some of your buddies from the office to with you. So yeah, I mean, if you're really doing it for the purposes of like, I want to get better at my job, talk to, you know, you can talk to your supervisor, talk to your leadership, they're looking for those opportunities anyway. So that'd be a great way to do both, right? Get to travel to that destination and get paid the whole way. So that's what I would recommend. Heck yeah. That's, that's awesome. I know we kind of went down a little rabbit hole there. It was maybe more of a tough question, but I thought it was an interesting question. So I wanted to make sure I asked it to you. I was definitely curious about that answer too. I know we kind of answered this earlier, but I want to hit on it again is one of the questions that people ask was can the Air National Guard work around your work schedule? One of the examples one of our viewers gave was going to the Academy for the police department. That's like several months sometimes. So how, how does that work with your one weekend a month? I know we kind of already hit on it, but I wanted to just kind of have you reiterate, does it work around if you have a career and you join the Air National Guard part time, are they flexible with you having a career that sometimes might have dates that are set in stone that you cannot change? They are and it's all about having a credible reason. So the police academy scenario is one that we get because police academy is like six months, right? And you have to do it consistently. Like there's no breaking that up. So we do get members who are full-time law enforcement or applying to be full-time law enforcement, right? The Air Guard, by the way, is a great resume booster to get into these law enforcement organizations. So, you know, once they do get in, you just let your supervisor know and we can either do kind of like what we were talking about, we can consolidate your drill days, either pre-academy or post-academy, you know, to make sure you have what we call a good year where you meet the minimum criteria of days that you showed up for that year. But yeah, we're absolutely flexible with things like that, things that benefit both sides, you know, your law enforcement side and your Air Guard side. That's the whole appeal to us to begin with. We'd love to do that. So it's going to benefit both organizations. So pretty much what you're saying is it comes down to just a credible reason. If you have a legitimate reason as to why you can't do drill weekends, you can shift them off to another weekend versus just saying, I just don't feel like coming in this weekend, right? That's why not one is going to get approved.  Yeah, I mean, and it's just nice to have those options, right? So you can, you can have like your full-time career or ambition or full-time life. And then you have this, this Air Guard part-time thing in the background, you know, that's, that's going to complement whatever you're doing full-time. Next question, I'm sure you get this question all the time, but it's can you change your international guard location? So if you, if you want to move or say, well, if you just want to move to a new state or a new location, or your spouse, or you get a new career and that relocates you, are you able to transfer to a new unit? Or do you have to keep commuting all the way back to where you had signed? Short answer, yes. You know, the big takeaway with the Air Guard is control. So you're going to be able to control your PCSs that your permanent change of station that's moving from place to place. We get transfers all the time. It's easy to transfer from guard to guard or any other reserve component and vice versa. So we get transfers from the reserve. We get people moving from guard to guard to guard. So the short answer is yes, it's so much easier than like moving in active duty. So yeah, if your spouse moves, like it's easy to move with them, things like that, also your life situation changes. That's the whole appeal because, you know, the Air Guard is a part-time organization primarily. So they can't hold you to a full-time expectation, right? So if you need to move for like, let's say you're getting married or a better job opportunity on the full-time side, yeah, they're absolutely going to work to accommodate that. So then you would have to, if you did do that, like you said earlier in this interview, certain bases have certain jobs though based on their mission. So you may not be close to another base that has the exact job that you have, but you could still get transferred to the nearest unit possibly rather than, right? If you went from California to New York because of a job opportunity, there's hopefully another base somewhere in between there at least that would have the same job. So even if it's not, you know, in New York, you might be able to transfer your... So good follow-up questions here. The first one, yeah, the easiest way to make that transfer is keeping your job and finding that vacancy in the next state that you're transferring to, right? If for some reason you have to move and there isn't that job at that new base that you're trying to go to, then you would have to look at other job options, you know, if you have to make that move. So then we'd cross-strain you, that's changing jobs. And of course you'd have to go back to tech school and kind of get your currency and proficiency up on that job. So that's going to take time. But again, we're flexible and we're open to