Originally Posted by
Boggie Dog
Originally Posted by
FliesWay2Much
For the uninitiated, AFSC = Air Force Specialty Code, which (back then) was a 4-digit designator for one's career field. In the USAF, there were two distinct career fields primarily composed of guys who had flunked out of tech school. Anybody who has been in or around the USAF knows which ones (AFSCs) of which I refer.
Needless to say, the silence is deafening.
I was Navy. There it was cooks & cops.
OK, I'll spill the beans (pun intended). In the Air Force it was security police and civil engineering (roads & commodes).
There are two security police career fields in the Air Force: security and LE. LE is a sought-after career and is reasonable competitive among the young enlisted troops just out of boot camp. The really good people can end up in the OSI or administering security programs for highly classified activities. People in the "security" career field are basically armed guards. They man guard posts at Air Force bases (Actually, most of them are contractors these days.) and issue IDs and car passes at visitor control. The classic scenario were the guys who guarded B-52s or missiles on alert. This "security guard" career field is one of two in which people were dumped. The rules are rigid and the tasks straightforward. Individual judgment and decisions were extremely limited - the true definition of a "checklist mentality."
This division of responsibility and relative skill level found in the Air Force is not at all unlike what we see at airports: Law enforcement personnel and security guards/clerks.
NDSol posted the specifics:
Ron had 13 years as a USAF Security Specialist, but his classification was not the typical LEO that we are familiar with on the non-military side. His job classification (81170) was to protect things like Air Force planes and missiles. Law Enforcement Specialists (811X2) are the airmen that perform traditional police functions.