MindForce: Mental Fitness & Life Stories!
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MindForce: Mental Fitness & Life Stories!
Guardians of the Silent Watch: Emma Stonehill on Life as a Missileer and the Pursuit of Mental Balance
When Emma Stonehill, affectionately known as a 'missileer', pivoted from her dreams of flight to the world of nuclear missile operations, her career took a sharp turn towards a realm she had never envisioned for herself. Our conversation with Emma not only peels back the curtain on the life of a 13N nuclear missiles operator but also tracks her journey of acceptance and personal growth within a role that was once stigmatized amongst her peers at the Air Force Academy.
Imagine being thrust into an underground bunker for 24-hour shifts, the weight of national security resting on your shoulders. Emma walks us through this reality, painting a vivid picture of the day-to-day responsibilities and the bonds formed in the seclusion of these alert facilities. The pandemic reshaped their world, bringing new challenges and an altered work-life balance to the forefront. For anyone considering a career in the Air Force, Emma's insights offer a unique perspective on the unexpected benefits of this role, from educational advancements to pathways for those with shorter service commitments.
We wrap up this profound discussion by tackling the broader implications of military service on personal well-being, the importance of maintaining mental fitness, and the strength found in diversity within the ranks. Emma's emphasis on mental health support and the value of connections outside of military life resonate deeply, providing a holistic view of the missile career field. If you've ever wondered about the complexities of life in the Air Force or the integral role of missileers, this episode will leave you with a newfound appreciation for the dedication and resilience of those who serve.
Hello everyone and welcome to Mind Matters, where, if it's on your mind, it matters the podcast for love, life and learning. I'm your host, nate Shear, and we have a wonderful guest today, emma Stonehill. Hi, emma, hey, nate. So we're gonna kick off and give the baseline for this AFSC brief. What is your AFSC?
Speaker 2:So I'm a 13N nuclear missiles operator, but I think most people in the Air Force know us as missileeers.
Speaker 1:Missileers.
Speaker 2:Missileers. It's a made-up word.
Speaker 1:Got that sweet. I know it's funny. I was writing my notes right and so I'm putting it into Microsoft Word red underlined.
Speaker 2:This is not a word yeah, it's not.
Speaker 1:I was like no, no, it is a word. I kept like rewriting it. It was awesome, like okay, add to dictionary, alright. So official title nuclear and missile operations officer. But most people just a missileer and I think most of us recognize that sweet missiles badge for the people that are out there.
Speaker 2:The pocket racket.
Speaker 1:The pocket rocket that's what we call it.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's got a name, big and proud.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So first question how did you find or become interested? You got a little bit of a backstory on how you ended up in missiles. Can you give us a rundown of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure I. So I think these days the stigma is kind of changing. So I hope that by the time this podcast reaches audience ears it's folks who hear the term missiles and they don't automatically think, oh, that's a terrible career field in the Air Force, because it's obviously not. They've all got pros and cons and ups and downs. But when I was a cadet at the Air Force Academy there was very much a prevalent stigma amongst the cadets, because you know cadets are in the real Air Force and totally know what they're talking about when they give each other advice about future career moves.
Speaker 2:But pretty much everything I heard as a cadet from freshman year on was whatever happens, just make sure you don't get missiles, everything else will turn out okay. But if you get missiles you might as well give up. Your life is over and you know so that I kind of built that up in my mind and originally when I came into the Academy I was dead set on flying. But you know we've kind of talked about this before I was pretty active on a airmanship team there and I got kind of burned out from the cultural aspects of being in a flying-esque community. So I decided senior year nope, don't actually want to fly, decided to not go rated. I was able to put in six preferences for AFSCs and then Drop Knight came along and I got missiles and it was not on my dream sheet.
Speaker 2:It caught me totally by surprise and, to be honest with you, I was completely devastated when it happened. It's actually pretty like, pretty funny looking back on it, because I was sitting in my cadet dorm room with my roommate, genevieve Clemens, and we weren't even supposed to find out about our AFSCs. Last that night, the cadet wing commander, who was another you know, 19 year old, 20 year old, he had access to all of our AFSCs early and he decided let me do a homie hookup, I'm gonna send this out to just my two best friends and I'm gonna tell them hey, don't share with anyone else. Rest of the cadet wing. They're supposed to find out next week. It's a whole ceremony with your squadron where you get your AFSC drop and so you can imagine like how long you think it took between this guy giving his two friends access to that database.
Speaker 2:We all had the link within an hour my entire class of like 800 something people. So I'm sitting in my dorm room, genevieve's over there, we've got the link, we've got the website pulled up and we're looking at each other and we're like should we do it or should we wait? And she's like I don't know what are you thinking? I'm like let's do it, let's look, her computer was a little bit faster. She refreshes, boom 14 in Intel ops for number one choice. She starts hooting and hollering. I'm like, oh my god, oh my god.
Speaker 2:I think I put public affairs number one, if I remember correctly, and I refresh my page and then, boom 13 November, nuclear missile operations. I was stunned, silent, and you can imagine if you're in an institution for four years and all you've heard is whatever happens, don't get missiles. I had an absolute meltdown. I think I cried for like 24 hours straight, went downtown to visit my then girlfriend, who is now my wife, and I remember, you know, at like three in the morning balling in her bedroom, just saying some really intense stuff about like you know, we should just break up.
