Ep 180: Air Force Special Warfare Recruiter TSgt Richard Walkowiak

foreign before we get into this next podcast with Tex Arden Waka be sure to check out drinkwish.com hoys has got IV level hydration phenomenal flavors I mean it's so good that my kids I can't keep it in stock because they drink all my stuff their favorites orange I'm kind of a fan of the uh the strawberry lemonade that's my jam but the Orange is also good uh lots of flavors drinks ready to drink and then they also have packets that you can carry around with it so you can just stuff your rucksack with them so promo code for that is one's ready get you a discount drinkhoist.com check them out and now on to the podcast what's up everybody back at it again in the ones ready team room we got the subject matter expert you guys are always asking us recruited questions and what do we tell you I'm not a recruiter well guess what we got a recruiter in your face started Waka what's up thanks for coming on the podcast we're going to talk all things recruiting depth program all the questions that you guys have all right cool so I'm Sergeant uh waka I am a special Warfare recruiter just a little back background about me I came in 2010 straight out of high school I actually wanted to be a PJ at first but I wouldn't have made it back then I was 18 years old and plus my eyesight so that'll look like Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys if you guys know who that is a little Google search uh heck of a reference no I look exactly like the guy um so I I went in as a vehicle operator and my first Duty station Aviano Air Base Italy and then deployed out of there went to the after that PCS to the sear Schoolhouse to you know these Seer Transportation work with the sear guys for five years deployed with uh uh Socom and then that's how I actually got picked up for the special Warfare recruiting back in 2019 so that that brings me here to Green Bay Wisconsin fantastic so you're a cheese head up there sorry about your luck this year with Aaron Rodgers and uh I guess it is what it is so you had some touch points in Socom and in Special Operations before and you kind of just alluded to it that that's how you found yourself going into aspect or what was that what was that transition like for you like when first of all when did you decide to do the recruiting gig at all because you have to be a normal recruiter before you're supposed to be an ath spec War recruiter so when did you decide that you wanted to do that special duty of being a recruiter yeah I mean I got the email of death from afpc right after my deployment that said hey congrats you've been selected the recruiter I actually wasn't expecting it at all um and you know I I had to talk to a few people uh before I'm like let's let's do this um you know yeah you're right you have to go regular enlisted a sessions recruiter first before you go straight into special Warfare but they were doing a little experiment when we first you know the Inception of the 330th stood up to where back then they brought in four tier one is what they'd call us recruiters as kind of an experiment that has some kind of background or touch with the special Warfare community and um they didn't even know I one of the questions on the application was um have you had a a Socom deployment or something something strange and I said yes and then they found out I worked with the sear Schoolhouse and you know it was a done deal with Chief Vega he hired me and um it worked out that's kind of how that's kind of how it all got started man that's awesome and then and then you just we welcomed you into Open Arms in the aspect we're in the 330th and and now here you are yeah absolutely um this has been such an amazing Community to work for uh not gonna lie I mean driving circles in a bus for hours on end is is uh it gets old sometimes so it's nice to change the pace there's only so much you can hear seats taken as as uh as the people are going through sv80 the Sierra Schoolhouse you know it just gets uh you just need a change of pace and this is a little bit different for sure and that that brings up a great point we talk about it all the time is you know the the abstract War career Fields right uh and we're gonna tell you already hit it but you know we're going to talk Sierra and EOD in this episode too but you know PJ tacp combat control um Sr you know those four career fields are the ones that we focus on but all afscs really benefit from being inside of that Socom bubble and inside of that St bubble you can get a lot of knowledge you know we we shy away from saying things like just on this podcast because everybody supports submission you're not just Intel you're not just a vehicle driver in our organization we don't say that to Bean anybody what we say is those afscs support the mission you actually support the war fighting function so you may be just a vehicle guy but you're driving people to go do the nation's hardest work like that's an important thing and you get a lot of job satisfaction out of that it's a way for maybe maybe aspect War isn't right for you but I'll tell you what if you can get in the Air Force and you can Vector yourself towards one of those St functions you'll find that your job satisfaction goes through the roof yeah I mean they say profession of arms we need our finance guys we need our mechanics we need those guys um and I mean iron sharpens iron another person sharpens another and that's exactly what being into the community you guys have opened yourselves with open arms to us with the 330th the regular guys trying to to support the hardest mission in afrs and it's been nothing but obviously ups and downs but I mean at least we're projecting up for the most part um I've done things in my life that I've never thought I was capable of and that's just because of the community with with the way you guys think so we definitely appreciate it yeah you and me both brother all right so we're going to transition into into some real talk some of these real questions that we're going to get after here we have a ton of DMS that come in and they they ask us all the questions that we've talked about beforehand and you know last time when we were texting back and forth and then this morning so I'm just going to start peppering you with questions my guy you know why because I'm not very smart and people ask me these questions and that's why I brought you on because we are not that smart so we're going to start off number one from right out the gate we have a recruit they're going to try to get a hold of you right so how long should it take for that kind of initial back and forth um well if they're not using pigeonmail they're wrong um no I'm just kidding that's what it seems like sometimes when you try to get a hold of a recruiter uh but we're out there I would say I mean we're supposed to answer within 72 hours so it you know if a