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But no, it's not far fetched that it affects some of their pilots.

Not everybody in the air force is a pilot.

Pilots have a minimum height requirement, the bottom end of that chart doesn't apply to them.

I'm pretty sure I've known some rather tough four foot eight men who could toss you across the room. But no, it's not far fetched that it affects some of their pilots.

A 5 year old could toss you across the room with some aikido or judo training.

I'm pretty sure I've known some rather tough four foot eight men who could toss you across the room. But no, it's not far fetched that it affects some of their pilots.

I don't need to explain why training terrorists might not be the best idea for our long term interest, right?

Yes! Why didn't the pentagon think of this? Training hackers is a terrible idea.

Oh no.. it's worse than that. It looks like they are also training people how to use guns, fly airplanes, and use armed ships

Considering that so many young Americans are obese that it's affected our military's ability to recruit

[Citation needed]

Seriously, where are you hearing this? Furthermore, the ability to recruit might have a lot to do with being sent to Iraq the second you're out of basic.

Citation here, at cnn.com.

Also, it is highly unlikely that a recruit from any branch will see combat directly out of basic training. New members need technical or advanced training. This is the link for Air Force training, since that is the branch in which I served.

... who's going to try stopping a jet traveling Mach 2?

I'm just guessing.

Can we see some definitive numbers on what the pay scale will be? For example there is http://www.airforce.com/careers/paychart/index.php

In a Herculean effort, I succeeded in applying to the Cyber Command just now. But I must say that their website doesn't speak well of their cyber expertise; they make it extremely difficult to figure out how to even apply. The "Join" link on the Cyber Command website just goes to the main Air Force recruiting site, where all I learned is that I'm too old and too fat to join the Air Force. Undaunted, I submitted a question about whether I'd qualify anyway, given that I want to work for the Cyber Command, and gave them a link to my resume.

(I have more than ten years of experience as a software engineer, including embedded, systems programming, and HMI/SCADA. I expect them to be particularly interested in my HMI/SCADA work, as that would be how I'd make things blow up over the Internet.)

Somewhere I found a link to USAJOBS website, where I spent several hours filling out an online resume. They want separate entries for each job one has held, rather than uploading a text resume. They also wanted the name and phone number of every manager I ever had.

But I spent quite a bit of time searching at USAJOBS, and couldn't find any positions that looked like they had anything to do with the Cyber Command.

Back at the Cyber Command website, I found their contact form - which was hard to spot - and which, Lo and Behold! allowed me to specify a recipient of "Employment Inquiries". So I put my resume in there, and pointed out they could find my resume on USAJOBS.

I emailed a buddy who is a civilian software engineer for the Navy, and he told me that most Cyber Command jobs are going to be civilian. So I guess it's OK that I'm old and fat, but I won't get to wear that cool blue Air Force uniform. I imagine I'll also just be flying a desk rather than an electronic warfare jet.

I think you can watch it here:

http://www.airforce.com/achangingworld/

All DOD domains end in .mil not .com.

What's this then?
http://www.airforce.com/

Looks real to me - is it fake?

I noticed some mentioned the low salary, which is absurd. here you can see the base pay, there are many allowances (such as food, housing, having a family, being stationed in a "war zone") which add up, not to mention the amazing pension from retiring after 20 years (after 20 years of service, you'd be about 40, allowing for the possibility of another job). Another benefit is respect. Yesterday, I was in line at a restaurant, and someone thanked me for my service, and paid for my lunch.

Also, AFROTC has great scholarships. They pay for tuition, give a $300 semesterly book allowance, and a monthly stipend (>$300). And recently, they started offering scholarships for electrical engineering students without competition. Also, there are great opportunities such as the ACE Program. Overview here (Warning PDF).

And as for the physical requirements, they aren't extreme. ~40 pushups in 1 minute ~40 situps in one minute, and 1.5 miles in ~12 minutes.

If you haven't realized, I am in ROTC, and this is my desired career field.