Speaker 2:I'm not dragging you to my not Air Force Base. This isn't the life you want to live, just you know, nuts. But so I ended up getting picked up for a one-year special duty assignment after I graduated, which was the diversity recruiting admissions advisor. For any ROTC folks that might be listening, it's the equivalent of the gold bar program, but your station this spring's for a year and you go out and you do TDYs in a certain location to try to recruit folks to come to the Academy.
Speaker 2:And I think that year was so crucial for me because it took me about that long to wrap my mind around this new vector that my life was taking me and have a different attitude about that. I don't want to say a better attitude, because I do believe that when things happen to you in your life that you weren't expecting, you weren't prepared for, it wasn't necessarily what you wanted. Maybe, contrary to stoicism that we've talked about too, I do think. I think it's okay to sit with those feelings and allow yourself to maybe feel that devastation, feel that sadness, and some people bounce back quicker than others.
Speaker 2:I think it took me that whole year to mature my perspective about what was about to happen and by the time I actually went off to tech school, which is six months at Vandenberg now space for space, which is incredible, by the way I was. I was excited, I was ready to go. I had come to terms with the fact that I was gonna be a missile here. I still thought, hey, you know, I don't think Air Force is gonna be long-term for me anymore. I'm probably gonna five and dive after I do my missiles time, but things are gonna be okay. That's how I became a missile here dang.
Speaker 1:So when you drove over to your wife's house, what were the words that she said? You're dropping these heavy thoughts. Did she have words of encouragement or like I guess you said, it took like a year, so there really was nothing that night that really got you back on track yeah, she did and gosh, she is just that.
Speaker 2:She's the most supportive person ever and she's always very, very good with words of affirmation, which is something I struggle with. But I remember her holding me and just kind of over and over again being like it is going to be okay, we are gonna get through this together. We're not breaking up. We will cross the Minot Bridge if we come to it, which, by the way, I don't want to perpetuate any Minot stereotypes every missile here I've ever met who's been stationed at Minot Air Force Base has only spoken highly of it. But yeah, I just remember her being like we can face anything together and this might be a bigger thing that we have to face, and that's okay, we'll figure it out.
Speaker 2:The other big thing was I had three incredible friends who are still some of my best friends today Chloe, charlene and Sarah and they came to my aid almost instantly. My roommate, genevieve, had texted them and was basically like hey, y'all need to come over to that, to our dorm. We need assistance. And I think I blacked out on the way from the dorms to EP's house like I don't. I don't remember how we got there.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 1:I think, one thing that's commonly misconception or misconceived with stoicism just to touch on that point real quick is you feel things. You just try not to overly worry about the things that are outside your control, right, and so some people like, oh, that means you're emotionless, like I've heard that a lot and like you don't not feel things, it just you're not gonna spend extra energy, you know, on the things that you can't control. So it kind of plays into like you're gonna get through it, this too shall pass, like things will will change. You're gonna end up wherever, at different bases, and so I'm glad you you pressed on, so you touched on a little bit of, like the Air Force Academy and things like that. But I want to open up, for you to tell us a little bit about your origin story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I, I was a military brat. Question mark. I say that because it's an easy way to describe the lifestyle that I lived of moving every three years. But in reality my dad actually got out of active duty when he was maybe a mid to senior level captain and that was either when I was a baby, I think it was. I think it was maybe two or three years old.
Speaker 2:My dad actually got out of active duty. He got completely out of active duty for at least five years and was a salesman. So we moved a ton for that and then he ended up getting back into the Air Force Reserves. He actually retired as Lieutenant Colonel last year but he did the whole like contracting government service thing. So I still grew up living the military brat lifestyle. But at the same time I never really thought of myself as a military brat because I rarely, if ever, saw my dad in the uniform, except for maybe a random Saturday every other month or whatever it was. But we moved around every three years. I've lived in maybe a dozen different places. I went to high school in Germany. I did go to the DoD school there. So the military has always been very much around my life. But as a high schooler you know there's all those high school stereotypes.
Speaker 2:I was basically the weird hippie ukulele girl where I like, inexplicably, always had a musical instrument in the hallways and was basically using the high school as busking grounds. Super annoying, probably, but that's who I was. You know, I was kind of friends with everybody and the military was never on my radar. I applied to a bunch of random colleges, mostly on my parents behest, and I got into a few, none of which I felt any type of particular excitement or tie to, and I ended up accepting admission to the University of Virginia, mostly because it was the best school that I got into. But I'd never lived in Virginia, we had no family there, I knew nothing about the institution. And so I'm right, after high school graduation it's the summer before I'm heading off to my freshman year of college and one of my close friends, alicia Verones.
Speaker 2:She played soccer with me, she was in basic training at the Air Force Academy and she was sending me some letters back and forth, and I remember she sent me one letter in particular.
Speaker 2:Basically, she was like dude, this place is made for you, you would love it here, and she described the obstacle course, the assault course.
