Rock Island High School senior Ethan Carls has made the tough decision to go into the Air Force after his high school graduation. Carls has been working hard training to prepare himself for his future, while still balancing his school work, as well as his job.
Carls has been training for a couple of months, where he found most of his ideas through research on what he needs to prepare for. Carls goes to the gym after school whenever he doesn’t have work, and spends his nights completing his homework and studying. Carls clarifies, “Most of it is physical workouts, but I study military ranks and different air crafts, as well”. When Carls does his physical training, he usually brings a friend, or has his sister tag along with him. Carls explains, “Academic training I usually do alone, since it’s mostly just memorization with flashcards.” Air Force training isn’t easy, but Carls balances it very well. Carls says he chose this route because, “It will pay for a good chunk of college. There’s also a lot of career opportunities within the Air Force.”
The summer after Carls’ high school graduation will be busy. “I won’t have much time before I ship off to basic training, so I guess you could say I’m expecting to be in San Antonio all summer.” Carls has set goals for himself throughout his training. He says, “Long term, my goal for training is to set myself up for success during basic and my tech school, the better I can get through basic training and my tech school the faster I’ll rank up, and the more successful I will be,” showing that he wants to do well within his training, so he can begin his future sooner and have a successful start. Carls knows what he wants to do, but doesn’t know if he will be assigned to the job he wants right away, “I have yet to be assigned my job but more than likely I will be doing aircraft mechanics, I want to be a 2A3X7 also known as tactical aircraft maintenance which is planes like the F-22 Raptor and F-35 lighting II.”
This decision can be tough for anyone to make, but Carls says, “It was a hard decision in the sense that it’s something I’d be stuck with for 4 years, but ultimately, I knew pretty fast I wanted what the Air Force offered.” It is tough to decide the rest of your life, but when you put all the pieces together and look at the outcome you want, it makes the decision easier.