recruiter is not answering immediately you know maybe maybe they're on leave maybe they're busy there's a lot of variables that come into place with that but but you should be being communicated back with 72 hours I would say right and we're uh we're big fans of people doing their own work and being grown-up problem solvers so when a candidate does contact you how can you tell the difference between a candidate that's serious about doing this and somebody that's just sort of testing the water yeah I mean I love talking to people or testing the water but you know it's a lot to do with their confidence and their and their honestly their job knowledge some some of these guys it seems like you know and gals know more than you do as a recruiter I mean it's it's an ever-changing of information so I would just yeah I would just go with that yeah right so they're gonna hit up aspect war.com that's the the Clearing House for everything that they need you can find a recruiter on there you can find your ift packet on there you can find a million different pieces of information so they're gonna they're gonna do their due diligence and they're gonna hit you up and then you guys had that initial talk you're gonna get back to them within 72 hours and then from there they're gonna start really making steps towards what it is that they have to do uh to get in so how does that actually work for entry into the delayed entry program so um we're doing something a little bit different so just just expound unless your prior service prior service will only work with special Warfare recruiters if you are you know a civilian that's never served in the military this is this is new information I think um unless there's a special situation because we have these large zones of special Warfare recruiters where we're possibly covering uh up to two states you know for instance I cover three-fourths of Wisconsin and upper Michigan so it's hard to meet a candidate that's three hours away when it's it makes more logistical sense to have them meet with the local enlisted a sessions recruiter so no matter what if you're a civilian you will work with two recruiters unless like I said case-by-case basis um and that starts with airforce.com obviously you gotta almost dig to find us where it's a special Warfare you know find a recruiter and then it will have like a little tab at the bottom special Warfare my advice is get in contact with that special Warfare recruiter immediately have them send you a Prius sessions uh liability form so basically get a sports physical done have it signed by uh some kind of medical doctor and then get yourself to an a development ift session as soon as you can just because we don't know how far off you are and we want to get you working out as soon as possible with the team get you embedded with everybody get to know everybody because other otherwise naturally what happens is you guys drag your feet um you don't even know if you're going to be qualified for the Air Force but this is this is my advice because you will be working with an elicit a sessions recruiter who will do all that paperwork process and if you're not working out and you're not obsessed with all physical you know you're ift your physical requirements then it you know if you're not if you're way off the margin you know it is possible you could be you're just not ready and you could be shipped out unless it is session so it's important immediately to get in contact with a special work or recruiter even if you're not through MEPS outstanding right so get a hold of that recruiter get yourself to a development session because what's that that's going to give you data points right you're going to be able to put eyes on somebody and say Hey you were close you're not close here's where you need to work and then we are big fans of training specifically and then making sure that every single second of your time is efficient and it gets you towards your goal unless you get to those development sessions unless somebody can a subject matter expert can put eyes on you and actually get you to what you need to be and get you that information you're going to have no idea and you know there's a very real possibility that you could be wasting your time getting ready to go do this thing so man fantastic I do want to take a little tangent just because we you know we kind of already hit on it so they're in the development program and the question that we get all the time is I want to wait until I'm ready and I don't know when that that period is so we've gone back and forth with some Recruiters on um a lot of different things you know one of them being hey I want to wait until I'm absolutely smashing the ift and grad standards all right technical difficulty fixed I would just like to put this out there since I'm always the one that screws it up it was not me this time so keep keep my name out of your mouth in the comment section I didn't do it so walk right back to it man so you know we were talking about people in the debt program and we sort of got off on a little bit of tangent I want to do it chronologically throughout this episode of you know the the entire Journey as far as recruiting goes but we get this question a lot and it's when am I ready to ship there's there's sort of you know we've we've looked at this a whole bunch of times we talked about it in our ift oft CFT episode we talk about it in the day-to-day episode so go check those out we'll throw the the episodes up in a card so you can go check it it's going to be up here I hope it's that way on YouTube I don't know if it is um the bottom line here is that there's there's a couple schools of thought and each recruiter is different and each candidate is different Our advice to the candidates is when you can smash that ift when you can do and we talked about what numbers we thought were appropriate but when you can go into a situation cold if somebody would walk into your office and just be like go take an ift right now if you can pass that with good numbers at any given time we're like you're ready some candidates they almost wait and we we joke that they're the king of the development program right like they're the strongest candidate in the development program and they're still not making the call to go because they feel like they're not ready there are a lot of people out there that are like listen the ift bare minimums if you're making the bare minimums that's a pass that means that you're ready to go in right and those are kind of like the two extremes what is what is your opinion on that and when do you think candidates are quote ready to ship yeah that's a fantastic question Aaron um you know it's it's said if a candidate has strong pull-ups and a run time that they have higher chances of success um a lot and a lot of Canada and you think like okay you know maybe I need a faster spend time or whatever the case I think