Speaker 2:She's in the middle of basic training, so she hasn't seen the entire institution, but she's she's describing a lot of those more exciting aspects of any type of basic trainer field training that you're gonna go through. And then what really struck me is she described how when all the cadets get together, mitchell Hall, for one lot, one mass Lunch, they frequently will play a slideshow of recent Warriors who are falling in action, basically, and she described how humbling it was and also how powerful it was to see that. And then look around at the people she was serving next to. Even as a cadet I will say serving, I think as a cadet I would have laughed at that term because as a cadet you don't think of what you're doing is serving or doing something important. But looking back as a now senior captain, that's a huge decision as a seventeen year old or eighteen year old, whether you're enlisting or going to ROTC or going to the academy, that is such a huge and mature decision to Take that path instead of Doing anything else. Really.
Speaker 2:And that just really struck me because I wasn't excited about going to a regular college and feel any sort of tie. And then hearing how she felt like she was part of something bigger than herself, that really resonated with me. So I started the Air Force Academy application as I was headed into my freshman year of civilian school at the University of Virginia and spent that entire first semester, on top of all my classes and everything else, going through that application. So kind of a weird path to the academy. Again, I was the hippie ukulele girl, so you can imagine how surprised my parents and friends were when I was like, yeah, I'm gonna go to you, soften, be a fire pilot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's wild. It kind of reminds me of myself definitely not ukulele, but I had the oddest place in high school. I took AP classes but I didn't like to hang out with the preppy people and I skateboarded, but you know, I didn't jump into.
Speaker 2:I could see you as a skater.
Speaker 1:That's what I was gonna guess drugs, but then I, you know I swam but I wasn't like a jock and so I had like this weird thing where, like I knew everybody but I wasn't super deep and with anyone. So that's something that's kind of weird. Like when I go back home I don't really have any connections because I was kind of like surface level with everybody. As a something I've learned, try to take the quality of people versus the quantity, because I knew a lot of different people and it's funny you mentioned, like not wanting to join my bonus dad was in and I used to watch him put on his BDU's and, like you know, do the pants and the blousing and the boots, and I was like I'm never doing that and I tried.
Speaker 1:You know, I went off to University, north Dakota, and I flew for a while and then we ran out of money and so then I had different odd jobs and I came in, you know, guaranteed air traffic control, after just like nothing was going anywhere and needed, like you know, purpose and A sense of belonging and things like that. Like the odd jobs were not cut it. But it is funny that you try to push a rebel against the thing that you believe is not the right thing. And you know now, 14 years later, it's definitely, you know, taking me places and completely taking care of me. So it comes full circle. The universe is kind of a hilarious thing.
Speaker 1:Like I used to Hope fun and my bonus that a little bit because he was in contracting after he was in avionics, because everyone is a kid, you're like, oh, my dad's in the air force, like oh, cool to see fly jets and I kind of get resentful or whatever. It was. Like no, you just push his paper, he just flies a desk. You know these derogatory terms. And then I came up on my retraining and got moved out of air traffic and I got moved into contracting. So I called him and he's just laughing hysterically. I'd poke fun at him as a kid and it all comes back around. But To get back on track, the ifs see this question probably a little difficult, but I really gotta try to get this across the listener. So how would you describe a typical day or week in your job and what are some of the main responsibilities you have?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. Obviously with any job it's gonna kind of change as you progress through your career. But when you start off as a missile here it's structured very similar To flying or any ops career field. You jump in as a lieutenant and your number one responsibility is to get Become an expert at your weapon system. So primarily you're pulling alerts. That's a term we use.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna go pull alert on Friday. Maybe they'll say I'm tripping out on Friday. I'm tripping out to the field. When you pull an alert, that is 24 hours underground in a nuclear missile bunker. They're somewhere between 50 and 60 feet down there in really remote missile alert facilities that for my base, are scattered all around eastern Colorado, western Nebraska, a couple in Wyoming, and that is the shortest summary of it. But when you dive deeper into it there's a little more that's involved. When you're gonna go pull an alert, you go to the mission support base first, which for me is F. You are an Air Force base. You're gonna do mission planning, you're gonna get Intel briefs, top secret issue, and then you're gonna hop in an F 150 GOV with another lieutenant and honestly, when, when?
Speaker 2:My job, when you're tripping out an alert with someone that you like. My job is basically a weird road trip followed by a weird adult sleepover in the most, in the most wholesome and innocent way possible. Obviously, if you pull alert with someone you aren't super fond of, which for me, was few and far between. I loved most of the people I ever pulled alert with, except for three. Yeah, those, those can be longer days, but yeah, you're just hoppin in F 150 with another lieutenant cruising 150 miles down I 80 in Nebraska and then you're, you know, accomplishing a series of events to get downstairs into this bunker and then you're on the clock for roughly 24 hours until the next crew Changes you over. Because since I should know this actual date, but basically since the night late 1950s, we have had at least two people Manning every single missiles bunker with no break. You have to have two people down there and then you can't leave until two people come and relieve you and change you over and accept custody Of those nuclear weapons and then you can go upstairs. So for the longest time that was it you. You went out there for a day and then you came back for a day, and yet a full day off, and then you went out for one alert and then you had a full day off and it kind of just rotated like that.
Speaker 2:Covid, switch things up for the better, in my opinion. So now you actually trip out to those missile alert facilities which basically just look like weird ranch houses out in the middle of nowhere, and you stay out there for a week. But you're with two other people, so you're not in the bunker for a week. You're downstairs for 24 hours and then you get 24 hours off and you come upstairs and there's a whole living area, there's a TV, there's playstations, there's a full kitchen where an awesome FSS airman is whipping up some delicious food. You've got dorm rooms up there. You've got a whole kind of prison-esque gym set up. There's, you know, maybe a dozen or so enlisted security forces airman who are always awesome to hang out with. It's very family style will play board games together when we're upstairs.
