Resources for other people

I was going to write a whole pornographic piece of jerk off material where John Sheppard met Nathan Petrelli, because hey, Nathan was (possibly) in the military and I am nothing if not interested in getting him laid. However, even the most fervent fanatic can be deterred by that lovely thing called research, because if you're gonna do it, chances are you want to do it right. Except doing it right involved running smack into the wall called the United States Air Force and how I had zero idea how the whole juggernaut worked.

Leaders of industry easy peasy; entertainment, like the back of my hand; the military? Um, no.

So, like any nerd trying to get a clue, I started off at everybody's favorite site: Wikipedia where I found this awesome (damn you, rageprufrock) article entitled Air Education and Training Command for the USAF, which is pretty much a guide to the USAF education system -- and by education I mean everything from basic training to Air University, which is their higher education system, but probably not like you're thinking.

And silly me thought that was enough, but then serialkarma, who may be the best beta ever in terms of thoroughness said, "Oh, hey, read these too!" which then introduced me to agentotter's Guide to Writing about Rank and Marines So You Sound like You Have a Clue* and smittywing's This is How You Roll in the Military, And No it's Not Like College, so Please Stop Thinking it Is*, which were both fascinating to read.

It was about this time that I realized a) Holy shit, this is like a whole other universe and b) yeah the story was going to have to be kicked to the curb, or completely revamped, but I was not dismayed, because I then spent the rest of my afternoon reading Surviving Basic Air Force Training which is a 4-part series about, you know, surviving Air Force training.

And I would have to say that more than any other piece of material, this brought to me the reality of the Air Force. 'Dorms' not 'barracks', 'TI's not 'XO's, 'airmen' not 'cadets', 'yes, sir' not 'sir, yes sir' because sir sandwiches are frowned upon. So while being informative as hell, it also cracked me the fuck up, because I bet in your job you don't get shit like this:

//T.I.s are also notoriously hard-of-hearing. No matter how loud you say "Yes Sir!," or "No Ma'am!" your T.I. will probably politely ask you to speak up. Because of their hearing problem, the T.I. will probably assume that you are similarly inflicted and will make a special effort to speak loudly -- right next to your ear. Moving, or showing any evidence of discomfort is considered to be impolite and will be commented upon (loudly).

Before long, it will dawn on you that somewhere between the welcome center and your dormitory, someone stole your first name. You'll probably never hear your first name throughout your entire time in Basic.//

I digress. I put this post together not really for me, but for anybody else who might be considering tackling the Air Force, or the Marines or anybody in uniform (lyra_sena). Think of it like a wee resource guide for anybody who might want it, and if you have other links feel free to put them in the comments. I probably won't get much use out of this, but hopefully somebody else will.


*Titles were paraphrased by me