some some candidates get too caught up in the Weeds about ift you know that's just the easiest part of the Journey of course um and I would say specifically for me spending two to three months in the in development you know no longer than that like that's my goal to ship you out we we measure candidates I don't know if this is well known off of a risk Matrix essentially so a low risk candidate a moderate risk candidate and a high risk candidate and it's and it's all like calculated off of run times and things like that how many ifts slash development sessions they've been to because because we have candidates um that are there doing the bare minimums and they're like just get me out of here and it's like okay but are you gonna really be successful so um perfect example is like for one you have to be obsessed and and I don't know if it comes down to genetics sometimes you know I don't think it takes longer than three months to be able to crush the ift if you if you are following a good plan you have a developer that's giving you literally a b and c this is what you need to do this is what you need to eat T3i you know they give you nutrition advice things like that we have a scout team we have uh ones ready which I I refer you know ever like every candidate to you guys they already know who you are if not you know they will and there's a plethora of information to where it's like at you know why why wait sometimes it prolongs the process so so you're gonna have this guy on the podcast here uh you know today or or so but he if he watches this he's gonna hate me for saying this because we use him for an example all the time so we had to we had a dude get selected for Sr and ANS he just graduated combat dive school when he first took his ift he did four or five pull-ups struggled with the upper body strength and I don't even think he passed the run and super super low numbers for the most part he ended up shipping doing bare minimum eight Pull-Ups so he maybe he's an anomaly or an outlier as far as making it but that gives Canada that should give you guys confidence that don't get so stuck in the leads of man I gotta I gotta get a 9 30 mile and a half to ship like we trust in our Cadre to mold you guys into what we want you to be when you get down after basic training you get to Slick like they're gonna to mold you and I think the biggest obstacle that gets you guys that you don't even think about is homesickness yeah yeah and that band what what a great point to bring up um we've said it a million times it Bears repeating and we'll say it again you know um but the course is meant to build you up basic training is meant to build you up from from a ground level Airmen and then we're going to send you to swick and swick I was just talking to the ncoic the SEL of SWIC last night we're gonna get him on the podcast and get you know just like we did with uh you know senior lepaca mounts he came on the podcast before they're doing some new things it's swick we've got an update coming but he had a higher he is having a higher success rate out of swick lowest sies and best PT standards because SWIC is starting to really find its Rhythm for how we produce candidates and we're starting to see that in ANS so all of the structures are there to help you succeed so when we talk about when am I ready to ship remember you are not expected to go perform there's a reason why the PT test isn't on day one there's a reason why you don't graduate on day one you don't just go down to Joint Base San Antonio and immediately go into the final exercise of ANS it's months long of further development so you have to keep that into your Calculus when you're thinking about where you know when can I go and when am I ready to ship I really want to hit this homesickness part because man you you crush it that's something that we haven't really talked about when you're down at Joint Base San Antonio you're gonna be away from friends family loved ones your support system and you're going to have to find that support system how do you prepare your candidates when they're getting ready to ship off do you start talking about that early or are is there anything that you you tell your candidates before they ship to prepare them for that yeah so I mean I I don't harp on it too much until they're about you know they're booked a job and it's getting more real for them because they you know they're not going to think about it until it's like okay I'm booked a job this is really happening holy crap um even if you don't think you're going to experience homesickness it hits everybody man like like you know being on deployments it's like man I'm so hyped up to get on this deployment and then you know three months into it's like I'm ready to I miss my family I miss my wife my kids whatever the case I miss my girlfriend I miss my dog um yeah the best way to deal with it is just to know that's a temporary feeling and I try to to talk about that and and it goes away I mean a lot of us have experience with I mean we've all been to basic training and we've all been to you know a lot of us have been deployed to understand that that feeling is temporary and I think that's the most vulnerable part of a candidate when you're comparing yourself to these other people who look like they have it together and it's like you look to the left and right of you like oh my God they they're crushing it right now I don't even see them breaking but but you don't even know what's going through their mind yep 100 and guess what guys and gals those people miss their families too and they're barely holding on and they're probably looking at you like how does this guy have it together how did like I'm I'm struggling and this guy seems to be fine meanwhile you're thinking the same thing so if you kind of open up and lean into the team like that's the way to get over that like it's not a replacement for that support system that you have at home it's a whole new support system that you're going to be able to develop so you just don't think of it like you're gone and you're homesick and oh woe is me I'm all alone no you just doubled your support system because now everybody to your left and your right is now your support system and you're going through those Hard Times Marcus Luttrell said famously in a speech where he was talking about the Lone Survivor incident that bonds forged and adversity are stronger than any other Bond and you get that at SWIC and you get that through your pipeline experience you'll never have better friends than you make in the pipeline I want to hit on something you just said you talked about you know when you book your job can you explain the process from basically off the streets let's say somebody you know we'll kind of explore a couple different topics here we're going to talk about you've got somebody that comes in it's a it's a young man a young Aaron love at 21 years old