Speaker 2:You can do literally whatever you want to kill that time. And then you go back downstairs for 24 hours. So you're out in the field for a week, but you're really only pulling three or four of those alerts and then you get two weeks of not pulling alert Within those two weeks. When you're a young lieutenant, like I said, your primary job is pulling those alerts. You might have a couple of our simulator rides, which we call the missile procedure trainer. It's an MPT ride. It's essentially a fake capsule that you do your training exercises in. You might have a couple of those. One of those, they're about two hours each.
Speaker 2:Maybe you have a roll call maybe have a medical appointment or something, but other than that you are pretty much untouchable for that two weeks time. So what I say to people all the time, if they're even considering five and diving I guess for Rossi it's four and diving hey, what's OTS is that four year commitment to?
Speaker 1:I think so. I think it depends on like the base you take and whatever, however, the activity service commitment comes out.
Speaker 2:Okay, sure, but yeah, for people who are, who are, who are even moderately saying to themselves I don't think the Air Force is for me. I want to do my service commitment. I want to maximize the opportunities I can get as far as free education goes. I want to use my TA, get my online master's degree and then come out ready to rock a civilian career.
Speaker 2:Missiles is the hidden gem of the Air Force. You have more consecutive free time off than I think any career field I've ever heard of an officer having you. Also, when you pull or you're not focused in on those computer screens you're looking at For 24 hours, you're trading off with your other person down there taking naps, you're hanging out, there's a monitor that's routed up to a computer upstairs and you can work on an online master's degree. So you can literally get your degree done On the clock, wasting none of your personal time, and then you still have all that time off at home. It, yeah, it's a. It's a fantastic opportunity for someone who wants to just do their time, set themselves up for success and move on to a civilian career.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. It's good to hear some of those positives. So an extension of that question, the backside is what are some of the challenges you face?
Speaker 2:Sure, I think I think a lot of that is. You know, even hearing myself telling you what I just told you, it did feel a little trite because when you look at our schedule on paper it looks amazing. In reality there are a ton of physiological stressors and personal life stressors that go along with that sort of schedule. It's hard to compare to other career fields because on one hand I've never deployed and I probably I might never deploy Unless I hit major and I'm doing some sort of you know exact position overseas or something like that. But our alert time in the field, that is our deployments. And I don't want to say that they're deployments because obviously that involves challenges that I have never known.
Speaker 2:But it's just interesting like I have a lot of prior enlisted friends who did other things where they deployed on a more normal deployment routine and have since become misleaders and officers. I remember talking to one of them. He was a flight medic and I was like, oh Tom, like it must be frustrating for you to hear all these lieutenants talking about how difficult it is to be gone every other week from their homes when you've had to be gone for six, eight months, maybe a year at a time and he actually said this is actually harder on my wife and my kids because and I know it's not always like this but for him, at least in his experience, when he did deploy for a long amount of time, he was able to set up support structures whether that was a grandma coming to live with the stay at home parent for a certain amount of time. There are benefits given to deployed spouses to try to support them, but for us it's like you never get into a routine.
Speaker 2:You're in the field, and then you're immediately jarred back into your regular life and then you're in the field again. And it's tough on the spouses too, because they learn to exist without you for a week and then all of a sudden you show up again and you're getting in their chili and everything.
Speaker 2:So I think that was always the biggest challenge for me as a young crew dog was just feeling like I could never get a handle on my life, I could never figure out a routine. And then when you bring in those physiological things of hey, when you're sitting in a hole underground for 24 hours, you are kind of whacked out afterward mentally and physically. You haven't seen sunshine for 24 hours, you've been sedentary. There's all sorts of off-gassing from that old equipment that's down there. That is probably not great for you to just be sitting down there for 24 hours at a time and the air down there is like 75% recycled, so it's kind of like I mean, you're stationed at Kadina, so you know what a transatlantic flight feels like and you know that. Just like that icky feeling when you get off the plane and you're like oh, my whole body feels exactly.
Speaker 1:Brush your teeth.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and your whole body just feels like what did you just put me through? That's what it feels like every time you come up from the capsule At least it did for me. Does that get better? I don't think it's something you get used to. I think you get more accustomed to having to a briefly shift into a night schedule. Maybe you might get a little bit better at sleeping in the capsule, because that takes a long time to get accustomed to, because it's kind of weird and uncomfortable, there's a lot of noises, but I don't know. We had a nutritionist come and talk to us recently and they showed us a bunch of data about how much sleep affects you, affects your mental health, affects your physical health, and one of the things they told us is that they've done MRIs and scans of the brain that have shown the negative effects of sleep deprivation, including, I think they were specifically looking at shift workers and actually disrupting that circadian rhythm and they were showing the negative impacts on those scans up to 16 days after the disruption happened.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:I raised my hand at that briefing and I was like alright, hey, given the fact that it takes 16 days, what is the solution for our missile schedule? How do we stop flip-flapping people constantly? Because that clearly isn't good for you. And she basically said the real solution would be you're on night shift forever and you have to live your whole life on night shift. When you go home, you need to be on night shift. When you're at work, you need to be on night shift and you need to stay like that for a long, long and sustained periods of time. But obviously that's going to present a whole host of its own personal life issues and everything. So that was kind of a long-winded answer. But I think for me there's a lot of different challenging factors with the job. Obviously there's a whole weapon system you have to master in a six-month technical school. There's a huge breadth of information you have to be familiar with to be a successful operator. But for me the biggest thing was the physiological impacts.