that option because we know you have a full-time life outside of the guard, right? So you might be married, you might have a family, you might have a spouse. There's all types of things that are going to change. So we're open to that. Well, this would be a question on top of that is, can you serve in a unit that you aren't living in that state? So like if I'm a resident of New York, would I be able to serve in the Air National Guard from, you know, Vermont or Massachusetts? Nice. Yep. Short answer, yes. And we do see that a lot in between neighboring states. So when I was a member of the Wyoming Air National Guard, we had members who lived in Colorado and vice versa. There are people who lived in Wyoming, residents of Wyoming, and then served in Colorado. A lot of it's just going to be dependent on the job opportunities at that particular base and state and then how close you live to that base. Because sometimes you might be on the border of one state, but then that base is a lot closer, like let's say Colorado, right? You know, it might have a closer base. You might live in Colorado on the border of Colorado and Wyoming, but the base on the Wyoming side is so much closer than the base would be on the Colorado side, right? I hope that makes sense, but a lot of it's proximity and then job option. You don't have to be a resident of the state that you're serving the Guard for. Because I think that was like one of the big questions is like, if I'm a resident of this state, am I allowed to serve in another state's Guard unit? Because like you said, if you're, what if you live on the border and you don't want to drive eight hours to get to this base? And you know, it's only two hours to this one. I think that was like one of the concerns that one of our viewers had was what if another state's unit is closer than my state's closest unit? Does that affect you? But you said it's actually common practice for people to sometimes serve in a unit that they're not actually a resident of. Exactly. And you know, the whole thing too with residency, anytime you join the military, you can be a resident of a state, like your home state, and then serve in a different state. So that's, you're probably familiar with that Kyle from active duty, that extends to the Guard too. Okay. So for example, you know, you can be a resident of Nevada, but then serve in California or, you know, and things like that. So it's super accommodating, man. Awesome. Yeah, you guys seem, you're like the, the chill uncle of the military. Yeah.   So I'm like, yeah, it sounds, you weren't joking when you said it's like the Air Force's best kept secret. Yeah, you know, I was active duty. So the primary for me, like I joined the Air Force over a lot of the other branches, right, was because I wanted something that was like technical, academic, and pretty chill overall. Like for me, the the strictness of the military wasn't appealing, right? I wanted something that I could grow, but wasn't going to be like barking at me and all that.  What's the air guard? And they were so chill. Like they came in after us in the morning, like they came in like, like a couple hours after us. And they had, they all had Starbucks and they were so happy. And then they left before us too. And I was like, man, what's the guard? They look even way more, they're like the Air Force or the Air Force, you know, super chill. And so long story short, that's why I'm here now. That's awesome. You're like, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go take that route now. Yeah, that looks really nice. This is a question that I'm sure you get maybe not entirely that often. Well, you might because you're in the California Air National Guard, but joining with a green card. So we get that question, I would say maybe like once every few weeks on airman vision is joining the military in general with a green card. But are you able to join the Air National Guard if you have a green card? Yes, absolutely. So you do have to have a green card and be a permanent resident, right? And there are some limits to some jobs, like you can't, you don't have access to every job, like security forces, and then some of the jobs that work on the planes, you wouldn't be able to get into until you got your citizenship. But you can absolutely join. You can actually even like the best job I've seen as a permanent resident is flight medic, which is incredible. You can be a flight medic or medic and be a permanent resident. And so that's like phenomenal. I was like, wow, that's incredible right there. Also, the next question we usually get is, you know, will that expedite their citizenship? And the answer is indirectly it will. We don't directly handle their citizenship, you know, that's a different government organization. But having, you know, being a member of the Air National Guard on your application, that of course going to be help put you in good standing. And then I've heard that they do waive a lot of the fees involved. So it's about $300 in fees to transition from a permanent resident to a US citizen. So a lot of those fees get waived when you're a veteran. Okay. Yeah, that's, that's a question we get. But I don't know anything about that process because, you know, I've never dealt with helping people join with that situation. So that's definitely a good thing because I think there was another question. I don't think I'd put it down. It might have been on that same question. Does it expedite it? And you kind of hit that too. So that was perfect. It was like you were thinking what they were thinking because I'm sure a lot of people would want to know, yeah, can I join at all? And then, okay, if I can join, does that help with me becoming a citizen sooner? And I personally have about three enlistees who were green card holders. So, yeah, it's so rewarding. I think it's a phenomenal opportunity. Is it difficult to get a full-time slot in the Air National Guard?  