straight off the street never served before and he knows he wants to be a PJ in today's environment what does that look like because we get questions about you know when I came in it used to be guaranteed contract right I'd go into a recruiter I would talk to him he'd be like here's your contract for PJ go for it can you tell us what that process looks like now in swoby right okay yeah um it's it's complicated you know lots changed since I think Sergeant spring went on with you guys long time ago um oh yeah so it's a lot of people candidates that want to do special Warfare a lot of them do have a history of surgeries you know because they're they're Sports they have a background of sports and a lot of times you know whether that's uh knee surgery or or whatever the case um I mean that's not like a full-on hey you're not getting in now it's just more of a like like let's pump the brakes a little bit which is important why we get you guys in here sooner so you know we're doing a whole new medical screening thing it's called Genesis but it's it's basically where we're looking into your record and it's so new right now to the dod that it's just taking a lot longer to get you guys through especially if you have a medical record um in time it will be faster so don't worry uh you know hopefully and hopefully a perfect world obviously that the timeline goes a little faster so I guess it depends if you're a little broken have a history of of that medical stuff uh how long it's going to take um I would say I mean it shouldn't take again sometimes it takes two to three months to get you in depending on depending on the surgery or uh medical situation but let's say you're not let's say you're not broken at all yeah we can probably get you in within a month get you through uh maps and then get you in development and ship you out you know we ship about five times a year don't quote me on that for special Warfare okay um and if you're crushing the ift the developer stamps your green light approval saying yeah I approve you're good to go you meet all the qualifications we'll ship you out for the next uh ship date awesome and when they're in that bucket right so the way that the special Warfare operator enlistment Vector works is you're going to sign up for that swo V process and you're going to go into a bucket essentially where it's like hey um you can you can tell your recruiter 100 I want to be a PJ okay cool the contract actually is going to be slow V and you're going to declare what you actually want to do when you're down at SWIC so about halfway through swick the special Warfare candidate course is when you're actually going to say okay this is it that actually opens the door as well for if you know you want to do one of these career Fields but you just don't know which one you can you don't have to make your mind up before you go to basic training how many people have you seen that have come in that have changed which career field they want to do in the development man so many people change their mind because because you guys are you know the civilians like you have an idea of of what you want to do in the history or back in the past sorry everybody and their mother wanted to go be a PJ because the past test back then was the hardest um it was the hardest you could you could do versus combat control and back then stouti attack p so you know obviously it's like oh I want to do the hardest thing in people's minds they thought that and then it was too late you couldn't switch your contract and now honestly this makes it a lot better because we're educating you guys now when you ship out we're going to be having Cadre educate you in BMT uh through swick and then as far as I I know I believe it's the six week Iraq and stack you put you know if you want to Vector into attack p you go attack p um if you want to go PJ CCT or Sr then yeah you rack like number one two and three it's like trying out for the Green Bay Packers there's the way up the way I explain it there's there's 20 slots available and there's 30 guys trying out for the Green Bay Packers if you don't make the team there's still you know the Chicago Bears are needing you to be on their team so like it's you're still in the NFL you're still playing in the big leagues like I I haven't met any candidate that I've shipped out that made it through ANS that didn't get what they wanted and I know it's a very small percentage that end up like they wanted to be a PJ and I got selected for controller yeah I've maybe heard that uh from a rapper that he knew a guy who knew a guy that happened to him but I I don't know the statistics on that it just doesn't happen it's statistically like I won't say it doesn't happen but statistically it's not even worth like the amount of questions that we get on it just dumbfounds me man go perform like we the the store I've never had first-hand experience and I'm pretty connected to the SWIC Pipeline and to ANS I am not aware of a no kidding this guy was awesome we just didn't have a spot for him I haven't heard that story yet and and we talked to him pretty frequently so if you want to be a PJ you can declare from day one I want to be a PJ don't get your head wrapped around oh they gave me this general contract that's they're not guaranteeing it no that's that's exactly the opposite we're giving you the space to go prove it right so go prove it you want to be a PJ call your shot go prove it perform and I promise you you are gonna get that shot I say it all the time refuse to be denied don't be denied go be great and you can do whatever job it is that you want let's talk a little bit about the development program I love the debt program um and the dev program I think it's awesome T3i does a great job we're actually in we're getting a T3i developer on I've attended development session before I've nothing but good things to say about that what's your experience with the development program well uh absolutely inspiring to to get a work with you know one of you guys Hands-On uh I I obviously I'm biased but I think I have the best developer in the nation oh I don't know if I can say his name shout out yeah Juan Moran Matthews that get it man he he snapped his ankle in half uh running on a trail freaking slipped on some ice and his ankle like his bone was just sticking right out and then literally he's walking around in a boot still developing like rolling around in his in his chair and um like eight months later the dude's running again and he he just ran like a fantastic ran like a 15 minute 5K like what the hell yeah and he's he's not a spring chicken either but um it's such an amazing program to have the development so I've had guys from like the warrior program come to the Air Force development the warrior programs like the Navy you know going in uh as a seal or whatever um as far as I know I don't I'm pretty confident to say the Army doesn't have a