Then have I got an airline for you!

Ten years ago, in a previous life, I was an Air Force Recruiter. My area of responsibility was northwest Nevada and west into California as far as the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Because of the post-Cold War "peace dividend," recruiting had slowed down and I was given the additional "goal" (quota) of finding at least two qualified applicants for the Air Force Officer Training School (OTS) per fiscal year.

the basic educational qualifications for OTS were: a bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university, a minimum of a 2.5 GPA, and qualifying scores on the Air Force Officer Qualification Test, similar to the GRE exam. An applicant also had to provide a resume that showed "leadership potential," through work experience or holding leadership positions in student organizations.

I quickly learned that exceptionally well-qualified applicants with non-technical (i.e. business, history, etc.) had little chance of selection. For example, one applicant had spent three years enlisted in the Army, worked his way through university on the G.I. bill to earn a B.A. with honors in Financial Management, and was holding an executive position with one of the major casinos in town. He was rejected - twice. In contrast, another applicant, with a B.S.E.E from Chico State, no leadership experience (unless you counted his six months as assistant night manager of the Taco Bell in Susanville, California), and no engineering experience outside of college, was picked up on his first application without question. Another applicant, a dual math/physics major, also with no management or leadership experience, was also selected on his first try.

Both of these applicants successfully completed OTS; the E.E. major was assigned to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, to work on the AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile program, the dual math/physics major was sent to the Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, to work on "stuff".

Pretty good for a former Taco Bell assistant night manager and a guy who stocked shelves at the local co-op.

If you're a U.S. citizen (by birth or naturalized), have a degree in engineering, meet the physical and moral (i.e. don't tell and we won't ask and nothing worse than a juvenile misdemeanor in your record) requirements, then there's a very good chance you can get that "five years of experience" employers are looking for with the U.S. Air Force.

If you don't meet all the requirements, or have a moral objection to serving in the Armed Forces, but have an engineering degree, then you might consider applying for the Palace ACQUIRE program.

Elmer Krause was killed :(

Do your part:
United States Marine Corps
United States Army
United States Navy
United States Air Force

Thunderbirds

Hell..where do I sign up?

Navy

Air Force

Marines

Seriously, the year and a half I spent in Yokosuka was best time of my life. I can't wait to go back!

If you are young enough, consider joining the U.S. military (e.g. the Air Force or the Navy). They will teach you everything there is to know and then some, and when you get out they will rehire you as a consultant and you will be making the big bux.

Once upon a time, I could fix my own car. Hell, I spent four years in the Air Farce, fixing jets, my grandfather was a mechanic, as was my dad (Navy, not Air Force). As it stands, I can't fix my wife's Chevy Malibu; how does one fine-tune the timing on a distributor-less ignition system? You don't. You take it to the dealer, cough up a bundle, and have them fix it. We just coughed up a pile of $$$ to get the alternator replaced; I couldn't figure out how to troubleshoot the blasted thing.

I was able to do most of the work on my 1988 Honda CRX, and dad and I pretty much rebuilt my 1978 Mercury Grand Marquis (hmmm, 1978, 1988, now a 1998; interesting).

What I would love to see is a car which is simple enough that the average shade tree mechanic can fix everything. Unfortunately, I wonder if the car manufacturers make piles of money off "factory certification" for the mechanics, much like MS makes money of MCSE certification. It wouldn't be the first time a company has subsidized losses on an item with money made on repairs.

I was going to give my $0.02 worth, but it ended up being a dime.

In my present office, we have trained folks from all sorts of backgrounds (notably an English major and an astrophysicist) into quality admins; We have found it takes three things to become an admin:

1. the ability to learn
2. the willingness to learn
3. convincing an admin shop to give you the chance

The Army is a .com too, as is the National Guard.

I really like one of the police departments in my area.

• Army
• Navy
• Marines
• Air Force

Laid off by a dot-com? There's a place for you in the military. All the services are recruiting actively right now. And they need smart people.