So I'm sure that we could probably just make a whole video on this topic alone of just the whole going active guard. But how does that process work if we were to like sum it up? That's a popular question, man. So we call them AGR, active guard reserve. So as recruiters, like myself, I'm an active guard reserve. So it's going to be like active duty where you're full-time. Each state will have their own website where they advertise those vacancies. Usually, those AGR slots are for in order to keep experience. So it's not something that you would start with. So somebody wouldn't enlist into an AGR. But if somebody had been in that career field for several years and they needed, let's say, a supervisor for an office, usually that's the person they'll put on that AGR slot. That's the person who's going to be there Monday to Friday and making sure that everything runs properly and they keep experiencing that office. So I think it's about putting in your time and being persistent with it, making yourself available. That's really how you get those slots on the guard side. It is a big contrast to active duty where in active duty, everybody's essentially AGR. You join fresh off the street and you're full-time employee, full-time member of the active duty Air Force. But in the guard, the reason we're putting somebody on that full-time status is usually because we're trying to keep that experience. We need some experience in the office and we want to keep them full-time. So you have to, of course, be on board for usually a little bit of time and build up that experience in your career field and then you can apply through each state's website that they advertised it on. And that was kind of, you had touched on earlier, how on weekends, that one weekend a month, that's when the base comes alive. And the rest of the time, the base really doesn't have a whole lot going on. But there are some active guard reserve members that are manning the base. It's just at a lower capacity than on that one week in a month when everyone's there. So the mission still is happening. It's still being able to go. It's just like an idol, I guess, where you have the set people in place that are active that work there. They're normal every week and they're what's keeping them from flowing. And to give you some numbers, Kyle, because I know you said you like numbers, man. So our base, we have 1,050 personnel at our base assigned, 300 of them are full-time. Okay. You're to weigh how many? About 30%. Yeah, 30%. So drill weekend when we come alive, it essentially triples in size. So your guys' base, that one week in a month is 100%. And then the rest of the time, you're maintaining that 30% Exactly. Yeah, activeness. So that's good information because I always wondered how many people are active. Because it's like, you've got to have enough people to add the base still function when not everybody's there on that one weekend. So that's something that I'm sure other people were curious about is, if everybody works at one weekend a month, what happens to the base? The other 27 days out of the year or out of the month? And then, you know, that's a lot of time out of the year that the base is just sitting there with nobody there. And the jobs that have the most AGR slots are security forces and aircraft maintenance. Okay. Boom. Yeah. Yeah, security forces, definitely, because you need somebody to guard the base at all times, no matter what. And then, you can't work on an airplane or a helicopter, you know, one weekend a month and expect it to fly. Yeah, I mean, those are each, we have eight C 130s at our base and each one of those are 80 million. So we're definitely, we want those aircrafts maintained well. And of course, we want defenders that's the security forces personnel to take care of our base and our people to be so we can do that mission. Something that many people are interested in, which you actually touched on in your own story was going from active duty to the guard. When I was active duty, that was something so many people would talk about, because you said, you know, it's more flexible. It's more chill.  But what is that process like? Like, is it easy? Is it seamless? Is there multiple ways to do it? How would somebody go from active duty to join the Air National Guard? Good question. So we have a recruiter assigned to every active duty base. They're called in service recruiter Air National Guard, in service recruiter or ISR for short. And keep in mind that one ISR might be responsible for three or four bases. So if you don't see them at your base, they're probably they should have flyers around or contact information. Just reach out to any Air National Guard recruiter and we have access to to give you the point of contact to who that person is. But they would start you on the process of either Palace Chase or Palace Front.  