development program they just work out with their recruiters uh like the 18x right so we really have something special to where we will train you we will get you ready we will get you immersed the developer will um uncomfortable to to be comfortable you know just just learn to be uncomfortable essentially and prepare you as much as possible so we've had guys from the warrior program say like wow you know we don't do nearly as much as you do we're a lot more stricter on the form things like that I'm not going to speak for every Warrior program out there but um yeah I've had nothing but good things from feedback with us yeah and the thing that I was most impressed with I you know peaches and I actually got to go to a development session um and I was most impressed with not only the anybody can make you do push-ups man there's a million companies out there that you can go and you can play with logs and they'll put you in the ocean and then they'll yell at you and whatever okay anybody can do that you could do that on your own what I was impressed with is that as I'm sure Mr Moran does is the the mentorship aspect and the teaching you how to be a better operator and preparing you for those things that we're looking for it we talk about the attributes at ANS all the time the developers and T3i Focus specifically on developing those attributes to make you a better candidate and I think that's what sets us apart from a lot of different you know other programs is that number one we're scouting for the right person we're putting that right person into the right job with subject matter expertise we're guiding you through the process Cradle to grave and most importantly we're having subject matter experts guys and gals that have no kidding been there and done that teaching you how to be a better candidate I think that is really important to highlight that program is fantastic yeah absolutely um yeah he just harps on you know I Mind Body Spirit you know you can't just do in the physical stuff you got to be working on your spirit you got to be working on uh your mind too reading books uh we in Wisconsin I mean Zachary Reiner shipped out of Wisconsin so so not everybody operator comes out of Texas and in Florida but you know just just like being able to yeah Texas Florida Ohio maybe that's it let's oh yeah just having that experience and just being able to relate from having a developer from that certain area that you know you're growing up in also is huge yeah absolutely let's talk about some hard go no-go's we always stay away from the medical stuff because I am not a medical provider people ask us really first of all to everybody that DMS us we love y'all and it's it's nice that you trust us when you when you send me a huge paragraph full of like your entire medical history and then ask me a question there's a thing called HIPAA you're violating your own HIPAA dog like I do not need to know about all of your medical things and we never weigh in on them because they're always it's so it fluctuates so hard we talked that you kind of alluded to it earlier we talked about eyesight can you can you talk about some things like what are your top three or four things that are just like hey sorry if you have this if it's in your medical record this is a pretty hard no-go yeah uh like you said it's hard to say being a doctor but for sure um unfortunately I know people who experience some sort of trauma earlier in life and you know go into a doctor that diagnosed you with like major depression or you know suicidal Tendencies or thoughts anything like with a hit if it's marked a history of emotional instability like sometimes I know those people make the best like person of perseverance and overcoming obstacles but the the problem is it's it's as of now it's a hard no go unless um you know like your parents go through a divorce and you're a kid and and you went to a psychologist or a counselor and they're like yeah you're depressed um when you're like you know younger or whatever and and you're right this doctor up that whatever state you're in approves it the CMO is what we call it and they're like yeah that's not really a major depression or if you're you know and it doesn't go to the Surgeon General up in Texas you should be good to go but that's it's a complicated thing to get into with with that stuff it's usually a hard no-go as of now I don't really foresee that changing um eyesight's not really too much of an issue only if you're like you're correctable is is like 20 your correctables anything not 20 20. that's a that's a hard no go right okay and here so and basically what that means yeah what that means everybody is so your vision can be terrible however if there's some way to correct your vision like with contacts or glasses or whatever if it's correctable to 2020 then you're fine so your vision can be 2120 whatever as long as you can have a way to be have it corrected and that's in your medical records then you're good the problem is is if your vision isn't correctable to that right so now we're talking about before you get in you may have to go get LASIK or PRK if that's something that you want to do beforehand and then that's going to delay your process a little bit more so that's what he's talking about there yeah just to give you the right so yeah sorry Aaron uh I'll just give them the exact numbers real quick because that is a that is a question that I know circulates through Reddit and forums people try to find the right answer and and it's almost like we tell you you're good to ship and and candidate still don't believe us sometimes like no I think I I need I feel death perception at MEPS uh I'm I can't be qualified it's like no no you're good to go man but but uh we changed the standards all the time and things like that if you can I mean just think about it if you're really that worried about it you can see an eye doctor and it'll more than likely tell you you're you have death perception if you like if you played Sports and you can catch a baseball like you more than likely have depth perception a lot of times they're rushed through maps and you know they use an older system and whatnot but uh 21 000 is the new standard for uncorrected you can ship out for special Warfare contract and 2020 correct 21 000. that is that is blind at 21 000. um the debt perception thing is yeah nice the debt perception thing too uh here's a fun fact about uh the man Aaron love I've never passed the depth perception test one time in the Air Force I had to go to a doctor and I had to go when I was cross-training back in so first of all I went to indot just fine and then I got out and I was going back through and I was a flyer so I was on flight status and when I was getting ready to cross train back in they were like hey you you failed the debt perception test I'm like yeah no I say all this one specific test because I can't tell you what circle