Speaker 2:I think, looking back on it, I realize now because I haven't pulled alert in about four months now I had no idea how much of a shell of myself I was. And I think what's tough is like the flying world as you become a flight commander, an ADO, a DO, a squadron commander, you're still going to pull a handful of alerts, but probably only a couple of months, just to retain your currency and to get face time with your people and show that you are still an operator first, a leader second. But when you pull one or two 24-hour alerts a month, it's not going to have that same physiological sustained effect over a long period of time. And so then it's this whole generational tension that occurs where the major or the lieutenant colonel loses sight of that. And then when they hear their crew members complaining about their alert load, from the lieutenant colonel perspective it's like what are you guys complaining about?
Speaker 2:You pull your week of alerts and then you have basically two weeks off, except for a few days of training. Here you should be thanking us I'm hyperbolicizing, but I think that's generally the consensus Whereas from the crew dog perspective it's like my body and mind feel terrible and I'm exhausted all the time. And even this protected four-day period of time, followed by this transition training period, is truly not enough for me to recover before the next one. And so it's snowballs. And then two, three years in, you just see these crew dogs who are absolutely burned out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we definitely had that in air traffic too. That was something if I had to highlight one of the more negative things of that career field. It's super difficult. So we do either four day or four shifts of one, or four and twos, we call them, or six and threes, and then so you do like two days, two swings and then two off. Or if you were on sixes, which is what they do down range, it's two days, two swings, two mid and two off, which is the minimum crew rest to get you back to work. And so they're flipping your schedule every two days and you just, I remember if I was inside of a building, most times I could not tell you if it was night or day, like if I couldn't see the sun, I couldn't really tell you. And it has like some. You know. Like you said, everything has pros and cons. It's cool to go to the bank at one o'clock on a Tuesday and like no one's there.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly, and that's cool yeah.
Speaker 1:But then it's like only cool for a little while. You're like okay, like I was at the point where I couldn't sleep, like maximum sleep for me was four hours and just walking zombie for like a year or two. Yep, and relationships like you're just irritable. You're, you know, you're not the whole person that you are, and so the Air Force is getting what they need out of you. But we probably need to find some better ways to take care of the people. And we talked about like ops, squadrons or the flying people, and they have like the go and no go and we had asked about like stuff like that no, your schedule is too regular, is that really regular? But they were saying like, because it's planned, it's more regular as opposed to being called to go to the flight line immediately. But yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:We're going to move on to the warm up questions. Gotta love some warm up. So got to use, you know, insert sports metaphor here of the bullpen, something about warming up the muscles. So move over to some of these fun questions, or more fun. This one, I think, is going to be real entertaining. What are some of the craziest things that have happened to you on alert?
Speaker 2:Oh boy, I have had some crazy things happen to me on alert. The pot roast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, oh man.
Speaker 2:I got. I got to be careful with which stories I tell. How famous is your podcast? How likely is another miscellaneous?
Speaker 1:It's probably just going to be my mom, but you know, perfect, All right.
Speaker 2:I'll spill all the tea then. No, I mean it's you can. You can just imagine how weird of an environment it is to just be locked downstairs with another adult and you're both just like sitting in your Lululemon sweatpants, vibing for however many hours, and people open up about what's that?
Speaker 2:No uniform. So you wear a uniform to mission support base in the F 150 as you process on in the math and when you go downstairs and you keep it on, basically to change you over the other crew as soon as that other crew leaves, it's wet pants time. Yeah, it's. It's weird too when you put you can like I've pulled alert with a full bird before and like they're in their jammies too. In some ways I think it humanizes us kind of, brings us onto the same playing field. But it's also like hey, nobody's trying to sit in the fart bag or OCP is for 24 hours. Like that's not a good idea.
Speaker 2:But I, on my first alert I almost burned the entire capsule down because I brought a leftover Chick-fil-A sandwich three in the morning. I was on night shift, not thinking about the fact that the wrapper of those sandwiches definitely has tinfoil in it popped in a little microwave we have in the kitchenette and you know I'm a brand new deputy. So I zoom back over the screens and I'm locked in waiting to see if there's any security situations that pop up. And then I just hear you know that, pop, pop, pop, pop. I freak out, whip out my TO. I think we're getting new dead Realize. I just was actively catching the capsule on fire with my Chick-fil-A.
Speaker 2:That was pretty crazy, as some of my favorite alerts, I think, are. When you're out with people who are down to get creative to make it a fun experience. I've had amazing game nights down in the capsule. I've been on alert with folks who are down to have full on charcuterie nights and obviously we can't drink alcohol down there or anywhere near the installation. But we brought down like Welsh's sparkling grape juice and we had a full charcuterie spread and we watched rom-com. So I think those were some of my favorite alerts.
Speaker 1:I could definitely see it being fun. I feel like D&D would be a blast.
Speaker 2:I know you need more than that, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:But to build your character and whatnot?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's prime.
