Episode 27: Air Force vs. Army: My Experience and Comparison

Brandon Held shares his unique perspective on the differences between the Air Force and Army based on his personal experience serving in both branches. Drawing from his time as an Air Force security policeman at 17 and later joining the Army at 29, he offers candid insights into the contrasting cultures, benefits, and challenges each branch presents.

Please start with Episode 1. Go to my site BrandonHeld.com

• Air Force boot camp (6 weeks) focuses on mental discipline and meticulous attention to detail
• Army boot camp (10 weeks) emphasizes physical endurance with extensive running and field exercises
• Air Force offers better quality of life with superior housing, food, and base amenities
• Army has more base locations but typically less comfortable facilities
• Air Force features more technical careers that transfer well to civilian life
• Army provides 100% tuition assistance compared to Air Force's 75% coverage
• Entry into the Air Force is more competitive with higher ASVAB score requirements
• Air Force culture is more relaxed regarding military customs and courtesies
• Army environment tends to be more traditionally military with stricter hierarchical interactions
• Personal bonds and friendships may vary based on individual experiences rather than branch

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Hey, this is Brandon Held. Life is crazy. Thanks for joining. This is going to be episode 27 of my podcast and the first time I'm doing it on YouTube video. I'd like to welcome you in. Make sure you check out BrandonHeld.com. And if this is the first podcast or video of mine you're listening to, make sure you start with episode one. Episode one through 25 is is the story of my life that's how you know who i am what i've gone through how i've overcome some major life obstacles to still do pretty well in life and be successful still to this day and that's the best way to really know what you're getting when you sign up with me for life coaching Or you take my little life coaching course that I designed for, it takes less than 20 minutes to do. And it's only$25. So check it out and it can definitely help you get started on a clearer path in life. And it best works to fit your needs. It's a class where you can open it up and you can see different options and you can decide which option works best for you. So it's a great tool. It helps you get you started. And if it's not enough, of course, you can always sign up with me for life coaching. So having said that, this episode is going to be about the Air Force versus the Army. If you listen to my life story, I joined the Air Force at 17 years old. And then later in life, I joined the Army at 29 years old. As a matter of fact, I graduated Army boot camp on my 30th birthday. So I thought it would be helpful slash interesting for anyone who's looking at joining a military branch of service or anyone who has been in the branch of service and you maybe have only done one branch of service and you're curious about What are the differences? What are the major pros and cons? And a lot of military people talk to other branches and we just know to some degree what it's like to be in one branch versus the other. We like to give each other a hard time. It's competitive, just like anything else in life, right? If I go to this college and you go to that college, my college is better than your college, right? The military is no different. Everyone believes their branch of service is the best and that's just how it is. So I would have to pick in this case because I served in two. And so instead of doing that, I'm just going to start off with my experiences and And what I view as pros versus cons and what could toe the line of what is a pro or what is a con. So air force bootcamp shorter than army bootcamp. So if you're trying to not spend as much time in bootcamp, you just want to get into the service, get your job role and get to your duty station and get started. Air Force boot camp is six weeks. Army boot camp is 10 weeks. Doesn't mean the Air Force boot camp is easier. Just means it's shorter and define easier. How do you define easier? Air Force boot camp really requires mental strength, mental acuity. You have to be on point. They really, are meticulous with things like how you fold and iron your clothes and you keep them in a drawer in your locker. You know, how your clothes are hung in a locker, how your bed is made every morning. And that's very different than army bootcamp. I didn't have to worry about how my clothes were folded. I didn't have to worry about my bed being made like a a specific, exact, great way. Yes, I needed to make it every day, but the Air Force, we had people that were special at really making the beds tight and neat and just how they needed to be. Same thing with cleaning of latrines in your barracks. Air Force inspection was much more difficult than Army inspection. As a matter of fact, army inspection was pretty rare. Air force inspection was quite often. And again, this is my experience. I went through air force bootcamp at Lackland where everybody goes through air force bootcamp. It's the only place to have air force bootcamp. And I went through army bootcamp in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. And army has multiple bootcamp locations. So I'm strictly speaking. from the point of view of my experience. Now, what I can say is you learn a lot from bootcamp and