Transitioning to Active Duty
This week was mainly used to get cadets ready for actually being in the Air Force. There were a lot of briefings that related to different benefits, moving, and a lot of cadets got their orders so they knew where they are headed upon completion of OTS. This is where a lot of people took the time to figure out how they were moving their things from one place to another, where they were to report to, who their sponsor will be, all of that fun stuff.
Briefing 2
We also did our second briefing this week, based on our advocacy papers. As this was the second briefing, we all knew what to work on based on the first briefing, and everyone got through these with no problems. If anyone did fail, there would have been a makeup briefing. As you can start to see, most of the OTS program is you get to try it, you get a graded chance at it, if you don’t complete it you may get to try one last time. Learn from the first time, get it right the second, and you’ll do well.
Dorm Inspection
We also had our first dorm inspection this week. The dorm inspections aren’t a graduation requirement, but they can keep you from phasing up or down (I’ll discuss phases at the end). You have a dorm guide, do your best to adhere to the dorm guide at all times and you’ll be fine.
Remarks
Transitioning from civilian life to active duty can be extremely stressful and complicated. Before you lave for OTS, start thinking about how you are going to get there and to your next base. After OTS things move very quickly so you probably won’t have time to drive all the way back home to Seattle before you report to Florida, for example. Please ask the Facebook forum or shoot me an email if you have questions about how this could look for you. This is process will be highly tailored to your individual situation, so working one-on-one with specifics is more ideal.
– airforceotsguy
Grace
Hi,
Thanks for the creation of this site for it really eases my nerves to get an idea of OTS schedule and their expectations.
I have many questions but this one is rather urgent. Do you know how to request leave time for about a week right after the graduation? The reason I asked because I plan to have family coming to the graduation, and it would be very nice to reunite with family for a week before heading toward tech school.
I understand different career fields will have different length of time in between OTS graduation and tech school. But in your case and others if you know, how many days did you have prior reporting to tech school?
Thanks!
airforceotsguy
The only thing that will really prevent you from taking leave is the Report No Later Than Date (RNLTD). Typically they give you a RNLTD by taking your graduation date and adding the travel days to your next location… For me I only had 3 days until I was supposed to report in to my next base. The is a process for a “RNLTD extension” but it has to be approved by the OTS commander, gaining commander, and AFPC. AFPC has been wishy-washy on if they approve the extensions so to get there current climate you will have to ask current cadets.
My case was a little different because as a 13S I reported directly to first base and they figured out tech school dates later. What career field were you selected for? Do you know if you PCS to your tech school base or first operational base? This may play into how much flexibility you have.