Speaker 1:It's prime for D&D down there. That's awesome. Okay, great story, we'll move on. I think this one's going to be really cool for the listeners to hear. This is probably my favorite question of all the AFSC questions and the idea is just to be getting information out and allowing people to make informed decisions about their careers and possible cross-training or even coming into the career fields. But can you speak to any common misconception or stereotypes about your career field and what the reality actually is?
Speaker 2:I hope that the stigma is changing but, as I alluded to in my origin story and how I came into missiles, we were battling that reputation that it was just a bad career field that didn't take care of its people, and I think some stigmas can be and are resultant from truth, whether it's a fraction of the truth or the whole truth, and as a career field, missiles faced a huge challenge a little less than a decade ago.
Speaker 1:It's the Mountstrom cheating scandal.
Speaker 2:I won't go into it. Everyone in Missiles has heard about it. The dead horse has been beaten many a time. But the cool thing about that scandal happening is they developed this force improvement program. That I'm sure wasn't perfect, but I think from what I've heard about how the career field used to be and the intensity and the pressure that was put upon crew members to get hundreds on these very difficult tests, all of that has gone away and Missiles as a career field has entirely swung the pendulum to become leaders in the Air Force, exemplars of how you take care of people, how you take care of families, and I do think that we're succeeding a lot in that realm.
Speaker 2:Case in point, I just got picked up to do my dream job in the Air Force. I get to go instruct at the Air Force Academy. It's something I've been trying to do for a long time and I have had only the utmost support from my leadership to go do that opportunity, because they know that if they go, let me do that. Odds are I'm going to recharge and come back to the career field, whereas I think a lot of other career fields and I think old Missiles would have had the mindset of no way you're doing Missiles, and if you don't want to do Missiles, then see you later. But we're making a lot of improvements to try to help folks do what they really want to do pursue their passions, utilize their skill sets and support their families.
Speaker 1:That's good stuff. Next question is a few of these. I'm trying to kind of weed them out as we go because you're hitting on so much good stuff, so try not to repeat anything. But this next one I think you kind of touched on it, but just make sure there's nothing else you want to touch on. Was there anything that really surprised you about your career field, either in a good or bad way?
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally Honestly, I don't think I knew what to really expect going in which I'm sure is true for a lot of people rolling into. I'm sure you didn't totally know what you were getting into with ATC as a young airman, but I think the biggest thing that pleasantly surprised me was how much in common it has with some of the flying culture. That all happens to be the stuff that I liked from flying culture. Mainly, you're in a squadron with 40 other lieutenants. As a lieutenant, that is fun. You always have a group of homies to hang out with who are down to clown. Hang out in Fort Collins, go down to Denver. I had so much fun in between alerts over the last five years. You don't get that when you're a contracting officer or an acquisitions officer. You might be the only officer and you've got two civilians who are like 55 years old, no shade. They might be fun too, but it's just a different vibe being in a squadron with 40 of your peers. I loved that. I loved that we have the heritage. We wear the flight suits, we have heritage bars in the squadrons, we've got the beer light. There is a very social culture that retains those types of things. That really drew me to the ops world. What really surprised me and what I've loved the most about my career field, and what I think is very contrary to the flying world, is the amount of diversity that we have in our career field. I don't know if it's because of that or if it's just correlated to that.
Speaker 2:I do not think that missiles has any type of bias toward men. I think you could go to any missile squadron at any base. Well, there's only three of them, but you could go to any of the three of them. This might be a hot take, but I would say honestly, the majority of the super high performers probably going to be women. I don't know that you see that in the flying world. Not because I don't think female pilots are high performers. I guarantee if you're a female fighter pilot baseline, you're a rock star. You had to be to get to where you are, but you might be the only woman in your entire A-10 squadron at Davis-Montan Air Force Base. You can't be the majority in any arena that you're in.
Speaker 2:When I was a lieutenant in the 321st Missile Squadron, there was a period of time where all three of the flight commanders in my squadron one of my ADOs and my director of operations were all women badass women too. They were awesome. The impact that had on me as a lieutenant was honestly crucial in keeping me in the Air Force and showing me that I could believe in myself. I would say a lot of me. When I graduated the Academy, my confidence in myself as a future officer, future operator, was very low for a number of reasons that we probably don't have time to get into. But being a lieutenant in a career field like Missiles, where we probably have roughly 30% women in the career field which is very high for an operational career field very high. I've sat around the mission planning table before where both of our mission leads are badass ladies and that's just. It's important. It's important Absolutely.
Speaker 1:That's one thing that I really love about the Medical Service Corps as well. I don't know statistically the exact breakdown and things like that, but so far I've worked with a professional softball player. I've worked with people that worked at Bank of America myself, being air traffic and contracting, had zero healthcare background. But I love the idea that we'll pull in the diversity. So when the problems come up, I'm maybe solving it from an air traffic, even though that's like completely unrelated, but something about fitting pieces together or something about airplanes or whatever it may be, I pull that over. Or you know a lot of my experience in contracting and colors of money and accounting and budgeting and whatnot. I pull that into the clinic and whatnot. So I think that's really cool, because a lot of times I try and encourage people to join and they're like oh no, I'm not a. You know I don't have enough medical classes, or I don't have this, or like there's nothing specific, like if you're someone that likes to take care of people, that's really all. That's like the only prereq. Obviously there's more to the application and stuff like that, but the oh six that interviews you and gives you the final nod has been around for so long. He's going to know, like if you're answering the questions just to answer them, or like you're a truly, genuinely good person that just wants to take care of people and solving problems from a different solution. So, yeah, like professional softball player nothing to do with healthcare, but she can rally a team and get stuff done. So, even though she has no, had no military experience, didn't know where the portal was, victoria, sorry, just poking fun and things like that Like she can get people to do things and that's all we really need as an officer I mean officer first, you know, career field kind of second.