That's Palace Chase. And then Palace Front means transitioning at the end of your enlistment. So right now, the activity Air Force is overman. So they're actually authorizing like excessive amounts of Palace Chase. So it's a great time for people to transition and Palace Chase from active duty into the Air Guard. We're getting a lot of transfers that way. So that's where you said if you're not you haven't fulfilled your active duty contract yet, you might have, you know, a few years left or a year left. And you don't have to you don't have to wait to to finish out that contract. You can actually roll that contract into the Air National Guard is what that is. That's kind of essentially in a nutshell what that's exactly. So when I was active duty, I still had a year left in my contract with active duty, but I Palace Chase. So I left a little bit early and transferred into the Hawaii Air National Guard at that point. So how did that work with your contract? Did you have to roll that one year over and then sign an additional six on top of that? So right now it's it's doubling. So whatever you have left. So if you have one year left on contract, you're expected to serve at least two years in the Air National Guard. And that criteria will change from time to time. We're shooting this video in 2021. But right now they're just doubling that time frame whatever is left on your contract. So it's a little bit different than somebody that has no prior service and they're they're joining. If you Palace Chase, you just double that. So you just roll that over and then double it. But what about a Palace Front? Would you have to sign a full six year contract? No, for Palace Front, we have either a one year option where we call it like try it where you can try that one year in the Air Guard or Guard is so chill. That is crazy. Or you can do a three year option, which is probably the most common. If you do cross train, you do have to do at least a three year. So that one year is going to be if you just keep your same job. Well, we'll we'll definitely keep our options open for McKenna with her joining because she's already discussed the potential. If we start a family or she wants to start a career as a civilian, right? Like there's still benefits of going guard.  If she were to Palace Chase, then it's like she'll just have four years left. She basically just add an additional two years onto her contract. If she had two years left, it's four years as part time or two more years is active duty. It's like which option do I want? So that's a nice backup option to be able to, you know, you don't have to fulfill your active duty contract if they're offering that in the moment because that's an especially like you said, if you Palace front, you get out after your contract or you transfer at the end of your active duty contract, you do the one or three years. That's a lot better of a commitment than, you know, six versus somebody that's brand new, especially in that transition phase, because sometimes people just might need that, you know, that one year where they're transitioning from active duty to a civilian career, but they still want some of the benefits that the military might offer, but they, they want their time back. So that's actually a really good flexibility. I would like to maybe do a future video talking about Palace front and Palace Chase with you, because I think, you know, you could probably go into more depth on some of those and how the process works potentially. Or maybe it's just that easy in the guard makes it more simple than that. I'd love to. I'd love to do that video. Yeah. Yeah. That's definitely a huge option.  You know, 90% of the guys wouldn't end up doing it anyways, but it was like always something that they would think about or talk about. But I never considered it. So I never looked into it. So to me, it's, you know, this foreign world to understand. So yeah, where's this palace at? You know, a big question that a lot of people have with joining the guard is, you know, why should I join guard? Or why do I, why should I join guard over active duty? Or why should I join the military in general? So kind of spill all those reasons as to, you know, why somebody should choose this route? Yeah. So the biggest thing that I've learned since, you know, I've been in, and it's been 18 years now, it's been a great ride. I think why join the military at all is career development and experience, but why go air guard specifically is control.  So that is the part that I love. That's why a lot of guys go from active duty to air guard.  So that that's the best part for me, having that control. And I will, I will say that almost everyone that I know that went from active duty to guard when I was in absolutely loved the new lifestyle and the new transition. I don't think I knew anybody that liked their life less after they left active duty for the guard because it was kind of a nice change of pace for them. And then they could start to finally go back to school full time or pursue the career that they wanted to do as a civilian. So yeah, I definitely think it's a great option just based off of everything that you've explained. And even the guys that I know that had gone guard, I've only heard great things about it. So that's definitely something if you're interested, you can go ahead and tell them again where they can contact you. If this video helped convince them to be like, man, I got to do what this guy does. How can they reach you and contact you and possibly, you know, start in the direction of joining the Air National Guard? Yeah. So I'm a California Air National Guard recruiter. So if you're looking at California, feel free to give me a call or text me<PHONE_NUMBER>. Again,<PHONE_NUMBER>. But I do encourage you wherever you guys are at, reach out to that local Air National Guard recruiter or check out goang.com. And thanks to Airman Vision for allowing us to shed some light and showcase the opportunities that we have for all of y'all in the Air Guard. Definitely. Yeah, I'm glad we could. I'm glad you reached out to do an interview with us. It definitely helps get good information out for people that are interested in, you know, taking this opportunity up.