is standing out of the five circles okay I have no clue I can't tell you that I was a catcher my entire life I was a goalie in soccer when I played like club soccer I can tell that I have pretty good debt perception so I had to go through this long process but I've still to this day I cannot pass that five Circle depth perception test but I I can tell you for sure I have debt perception so um that that brings up a good question though uh oftentimes in the military we say that everything is waiverable the waiver process is sometimes frustrating is is everything waiverable ah sure I guess but not not for not for special Warfare you know what I mean like like yeah if you have major depression and you can't you can't go special Warfare but you can go regular Air Force um and then maybe try to re-across train in four years they open the door for you to cross train and do that that's everything's waiverable I guess you know like an example would be I guess if you were a party vendor you know did some did some calc or something and got arrested for it it's gonna be a long shot man but right but uh right if you make those bad decisions it's gonna be a lot I mean it's up to the commander to approve that waiver depending on your character you better have a good resume you know what I mean to like make him comfortable that yeah I'm gonna let you come into the Air Force and you better not make me look bad but essentially you know sure okay absolutely um it I want to I want to talk about something here too there's there's a difference when you go to maps and in your process there's a difference of what's in your record and what you tell the doctors we always tell people never lie but we've gotten a couple DMS where people are like oh yeah you know I started having this conversation with a doctor and I sort of told them like oh yeah maybe maybe I did have asthma as a kid and I ended up getting disqualified for it that's a you problem so how do you coach people through going you know because MEPS is rush they are trying to process people they have a job to do how do you coach people before they go to maps in order for them to communicate their actual issues appropriately well it's almost like now a Genesis this is our new medical system you can't really hide too much stuff because because it's gonna that's right it should populate to where we can see it so that's the thing where what we do is we will typically ask you the 100 whatever Plus medical questions we'll submit a Genesis packet and then it'll come back with like the doctor will be like yeah you're good to process which means nothing came up or um they they caught that you had childhood asthma back when you were six years old or something like that and they're like yeah we have the documents for that we don't need anything or hey we need X Y and Z and then you just got to collect those documents and we submit them so uh have a hard discussion with your recruiter if you're concerned about anything but if you like got diagnosed from YouTube watching so many videos that it's that you think you have anxiety that's actually normal like right you get nervous with public speaking oh my God I have major anxiety or I can't go out in public um you're self-diagnosing yourself man there's no need to to say that to a recruiter you know it's not on a on a doctor's record that's the issue we have is when you guys self-diagnose yourself or if your mom's like telling you you have add your whole life and it was never written diagnosed by a doctor it's like well you don't have Med you're medically cleared you don't have ADD that's just something you've been told so awesome awesome input man thanks I appreciate that so as we're kind of walking down this thing so they found a recruiter they didn't uh they didn't ping you too much and they didn't have expectations for how fast you're supposed to get back to them they knew what job they wanted to do and they they engage in the process they hit their development sessions like they're supposed to not doing the bare minimum and really doing the work that T3i Works them through we got to MEPS we got cleared there your candidate is now ready to go to basic how do you prepare them for that initial move to basic training we ship you know I think five times a year is right I think there's five ship dates I'll I'll say that out loud you don't have to hit me up I'm sure I'll hear about it in the comments if I'm wrong anyway um what what does that preparation look like when you're getting ready no kidding we're more a month out we're a couple weeks out yeah so a lot of these guys and gals get um honor grad and things like that so now it's like all right let's take the focus let's take a step back from Special Warfare for a second uh we'll obviously still like working out and whatnot but let's focus on basic training because that's that's literally what's coming up so we gotta your five meter exactly um so we're talking about the basics like aim high is an app you guys can download uh US Air Force aim high it's an app that we came out with to get you guys prepared to know enlisted rank structures officer ranks uh the airman's Creed your reporting statement which seems to change like weekly now but uh right um getting familiar with that and just preparing yourself so you're not stressing out on the plane like oh I don't even know what my reporting statement is you know just taking a step back and calming down for a second so you can breathe because the last thing you guys want is to be in basic training and now you're in a new environment where somebody's screaming at you in your face and you're too stressed out to think straight so we want to prepare you and start looking at the basic training stuff from like the aim high app yeah that's perfect I'm so glad that you came out with an app and we get not frustrated but we answer the same question where people are like you know they're so hyper focused on ANS and they're so hyper focused on the pipeline and this is something we always tell people like hey you got to go to basic training you got to learn how to be in the Air Force first if you're like oh BMT is going to be as is a cinch BMT is just going to be a you know a a way for me to get out of shape which also isn't true yeah we always tell people like hey you need to refocus here a little bit like you're expected to do really well at basic training um you know it's a a joke from you know sports but if you're thinking about the championship you still got to play in the semi-finals first you got to win that semi-final game before you go to the championship and basic training is really that first opportunity for you to really put out and really show that you're a good candidate and people that skip over that basic training you know that basic training time time because they're like oh I don't care I just want to get to Swift you can you can derail your pipeline