99hugcam

iTrader: (9)

I am interested in this but I was wondering, what is day to day life like? What do you do everyday, train? Is it like a normal job, 9-5 stuff or are you remotely located training day in, day out?
Just curious as to how life is and what about advancement as you get older? Thanks for any input.

JUICED96Z

iTrader: (2)

Pretty much in the AF but on an ARMY base.

Deploy quite a bit if not a lot. I know a GUARD TACP and they pretty much work out 24/7 run to chow, run here run there. A lot of PJ/CCT drop out/fails go to TACP school. You don't do a lot untill you are up there in levels, or so I am told. They don't want you calling in air strikes on the good guys. This guy was in Savanah back in August or so hanging out in a swamp.

http://www.romad.com/index.php

http://www.romad.com/ubbs-cgi/ultimatebb.cgi Good forum on the site, just have to register.

99hugcam

iTrader: (9)

So when your not deployed I guess you just train and work out? I love to work out, but Im into bodybuilding. Guess I wouldnt be able to pursue something like that?
Guess its not like a norm job where you get off at a certain time and weekends off or anything? Thanks again

J2Pharren1

iTrader: (1)

7:30 PT starts, you will be doing some of the hardest PT on the base while the Army looks at you funny and/or mean mugs you. Some fat lazy Joe will make some comment about the Air Force being gay, then go back to falling off the pull-up bar.

9:30 the duty day starts, usually the morning is spent accomplishing all the dumb **** that has to get done, like inspecting the hmmwvs and doing equipment checks, nobody will want to start any major projects with lunch coming up, so if you have nothing to do you will work out or read a TO or the JFIRE or something, trying to look busy so no NCO's give you a line of sight tasking (bitchwork)

11:30 lunch starts, and no matter where you go there will be soldier's giving you weird looks, asking you why you have "their" patch on your shoulder, what rank x amount of stripes is, if you go the chow hall, another fat lazy Joe will make another Air Force comment under his breath as he serves you your spaghetti.

1:00 lunch is over, and people start to do something meaningful. All squadrons have a simulator room where the JTAC's can practice controlling air strikes, you can also take the trucks out and go **** **** up on the range, or just go out there and play football. There is computer based training that has to be done every so often, and training tasks to be evaluated on when they come up. You will also have some additional duties that will require some work from time to time, for instance I'm my flights vehicle manager and got tasked to inventory our equipment, so that was pretty much all I did for like 3 weeks.

4:30 duty day ends, go home. If you're still there at 4:31, you fucked up.


Two sayings that couldn't apply more would be you get what you put into it, and it is what you make it. You can sit around and suck at your job and bitch about everything, NCO's don't hold your hand. The people who do that get shitty deployments and don't get to go to army schools. Or you can take advantage of your freedom and learn your job, and tackle any tasking you get or what not. If there's JTACs in the sim and you aren't doing anything, don't be the guy texting on your phone in the office, get your body armor and go see if you can romad for them, no good JTAC would say no. Even romads are qualified to wield A LOT of power down range if their JTAC lets them. You can call for artillery fire, control rotary wing assets, all kinds of ****. Technically, the only thing a JTAC can do that a romad cant is say cleared hot to a fixed wing aircraft, but if you're a dipshit romad he won't let you do anything but carry all the heavy *** gear for him. The guys who get **** done are the ones who get all the cool guy badges. The JTACS who get **** done get to go to AFSOC/SF/Ranger.

J2Pharren1

iTrader: (1)

In garrison, TACP's work regular hours, 7:30 to 4:30, 3:30 on Fridays, with weekends and holidays off. Actually up here Ft. Lewis has DONSA's, so you get a 3 day weekend every month, or if there is a holiday you get a 4 day.

StoleIt

iTrader: (3)

Jperran,

You are in ACU's right? Not ABUs?

The Manalishi

iTrader: (3)

Hell at 0730 us Army guys are finishing PT. We start at 0630, now anyway, when I was young we started at 0600.

realmendrivev8s

iTrader: (23)

So you get to go to the shooting range pretty frequently?