there is a lot of pride from graduating bootcamp. And I don't just mean one or the other. The air force is mentally difficult, like I said, and when you get through that and you make it to the end and you graduate, you do have pride in your ability to get there. There were several people recycled, which is what the military calls it when you're failing and you're not doing well and you get sent backwards. So you say you're in week three or week four of bootcamp, which in real life sounds like nothing, right? Six weeks, what's a week. But when you are in bootcamp going back a week feels like going back a whole grade in school, like You would have to do a whole full week all over again. And that sounds like nothing on the outside, but when you're in it, it sounds horrible. It sounds miserable because it's tough. It's really hard. It's a way of life where you're always being told what to do. You're always being scrutinized. You're always being watched over. And there's just no freedom. in bootcamp. That's the hard part of air force bootcamp. The army bootcamp is very physically demanding and there is emotional stress in army bootcamp, but it's a different type of emotional stress. It's not the, how sharp is your mind? How can you do the little details type of emotional stress? It's the, we're going to wear you out. And you're going to have to go to classes and you're going to have to stay awake in classes. If you even get caught with your eyes drifting, there's hell to pay. It's pushups, standing in the push, staying in the pushup position for extended periods of time. Those are all the things that you have to do in army bootcamp. When you are struggling to sleep, struggling to stay awake and the The physical requirements, you run a lot in Army boot camp, a lot. You do a lot of pushups, a lot of sit-ups. You do really long ruck march where you put a 50-pound rucksack on your back and you go, this is towards the end of boot camp, but you go like 15 miles and you stay out what's called a bivouac for a couple nights and then you turn around and you have to march all the way back after sleeping on the ground, literal ground for a couple nights. We dug a six inch hole in the ground and set up perimeters around our base and we had to sleep in these six inch holes. So it definitely makes a man out of you for sure, if you're not already. And so it's physically demanding and that's tough and After 10 weeks of army bootcamp, you also feel a large sense of pride from how difficult physically demanding army bootcamp can be and in a different form mentally and emotionally demanding. So that's the bootcamp part of it. I'm just going to kind of list off here. What are some pros and cons of each branch? And then we can talk about that. So everyone knows, or generally everyone knows that's already in the military, but I'm talking to you that are considering joining the military. The air force has acquired a higher quality of life. What does that mean? That means they have better housing. They have better barracks. They have better food. The base amenities are typically nicer and you have more access to more base amenities in the Air Force. And so just the overall lifestyle and living conditions are just better in the Air Force. It's a smaller branch of service. So their funding is spent for quality of life and You feel that as an airman in the Air Force. You feel that you have a pretty great quality of life. And I did feel that when I was in the Air Force. And it was even more pronounced so later when I joined the Army. When I joined the Army, it's a little more rough. The bases are a little more rough. There's a little less available to a soldier for amenities and wellness. The basics are still there. The gyms are... fairly equal the air force gyms are nicer they're more up to date they're better upgraded typically every base is different so army and air force alike it really just depends on if they've gone through any remodeling or upgrades recently or are they still outdated from some years before but generally the air force had better amenities and better gyms Air Force has more technical careers, which is great if you don't plan on making the Air Force a career specifically, or maybe you want to make the Air Force a career and retire and then go get a second job or a new career while receiving your Air Force retirement. Some people stay in, retire, call it a work life. Some people retire, go do a second career. and have that double income coming in. And that's where the Air Force is great. They're high on cybersecurity, intelligence, engineering, aircraft maintenance, and those all transfer pretty well to civilian life versus the Army. They just have more combat type roles, infantry, special forces, and you get a lot of direct combat experience. But that doesn't necessarily mean that's a bad thing if the military is going to be your career, if that's or just what you want to experience in life. A lot of those jobs transfer to contractor jobs once you get out of the military, which can be very high paying. But they're very niche roles and you have to really want to do that stuff for a living. So if you want to experience combat and I have friends that did, I have friends that literally wanted to be on the front lines and they wanted to experience combat. And that's going to be more likely if you're in the army and even more likely if you're in the Marines, but I'm not talking about the Marines here. I'm not a former Marine. So