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This podcast is about going to college after military service. The advantages and the challenges of pursuing higher education post military career.
0:00:00
(Speaker 1)
Hello, and welcome to the Rebel Vets podcast. This is a podcast that will be centered around the experience of going to college after military service. I'm your host, Derek, a former ammo troop in the US Air Force, and I served for 20 years.
0:00:18
(Speaker 12)
Let's start the show.
0:00:20
(Speaker 1)
My guest today is Eric Herman. He's a fellow Air Force veteran and UNLV alumni. When he was here, he was a part of the Rebel Vets group and he attended the Student Veterans of America National Conference. How's it going, Eric? It's going pretty good. Thanks for having me. Yeah, no problem. So tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from.
0:00:40
(Speaker 1)
Well, I grew up as an Army brat. My dad did 20 years in the army, moved around a lot, but I can say that I would call Georgia home. I spent most of my time there. And that's where I enlisted out of in Atlanta. So what were the things that drove you to enlist in the military? Well when I was getting close to graduating high school, my dad sat me down and was like,
0:01:04
(Speaker 1)
you know, trying to have the talk, what do you want to do with your life? And at first I was like, I'm going to go army. And that's all I knew. Army this, army that. He was an officer in the army. I didn't know anything about enlisted or officer, you know, rank structures.
0:01:18
(Speaker 1)
Yeah, seemed interesting. And then he sat there and he was like, you know, if I was you, I'd go Air Force. And I didn't know anything about the Air Force, you know, like Air Force. Those, those are the nerds in the movies, you know, they wear the nice uniforms and yell and it's like, shut up nerd. And yeah, it's always the cool army or Navy guy telling them to shut up. Those are the real soldiers and what are those guys doing on airplanes. Right. And so I didn't, I just kind of brushed it off. And then my dad had this, uh, he had his commander come over this Colonel, this Fulberg Colonel.
0:01:51
(Speaker 1)
She comes over, has dinner and she sat me down. It was like, so what do you want to do with your life? And I was like, I don't know. You know, join the army. And this is a Fulberg kernel telling me this she's like if I had a chance to do it over again I would go Air Force And I was like yeah, nah, and I still wasn't convinced. Oh, man. That's yeah, that's good advice coming from an officer, right? Yeah, a full bird a career a career army and then and then finally he had His commander's commander come over. This was a general like a two-star two star. He came over for dinner, said the same exact, I could do it all over again. I would be, I'd go air force,
0:02:26
(Speaker 1)
Eric, it's a good opportunity. So then I was like, fine, screw it. I'll go to the air force. And I went to the maps station and talked with those guys. And they told me about aircraft armament. Didn't know what that was. They were like, you load bombs and airplanes. And I was like Oh yeah. I feel like that's the same line they give everybody. Yeah. I heard somewhere that they have to kind of tell you that, right? Hey, well I'll be able to go get, maybe I'll get stationed in Hawaii and then nod their heads
0:02:51
(Speaker 1)
and be like, Oh yeah, sure. You go, maybe you could get a white. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Totally. You can be a general someday too. Yeah. Yeah. Sky's the limit story to what I encountered when I talked to the recruiter because ammo was sold to me essentially the same way. It's like, Hey man, these guys are really important to the Air Force. They handle all the munitions, all the explosives. And I was like, well, all right.
0:03:16
(Speaker 1)
You're working with bombs. It's going to be really cool.
0:03:18
(Speaker 2)
Yeah.
0:03:19
(Speaker 9)
It sounds cool.
0:03:20
(Speaker 1)
Yeah. They make it exciting. They make it sound exciting. So for a little bit of context here, for my listeners out there, I am a munitions system specialist and what we do is we, you know, assemble all the munitions and then Eric is the other side of that coin. We deliver the munitions to his career field on the flight line.
0:03:40
(Speaker 1)
And then you want to fill us in a little bit about what aircraft armament does. Yeah, essentially for, there's two sections, there's a flight line section, and then there's a back shop section. The flight line section that I most likely love the most actually was where Derek would deliver the munitions out, it'd be a trailer full of bombs, and we would have a crew member inspect the munitions to make sure that the fuse is a right, there's nothing messed up on them. And then we have another
0:04:07
(Speaker 1)
person inspecting the aircraft, making sure the aircraft is okay, it's not leaking or there isn't anything funny on it. And then I was a team chief. I didn't start off that way, I worked my way up that way, but I was the one who would hit the checklist and make sure everything was going according to plan and then eventually we would get the lift truck and then load the munitions onto the aircraft and make sure that they're ready to go for the pilots to drop them, essentially. And then we also worked with the weapons system on the aircraft itself.
0:04:39
(Speaker 1)
So if there was a problem, like the missile didn't make the right tone or the camera package doesn't work on something, we would also go into the aircraft itself and go and tinker around with the electrical side of the house and figure out what's wrong with it. Oh yeah. And especially, I remember, because I've worked with load toads off and on throughout my career all the time and I was even responsible for pulling the GOW-8 out of the A-10 and troubleshooting
0:05:03
(Speaker 1)
all the gears and timing mechanisms on that giant gun.