and basic training you can derail your pipeline at step one if you don't download that Air Force app and say the app again we'll make sure to get it out in the in the comments yes to you it's the Air Force Aim High app or you can also download I think it's called the dep app that the latency program app but the Aim High apps the most up-to-date one um and can I can I piggyback on something that you said about basic training and and that's another rumor I think that goes around that you're going to lose Fitness and basic training um so you know I'm a perfect example of that I'm a regular guy I'm not a special Warfare Airman by any means but I shipped out and my first PT test in basic training was like a 12 36 and I graduated running like a 9 35 or 4 or something so you know if you're worried about like oh I'm gonna lose everything I got uh basic training is soft I mean don't like you don't need to worry about that and that's what swix in place for anyway to get you guys back what you did lose amen amen so this was you know specifically for you my friend because I I think that this is a I think this is a good thing and I want to hear what your what Your optic is when when those young Airmen when those men and women that you've spent you know sometimes up to a year coaching guiding mentoring walking them through that process when they raise that right hand and they sign that that those papers how does that make you feel um no I love it it's this is the best job I've ever had I'll say it again um but the most proud moments I have is when the candidates reach out and you know they thank you for all the help and guidance and and like like so many people I talk to a lot of recruiters are like it's not our jobs to convince these these guys and gals to do special Warfare um you're right but there's there's a mistake with that mindset is they don't know they're not educated fully on what it is and I've I've talked to countless candidates that that were successful that are combat controllers right now um as a perfect example that didn't know anything about combat control and I talked to them about it and I changed what their plan originally was and and you know they thanked me for telling them about it it's my job to educate and at least you know get get you guys in there and then when you come back home for rap it's recruiters assistance program you guys worked for me for 12 days um that's absolutely a proud moment that keeps me keeps me going in this job man that is that is so awesome to hear and and I actually had rap written down in the notes that I made for this because I wanted to talk about it a lot of people don't understand but rap is essentially free leave that you get to take after your pipeline you get to go home and you work for the recruiter really what you're doing is you just get to talk about your afsc and it's open to everybody not just abstract War so you get to go back to your home station you get to see your family you get to show up in a uniform looking just real good no big deal but if you got that Beret on whether it's uh you know it doesn't matter what color Beret but you blouse them boots up what you're going to get a beer or two bought for you but it's a great program you get to work for 12 days four-year recruiter and you get to do it as an Airman and you get to come back essentially and take a Victory lap and say hey this afsc no matter what it is is awesome here's my experience and then you get to talk to people that were in your shoes or you know you were in their shoes you know maybe a year two years ago and you get to tell them exactly what's going on and you get to be that's your first chance to be a mentor in the military and that's one of the coolest things that you'll ever do in your military service is when you get to talk about the goodness of your afsc and I hope you all hear it from Waka and from myself you hear me say it a whole lot more but you know being a PJ is is one of the best things that's ever happened to me in my life and even you can be anything that you want a special Mission Aviator a vehicle's guy a Intel person whatever that if you connect with it and you love your afsc engage go tell people spread the good word about that or you know just like Waka started off this this whole thing he had a chance to touch that aspect War Enterprise in the Seer community and he liked it so much he wanted to spread the good word about some of these other afscs that people don't know a whole lot about so use that rap program there's tons of programs like that out there and your recruiter is the first one that can kind of help you figure out what that is I do want to touch on Seer and EOD quickly because these are always moving goal posts and it seems like for all the information that's out there people ask us about Sierra we're like I don't know I have no idea what's going on with Seer and EOD so can you kind of break down so there's the four afses and aspect Wars so combat control attack p special reconnaissance and pararescue and then the officer components as well but when we're talking Seer and EOD how does that process work so I mean this is what's awesome about working with special Warfare uh recruiters is is you pretty much if you qualify for it you can pick and choose what you want to do uh you can't do that with any other recruiter you know you can make a dream sheet like my number one might be special missions Aviation my number two firefighter there's no guarantee you're gonna get that you know there's only so many allocated slots if you're working with us and you do your work you pass the ift like you're gonna you're gonna get one of the the six career Fields sorry we'll say three special Warfare uh operator enlistment contract but um yeah that's that's what the benefit is with working with us but uh just to harp and talk a little bit about EOD and Seer so there has been some changes just so you guys know uh it always fluctuates every year so we don't know what next year looks like but as of right now for fiscal year 2023 which starts October 1st already started um the the uh sign on bonuses are twenty thousand dollars for Syrian OD so that is that was yo like American dollars twenty thousand dollars yeah I mean that's obviously do it get it not mad at it at all let's go get you uh a wife on Craigslist go get your Mustang and your tattoo right your Air Force tattoo get that get that 28 charger obviously but um exactly so um another couple things that changed is you have to so before last year you know literally not too long ago so last year I mean FY 22 you had to meet minimum standards to be accepted into development uh you know doing like one pull-up and a 12 minute mile and a half run now you have to pass completely so you got to do three pull-ups a 11 minute mile and a half run to get accepted for EOD and to ship for for Seer it's um seer 11 pool it's a 11 minute run eight pull-ups 