J2Pharren1

iTrader: (1)

Most of us wear BDU's because we like our army patches, lol. In garrison we wear ABU/BDU's, and deployed we are supposed to wear ABU's too, but until they get a light weight ABU top most guys try not to roll out in ABU's.

Depends a lot on the unit, up here we don't shoot with the Army, but we send a couple guys to TRQC every week, I've heard other places shoot with their battalions a lot.

StoleIt

iTrader: (3)

Try cutting the inner lining out (with the useless inside pocket). I did that and its pretty much the same weight as a BDU top.

And I thought AF units embedded with Army units wear the ACUs. Is that only outside the wire?

J2Pharren1

iTrader: (1)

**** all that noise, lol. Most guys are actually pretty cool, the guys who have been around and know why their Air Force dudes on their base especially, but there's always, always, some fat soldier from the finance brigade who thinks he's found a target even lower on the food chain than him with some smart-*** remark.

J2Pharren1

iTrader: (1)

I wouldn't go that far, it's better, but still too thick, and you must have winter weights because summer's are like pajamas compared to ABU's.

That was always just a deployment thing, never in garrison, but it used to be that the ACU was your duty uniform, you're nametape just said U.S. Air Force, but now big blue wants everyone in ABU's. They released a list of afsc's that could continue to wear the ACU, and we weren't on it...imagine that.

StoleIt

iTrader: (3)

Actually just looked at both of mine again. The ABU material is definitly more dense. At least its not 7 layers thick any more though. I hope this is the only pair of ABU's I ever need to buy. If all goes as planned ill be in a bag 24/7 (except Mondays...) before the 2011 deadline hits.

The Manalishi

iTrader: (3)

The guys that know whats up aren't going to say anything and the ones that do say something are morons. The only sore spot we had with our Air Force guys was that they got TDY and substandard rations pay(pretty sure thats what it was called) for going to the field with us. They usually bought the first round when we got back though so that was quickly forgotten. What unit are you attached to? PM it if you like. I have a lot of friends on Lewis so you and your guys could shoot more often if you wanted to.

brad8266

iTrader: (23)

Sounds like the average day in the Army, well without all the AF comments, lol. We used to always crack jokes about the AF guys during PT when we would see them, its all in good fun.

JUICED96Z

iTrader: (2)

Maybe he wants to eat you?

jmurray87

iTrader: (1)

That really made me laugh for some odd reason.

99hugcam

iTrader: (9)

So would you say that you like it or no? It sounds like you live on an army base then and deployed quite often?

JUICED96Z

iTrader: (2)

The guy I know thats a TACP is Air Guard so he is on a Air Guard base, its a new unit and started with pretty much 0 people (base was a fighter wing and lost its jets) and once they are fully up to speed he said they will be gone quite a bit. He really likes it but he also loves working out and all. His typical duty day on drill weekends is pretty much what was described above.

I THINK there are a few TACP units on Air Force bases, I could be wrong on that though.

I talked to a TACP that was with one of the Armor uints down in Texas and he liked but but hated the heat haha.

J2Pharren1

iTrader: (1)

I like it yes, there is a lot of BS to put up with but you know, I can't imagine doing anything else right now. I'm pretty sure every ASOS is on an Army base, but some times theres an Air Force base right next to it that you will live on, for instance I live on McChord AFB and drive 5 miles to Ft. Lewis for work. Some places like Ft. Hood in Texas the Army base is it, so you live there too. Some places too have like an Air Force camp inside the Army base, theres different setups.

Right now a lot of JTACS are burning out because they do deploy so much, and on top of that, if they aren't deployed they are TDY all the time. Right now it's supposed to be 6 months deployed, 1 year off, but there are JTACs in my flight who have deployed the last 3 years, one of them is about to deploy for the 4th year in a row. The guys who did get the full year off, were TDY over 200 days. So a lot of guys can only put up with that for so long, but the re-enlistment bonus is $90,000 now, so thats helping.