all I know about the Marines is what speaking to some of my Marine buddies. have had to say about the Marines. I don't have any personal experience as a Marine. So just comparing Air Force to Army, those are some of the big differences there. And again, that would also equate to safer roles, right? Like the Air Force is going to have safer job roles that you are less likely to endure in combat. Even if you get deployed, unless you're Security police, for example, military police. I believe the Air Force is security forces now, but they were security police when I was in the Air Force because that's what I did. If you're security forces, you're a little bit more likely to see combat. And of course, if you're a pararescue or something like that, of course, you're a special force in the Air Force. So of course, you're going to see combat. But the Army specifically has roles just for combat. That's of course what you're going to do if there's a war that needs to be fought or even just a battle or something that the president sends you out to do to guard or protect against. It's just more high likely that the army, you will have combat, combat roles and you'll see combat. So educational assistance, let's get into that. Back when I joined the air force, they offered the GI bill and I almost didn't take it because I didn't think I would ever go to college. I graduated high school. This will be a repeat to some of you that listened to my life story. I graduated high school with a 1.5 GPA. Like I squeezed out of high school just to get the hell out of high school. I I had to take the ASVAB exam twice at 17 just to get a high enough score to be able to be a cop in the Air Force, which is like the lowest score needed. I don't know if it compares to say a cook or something, but I definitely know it's on the lower scales. And so I just didn't feel at that time I would ever need a assistance for college. My mom actually talked me into doing it. And the reason she had to talk me into it is because I had to give a hundred dollars a month for 12 months. And as an airman basic, that was a lot of money to me. It doesn't sound like a lot when, you know, you get your quarters and your meals and all that stuff paid for. And your money is really just your money to do whatever, buy a car, whatever. But it was a lot to me. I didn't want to give up a hundred bucks for 12 months. And that was me with the old GI Bill. I don't even know if that's a thing anymore. So I apologize for that. But my point is I did use that funding to help get my bachelor's degree when I got out of the Air Force, which you know that if you listened to previous episodes of my podcast. But they only pay... 75% of your school while you're in school. So say you're in the air force and you want to go to school and you want to take classes. The air force only pays 75% of the course versus when I was in the army and I was getting my master's degree in MBA specifically. The army paid for a hundred percent of the classes until I reached a certain dollar amount. So. It would be, we did get discounts also, by the way. You go to the local army wellness center and sign up for school and we would get a cheaper rate than the average civilian student would be to go to the same school. So that was already a bonus. We started with the cheaper rate. Then the army would pay a hundred percent of that rate until I reached, I believe around$4,000. in a calendar year. And then it had to come out of my pocket and I had to pay the difference. So that was the only negative, but by and large, school wise, I felt like the army was more beneficial for me. I also chose the right career in the army. I didn't choose a combat career. I joined the army with the intention of getting a master's degree. So I had that in mind when I chose my job as a food inspector. I knew that was a regular business hours type role. Typically, not always a hundred percent of the time, but typically it is in weekends off and for going to school. That's what I was looking for was a job role. that I could go to school while being in the army. So when I got out of the army, I had that master's degree for my next move in life and career. And that's what I did. So for me, the army was a better choice for advancing my education because I did get my bachelor's degree after the air force. And frankly, the GI bill at that time was pittance. It was a joke. It didn't even cover one year of school for a bachelor's degree, which obviously takes about four depending on how quickly or slowly you move throughout your degree program. So one of the other positives is the Air Force bases are generally nicer. They're generally located in pretty nice locations unless you get stuck in in the situation I did, which is missile bases. The Air Force has some pretty awful missile bases in the North and Midwest that are pretty cold. And I hate cold weather. I was stationed in Minot, North Dakota. I did not like Minot, North Dakota. And if you followed my story on my podcast, you know why that was one of the big reasons why I got out of the Air Force. But the Army has more bases to choose from. So the Army is all over and they do have more base opportunities and locations to choose from. However, they're not as nice as the Air Force typically. That's something you have to consider is what's the quality of lifestyle that you want? Are you willing to give up, say, location? if you don't get a great location where you'd like to be versus a better base