Speaker 1:So awesome point of the diversity, of being able to, you know, solve problems. You don't want the same solution every time. Maybe you know what we did before is the right solution, but it's better to see all the different possible solutions and then pick the most correct one. So that's awesome, you know the right people are getting into the right boards. I'm always like a little disappointed not to have a negative note on this one, but even I think it was today I walked by the leadership wall there and SOS and just kind of bummed a little bit to just see all old white guys. You know, it'd be nice to see a little bit different. But we're getting there, I think. But we'll move on to the next question. Next question is what's a personality trait you think somebody would need to be successful in missiles? Kindness.
Speaker 2:Honestly, just kindness. You know who would be an incredible miscellery from our SOS class Chris, because Chris has silently made our classroom and our team better every single day, seeking no recognition, like he's pretty much single-handedly cleaned the classroom every Friday. Those are my favorite miscellers are the people who are kind and who are good teammates, which to me is really rooted in kindness as a general quality, because when you're down in the same space with somebody for 24 hours in a baseline, unpleasant, uncomfortable environment, you can't be mean to each other, you can't have an ego, you can't do things that make your partner's experience any more unpleasant than it already is. In fact, you should be finding every single way possible to make their alert just a little bit better, whether it's cleaning the toilet in the refrigerator or making them coffee for when they wake up from their night shift, or sharing a snack.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting when you get that human-to-human connection like one thing that always drives me nuts is people that are late and it all drives from the five years in air traffic. You have to do turnover and you have to debrief and let them know where the planes are and what's going on before you can unplug and move over. Sort of with my very limited knowledge of missiles, but some type of turnover procedure- you can't leave until the other person's there.
Speaker 1:And so even if you're two minutes, because I've had troops and whatnot, like I'm only two minutes. But if I think back to my time where, like I'm on the other end, I'm coming off a night, I'm completely tired, I just want to go home, two minutes is the longest time. So I guess that's an empathy, that connection.
Speaker 2:I'm like no, two minutes is a big deal. That's two minutes away from your life. It's two minutes away from you with your kids, your wife. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I totally agree, Dang. That's super important. So if anyone out there isn't in late, stop being late. I want to touch on this real quick. I don't know if you can sum this up shortly, but what do you find most rewarding about missiles?
Speaker 2:The big stick, the biggest sticks don't get much bigger than this, so good.
Speaker 2:The most rewarding thing has absolutely just been the opportunity to work with the phenomenal group of people that I've been able to work with. Obviously, I've been at the same base for almost six years, so that group has morphed throughout that time. But over and over and over again, I have been constantly just astounded by the quality of people who do the job that we do, who take care of each other every day. In particular, I will shout out my current team that I work with in the 319th Missile Squadron all the flight commanders, one of my ADOs. It's just so collaborative. Everyone is there to take care of the people and that is the only motivation any of us have is take care of the people, and the mission will happen after that and none of us have any ulterior motives, and it has been the most learning that I have done in the last 10 months. My other two flight commanders are two prior enlisted dudes that have just taught me so much.
Speaker 1:You know Milo Otis.
Speaker 2:What's his name? Milo Otis no.
Speaker 1:I have no idea where he's stationed, but he's to be my troop.
Speaker 2:It's not if you weren't, oh dang it.
Speaker 1:Sorry, milo Otis, that's all I know where you're at.
Speaker 2:Sorry, milo.
Speaker 1:Okay, I got one last A, f, s, e question. We'll move over it and some other stuff. So when you're in the simulator, just pure curiosity, do you actually go through the like turning of the keys?
Speaker 2:Big time. That's a lot. I would say that's like almost the majority of what we train in the Sims, because you can't do that on an actual alert. So yeah, tons of what we train in the Sims are those emergency war order procedures.
Speaker 1:Does it shake or sound alarms, or what's the thing that happens in there?
Speaker 2:Definitely auditory things going on. I wish that it was suspended on some kind of like roller coaster.
Speaker 1:Simulator like the yeah.
Speaker 2:Like red flags or a six flags like thing, where you get to actually feel what a new debt would feel like that would be awesome with like smoke, smoke machines and stuff. No, it's not. It's not quite that realistic, but Dang, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, since it's mine matters, we're really focused on clearing the stigma of mental health, talking about important things and taking care of our minds. We're going to move into the last two questions, not necessarily A, f, s, e related, but we're going to weave in mental health into every one of these episodes. So what's one lesson you've learned in your life that you feel everyone should learn? Hmm, it's the golden lesson.