48 sit-ups so you have to pass first here too um to be able to get accepted into the development program so that means if you're working with an elicited sessions recruiter until you're fully working with a accepted into this program and getting ready to ship allocated contract you need to pass your ift completely outside of special Warfare um you still don't have to pass the swim initially okay awesome uh yeah and then some other things that have changed so for EOD you used to have to it's called the Tapas it's a personality test that we take on maps it's like uh you know would you rather I'm gonna give you an extreme example if there's a fire in your house would you rather save your dog or your cat I I don't know uh that sure crazy some crazy things that people a lot smarter than me made um you had to score above a 30 equal to a 30 or above on the personality test for EOD that is no longer a thing now it's called the I think it's the productive predictive success model uh PSM which uh entails the Tapas and your ASVAB scores and you have to score above a 54 on that and I can't tell you how to pass but this eliminates the whole like the career field managers basically came up with a system to where if you score above a 54 that determines higher success in our career Fields rather than let's take this personality test this Tapas and let's say you didn't make that minimum 30. well no problem we'll just have you retake the test until you pass it and that was kind of defeating the purpose of the personality test so they kind of revamped that um and then seer uh same thing I mean you need to take a tapas personality test above a 55. it's not the PSN okay good so uh minimum ASVAB scores for those are still 50 is is Sierra and EOD different than the minimum ASVAB of 50. sear is a g general 55 EOD it's a mechanical 47 and uh General 50 and that's not like that's a 50th percentile just so you guys it's not like scoring a 50 or whatever just to understand that right got it and there's tons we've talked about it before we put reels out on and it's on our page right now there's tons of ways to study for the ASVAB so you can take a practice ASVAB and if you're not up to the to the level your recruiter will help you get there like everything else so there you go all right man I'm gonna ask you the question we always ask everybody you have seen hundreds maybe thousands of candidates that get in you've seen what makes people successful you've seen the pitfalls that people experience you you know how to guide them there like you know how to grant them access to this awesome thing that we have which is the Air Force and even even more awesome being an aspect where what advice do you give to your candidates to be successful in the pipeline well for one uh your teammates from what I've what I've seen you gotta have you can't do this by yourself like if we're doing a development session and we're doing um I don't know what I can call them my developer calls them Indian runs I don't know if I can say that but right but uh yeah you get a lot last candidate up runs yeah there you go so we're in a line and you know you're trying to the back person Sprints up to the top and we're doing that for like three miles so you know if you're the guy in the front that's freaking taken off and just trying to be there for yourself just trying to you know it's good to push people but you got to be there for your teammates too you know you can't uh piss off people but the one thing that I I have told my candidates is everybody I've shipped out that has not made it every single one of them unless unless you had a is a disgruntled candidate who wants to not look in the mirror and own up to like yeah it was on me or you know obviously the small percentage chance that it was a a fluke that happened with maybe a medical uh flight physical or something up at basic but um is they regret when they quit and it's and it's just a it's just a moment of weakness and they're like man I quit I can't do this and the usually within an hour or the next day they all regret it and they tell me how much they regret it and and me being a normal Air Force afsc guy like I can't tell you enough like what an opportunity you guys have to do this like like even if you don't make it like what an opportunity I've I've heard candidates say the life experience that you guys gain off of doing you know uh six months of special Warfare just making it through swick or whatever and you still don't make it or you you tap out like you still have years of life experience you've gained just by doing that little bit um amount of time just like Aaron said like going through hard times makes you closer to the the guys and gals next to you man fantastic you crush it as always regret is hell a momentary pause in your in your mental you know your mental fortitude uh momentary laughs in that that thing can can really ruin the rest of your life so it seems like a great place to end hey Sergeant Waka is there is there an Instagram account or how can people get a hold of you if they want to talk to you do you have a a normal page that you send them to yeah I mean my Instagram I'm actually on my way out I've been doing this almost four years now so I'm moving but my my successor Sergeant markquart he you know I'm still here for a little bit if you guys want to reach out I'll be able to communicate that way it's uh Air Force special Warfare Wisconsin on Instagram and yeah airforce.com you can find my my cell phone that way yep and if you guys have any questions as always hit us up in the comments hit us up on onesready.com we have a reading list we have everything that you could possibly need from training uh you know programs with our partners the gear that you need anything that you need we are the Clearinghouse and we can get you in touch with whoever Sergeant walk up thanks for coming on man I really appreciate your time thanks for giving us the knowledge that we need to help us get out there and really get after this thing that we're trying to get after which is Air Force Special Warfare I appreciate everything that you do and man thanks again for coming yeah thank you Aaron I appreciate it absolutely all right everybody train hard we'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Ones Ready

Views: 4,083

Keywords: air force special warfare training, air force special warfare commercial, air force special warfare assessment and selection, air force special warfare prep, air force special warfare selection, air force special warfare basic training, air force special warfare preparatory course, air force special warfare pipeline, air force special warfare development, air force special warfare special reconnaissance team, air force special warfare pararescue, AFSPECWAR, usaf special warfare, USAF

Id: 6Q921gCbMEk

Length: 54min 4sec (3244 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 28 2022