or a not as nice base. So all things to consider. Another thing to consider is, especially now in this day and age, the entry into the Air Force is pretty competitive. So if you want, I would imagine even back in 1991 when I joined the Air Force, If I wanted to do anything else but be a cop, I may not have been able to get in. Maybe if I was a cook or something, but probably just about anything else, I wouldn't have even been able to get into the Air Force because my ASVAB scores were so low. And the entry into the Air Force is pretty competitive. They do. I worked at an Air Force base recently in one of my roles, and I was in a medical facility specifically. And a lot of enlisted personnel had college degrees. They weren't even officers, which just takes a college degree to become an officer. On paper, again, also competitive, very competitive to become an officer in the Air Force. All things to consider, much less competitive to get in the Army, right? Much less. You don't have to do as well on your ASBABs. There's a lot more job roles to choose from that don't require higher ASBAB scores. It's just easier to get in the army as long as you haven't done silly things like tattoo your face or even have some type of tattoo that's considered prejudicial or racist or any of those things. You can't get in the army with nothing. that stuff either. You can obviously go cover it up or have it removed. But if you have that, that's about one of the only things that will stop you from getting into the Army. And then finally, the Air Force had more strict appearance standards. So your uniform had to be in better condition. But again, that's when I was in. I don't really know that's a thing anymore. We used to have to press our uniforms and polish our boots as security police and we had to show up in formation with press uniforms and polished boots. But when I worked at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base Hospital, I didn't see that with their current ACU combat uniforms. They look like they basically pulled them out of a dryer and put them on. A lot of people did. Could have been a medical thing. Could be new Air Force standard. I don't know. but I didn't deal with that in the army. I didn't deal with seeing my uniforms and polishing my boots. That was something that was a little easier in the army. And so one of the last things I would say is it's the army is much larger than the air force with a budget that does not equal the amount of forces that they have. And so it's just, harder to get things done in the army there's a lot of bureaucracy and red tape and it's a slower process and if you want to be an officer or trying to get anything accomplished things move a little slower in the army than the air force those are my overall assessments i did form better friendships in the air force this again this is my personal experience lifelong friendships, friends that I'm still friends with today, 30-something years later, still my friends from my time in the Air Force. In the Army, I can't really say the same. I have one friend from the Army who's still a good friend of mine. And I just didn't click with people in the Army like I did with people in the Air Force. But again, that's a personal thing. That's a personality thing. The Air Force... allows you to think a little bit for yourself. They allow you to be a little bit more questionable and critical of issues or things that are going on. They don't quite as much just expect you to blindly follow as the army does. The army wants you to react to an order without thinking, which is tough because at the same time, if you do that and it's a wrong choice, you will get in trouble. So it's almost like they don't want you to think until they want you to think. So in that regard, it's a little confusing. The Air Force is much less quote unquote military. You don't have to stand at ease while talking to an officer or a higher ranking NCO. versus the army where you call sergeants, you call officers, sir or ma'am, respectively. And in the air force, they just talk to each other like they're coworkers in a civilian job in a lot of cases, right? When you're dealing with colonels and lieutenant colonel, even some lieutenant colonels, not so much, but at least colonels, commanders, they get more of the military respect, but it's really just more relaxed. As a matter of fact, when I was in the army, I had a captain friend. We were both college graduates, same age. We both played intramural sports together. We just got along really well. And my unit was just all bent out of shape because I hung out with an officer. They wanted to make a big deal out of it. They wanted to make a big stink of it. But it was just ridiculous. We didn't work in the same unit. We didn't cross over in any aspect of our professional career. But he was an officer and I was enlisted and they wanted to get me in trouble for fraternization. The Air Force, I didn't really see that as much unless that included making someone a romantic relationship. I did see a captain in the Air Force who had a romantic relationship with a an enlisted woman and that did hurt his career. So at the end of the day, it's up to you. What are you looking for in your military career and journey? So I think I've given you some pretty in-depth information and I hope this helps you decide what's the best choice for you. Is it the Air Force or is it the Army? Let me know what you think. And don't forget to go to BrandonHeld.com.