So, the final project for this class has never been a traditional final. I don't think any of the professors have actually ever taught it as a traditional final. It made more sense as a final project. And for a very long time, I had the students record a vlog review of their final, and they could choose any film in the class, including the short films. And the only requirements were that they were not allowed to just talk about the story. They actually had to talk about other cinematic elements that they had learned throughout the quarter. So, as I've been changing and moving and shuffling, I've always kept that option for students as a final, just because then they're not feeling so overwhelmed, like, oh, I've got to get cameras, I've got to get a light reflector, I've got to get microphones. They can just very quietly write something down, record it. That way they have that process handled, upload it to a host, cite their references. It's really a simple process for an individual. I started adding group projects on, and the group projects were different kinds of scenes, artistic scenes if they needed to be, or a documentary style of film. Most of the students who were creating the vlog, the individual option to have their own voice in their own space, were generally feminine or non-traditional students, whereas other students who were often white affluent male or female often would create the scenes, the more creative works. They would definitely mimic some of their favorite directors, like Wes Anderson or Quentin Tarantino. However, once I changed this process and started really thinking about who was writing the articles, who was narrating the video tutorials we were looking at, and which films we were watching in class, I instantly noticed that we had more feminine voices creating scenes. We had more non-traditional students gathering together and creating scenes, but it's a different view, it's someone doing something other than just mimicking a director that we've already seen, Adnazium. And what's really important about that is it's also giving voice to a group that didn't necessarily feel they had a voice, and you can see it in their productions. They're gathering together, they're renting equipment that they never would have rented equipment for, and they're coming up with ideas. For the most part, that's really exciting to me because now we're starting to have a different voice, a different view. Which we all say we want to have, so how do we start creating that? How do we give those students, those people, a platform to begin that journey? I think we just have to change how we teach, and we have to give them heroes to look up to that aren't the traditional heroes that we've always idolized in the media. So we find them new ones, and then they go with that. It's difficult for students to understand what sources mean. They're so used to being taught, I used this quote from this article and so I must cite this reference. And they don't understand that really they're taking in all this information. So I've had students create a blog or a short scene or a documentary, and I've docked them points because they didn't have their sources referenced. And they said, well, I put, you know, I sourced the music I used, and I said, that's great. However, comma, you also didn't source all of the articles that we had in class about documentary, and you created this documentary. So them being able to see how this process unfolds and how none of us have these original thoughts for ourselves. I mean, we may connect dots in different ways, but we're all pulling from each other's ideas. And it's how we teach those other ideas for each other. So for them to understand that I'm sourcing my references the entire time and teaching them how to do so, so that they're recognizing that it's not just a song that they used in that scene, but it was someone else's thought process, someone else's idea, and seeing a piece of art that influenced them. So it starts at these base levels. And it keeps us all in check, which is not a bad thing. Being humble in our academic understanding is not a bad thing. And being aware that we aren't these golden entities that just shine out knowledge that we just kind of sucked in. I think it's really important, and I think it's time. There's no reason to not do these things. We have the resources. And it's so easy, because nobody can tell that story exactly the same way they tell it. So they may have read this article about direct cinema, and maybe they watched Grey Gardens because they were feeling pretty spunky. And then they went and created their own documentaries. So they at least understand that they've had some influence from some outside source. And that feels really good. It's empowering to know that you were able to take information and process it in a different way and create something new with it, which is kind of the arts anyway.