Speaker 2:I think For my time in missiles specifically. I think that's what comes to mind first, just because I think my mental health low points in my life have all been during my time as a misalier. Not that the entire time was a low point, but those valleys did occur in the last six years and I think the two things that helped me out of those valleys were A Seeking therapy early before I was in a place that was super dark, and having that part of my routine so that when I was in a place where I did really need help, I wasn't also trying to navigate. How do I find a therapist that I jive with? In this period of despair or whatever it is? Everyone should be going to therapy all the time, no matter what mental state you think you're in, even if you're the bodybuilder of mental fitness.
Speaker 2:You should be going to therapy in my humble opinion.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. It's interesting. I've been house hunting and when you pick a house you're like, oh, what's a nearby school? Is there a gym nearby? I've literally never heard anyone be like where is the nearest therapist? Totally Like, why wouldn't that be? Wouldn't that be right next to gym? Totally, oh, is there a 24 hour fitness? Oh, yeah, and I can talk to this person right there. Right, it's just bizarre, the huge, massive Grand Canyon we have between mental health and physical health.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:People will ask you about your reps and routines and what you're doing and you'll say I'm doing back and buys and I'm doing three by 12s and you'll, you know, people will tell you your whole. No one's ever like, hey, I tried this new yoga thing, right, and I felt better. I sat out nature, cross-legged, upside down, whatever, and I felt great. Oh yeah, that's cool, like that. Never. It never comes up Like you can talk about your physical fitness routine.
Speaker 1:It's. It's really bizarre, but definitely agree, it should be ongoing, which that's why I'm trying to plug the mental fitness. I heard that on the Simon Soneak podcast. But fitness just goes to the right and, like we were talking about just before the podcast, words matter, like people like oh, it's semantics, it's nitpicky, but no like words. Fitness shows the ongoing. There's highs, there's lows, there's good days, there's bad days. In the gym, same thing. There's like some days you're tired but you still go Um and so fitness, I think, is really important and ongoing and definitely, like you said, starting early, like it's the weirdest thing. You wouldn't like jump on a treadmill once and go home or like wait till you were like 400 pounds before you go to the like that doesn't make sense Like right, that's not how it works.
Speaker 1:So good stuff. We got one final question. Uh, you started to touch on it. Hopefully it's isn't repetitive. But what are your personal mental fitness thought? It can be a tip, a trick or a personal story that helps you with your mental fitness.
Speaker 2:Um, I think for me it comes down to separation. And that's hard as a military member, because our personal lives tend to be ingrained in our work lives, because a lot of times we need to forge that type of community to have those support networks when we have unique challenges as military members. But at the same time I would say, if you are a military member and you do not have any civilian friends in your community who are not a relative and they're not somebody you knew from your past life like they're not a high school friend or something like that but if you are one of these military members and you are only friends with other military members, I challenge you to do something to get involved with your community. Reach out to some neighbors, Join a city intramural team, go to a poetry slam at your nearest coffee shop, whatever you're already interested in, but try to make and forge a genuine friendship with someone who has nothing to do with the military.
Speaker 2:There's spouses in the military. It's for a number of reasons. One, it's a good perspective, and we should all have that perspective. It's never a good to be stuck in a bubble, no matter what bubble that is. But two, I think it's literally rejuvenating and healing to have these moments where you're just 100% cleansed of what's going on in your workplace. You can have that, mr. I call it my Mr Rogers moment.
Speaker 2:When I come home for the day, I take off the OCPs or the flight suit and I get into civilian Emma clothes and I try to get in these mental states, honestly, where I can get at least an hour in where I completely forget that I'm an Air Force officer. Obviously, not completely. I still abide by rules and regulations, but just try to remember who I am and who I was before I started wearing the uniform and who I will still be when I take the uniform off. I think it's really important to connect with that inner self and there is something beautiful about interacting with civilians who have nothing to do with the military. That kind of brings that out in you. It forces you to talk about things that are not related to your job.
Speaker 1:Dang. That's, that's, that's powerful. That's good stuff. I've never really thought of that before. It's interesting because one of the challenges we have you hear it in a bunch of different articles it's leaving the military. People have the hardest time because it's been made your only thing. Wow, yeah, I think having connections that are outside would probably make the transition a lot easier. It's not your only thing, it's a part of you. It's made you up into that point. You have experiences, you have stories you have. That's definitely a chunk of you, but it probably shouldn't be all of you. That's, that's good stuff. Well, I'm going to wrap up, try to summarize some points.
Speaker 1:So you talked about some of the highs and lows and missiles. Sounds like a really great career field, a lot of opportunities to work on yourself. Maybe some school hours Schedule is a little wonky, so that could be something, but some really rewarding things that you probably would not have thought of before. If any listeners want to share their thoughts or jump on here, please let me know. We will highlight and record whatever AFCs or mental health stories that we need to. Do you have any parting words?
Speaker 2:No, just if. If anyone has any questions about missiles, I am happy to talk to anybody. Like I said, I was devastated when I got it and I can truly say now that I am so grateful that I was put into this career field. Obviously, I talked about some lows, but the majority of my experience has been an overall high and, yeah, just extremely grateful for the opportunities that my career field has presented me and the incredible leadership that I've had as a missile air.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for everyone that's listening to AFCs 1 through 9. Remember, exploring different career fields is an important step in finding the right path for you. Join us next time as we continue to explore different career paths and the opportunities they offer. If you have any other questions or want to share your career story, please contact us or reach out to Emma Stonehill if you want to hear any more about missiles. Thank you,