0:05:08
(Speaker 11)
Yeah.
0:05:09
(Speaker 1)
Big, big beautiful gun. Love that thing.
0:05:11
(Speaker 7)
Oh man.
0:05:12
(Speaker 1)
Yeah, so on the front of the A-10 is a giant Gatlin cannon called the GAU-8 and it shoots a 30 millimeter bullet. And it's a pretty impressive piece of machinery. So how long did you serve for? I was in for about 15 years. And you want to talk a little bit about your assignments and, you know, where you started
0:05:30
(Speaker 1)
out and what was your favorite assignment? Yeah. So, so after basic, we went to tech school. We learned more about our job. And a crazy story about how I got my first assignment. I was in the chow hall getting food and And all of a sudden, I see a bunch of
0:05:46
(Speaker 1)
these like, command chief master sergeants, these are all he nines. They're in charge of bases, they work with Fulberg colonels, these guys go to the Pentagon, they know presidents, you know, they're high ranking dudes, and ladies, and they were all in the chow hall. And they were just talking to a bunch of tech school and students. And I don't even have rank on my sleeve.
0:06:07
(Speaker 1)
I'm a nobody. So I quietly grab my food and I go to the corner and I sit down. And as soon as I sit down, three of these guys sit down and they're like, hi, Airman, what's your name? And I'm like, Airman Herman, Chief. He's like, oh, sit down, sit down, eat. We got to talking, they asked me a whole bunch of questions about like, how'd you like the Air Force?
0:06:25
(Speaker 1)
And I'm like, I love the Air Force. And then he was like, what'd you enlist, how long did you enlist for? Four years. And they were like, why not six? And I was like, well, I figured if I love it so much,
0:06:34
(Speaker 1)
I'll re-enlist. I was going to go to Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina, I think. And they were like, oh, Pope, where would you want to go? And I told them, I was like, well, I don't care, to be honest with you, Chief. Home is where the Air Force sends me. I was ready. You were gung-ho.
0:06:56
(Speaker 1)
I was gung-ho and blue. And they were like, but I'd, yeah, we think we there's an A-10 base in Europe, isn't there, Dale? And I was like, yeah, Steve, they know each other. They call each other by their first names because they've all worked together for so long. And they're like, Airman Herman, what's your social? I gave him my social. And then I gave him my full name. And then they got up and left. And then about a week later, my assignment got changed to Spangdahlem Air Force Base. Holy moly, so you got shipped to Germany. I got shipped to Germany right out the gate.
0:07:25
(Speaker 1)
And yeah, and then that was amazing. Germany was probably my best, my most favorite assignment. Okay. I only went TDY there, but man, I found Germany to be really just an awesome culture, really nice people, and there's so much history history, especially like, you know, beer gardens and hanging out and eating schnitzel and stuff.
0:07:48
(Speaker 1)
They really know how to like chill.
0:07:49
(Speaker 2)
Yeah, I was gonna say that. They sure do.
0:07:53
(Speaker 10)
How to chill, eat food and drink beer.
0:07:55
(Speaker 1)
Yeah, all of that.
0:07:56
(Speaker 3)
Yeah.
0:07:57
(Speaker 1)
Surprising too how many speak, you know, pretty good English there. I'm like, Oh, you know, all I can say is Dankeschön. Yeah. This guy I'm talking to can speak pretty good English. They've even been nicer just because when you try to attempt German, like, you know, Hallo, ich bin. They're like, Nah, I speak English. What is, you know, what do you need help with? And I'm like, Yeah, oh, thank you. Oh, yeah, I need help with this. They're like, okay. And they're really nice. If you try to talk German, they're even nicer.
0:08:25
(Speaker 2)
Like, oh, I'm trying to learn. Very good.
0:08:28
(Speaker 1)
It's not surprising that a lot of guys end up getting a German wife, you know, from a young airman. No, it isn't. And then, so where did the Air Force take you from there? Well, I mean, Tucson, Arizona. And then I went back to Germany again. And then I went to Nellis.
0:08:53
(Speaker 1)
Actually, no, I'm sorry. Yeah, I went from Germany to Nellis, to Germany, to Tucson. And then from Tucson, I went to Korea. I went to Kunsan Air Base in Korea. That would be my close second.
0:09:03
(Speaker 1)
I really liked that assignment because it was just a, it was just a really cool culture down there too. Oh yeah, I can echo that. I mean, I love South Korea. I got lucky in that I was stationed there with a friend of mine.
0:09:15
(Speaker 1)
His name is Brian. Of course, he was married to a Korean, South Korean. So she was kind of our into the culture and already I mean being married to Korean He knew a lot about it. Yeah, he was like, yeah, we're gonna go to this place. We're gonna try this food Yeah, the food was amazing. Oh, yeah, and the people were very polite very nice Yeah, I feel like they're very patient with all the they call us GI's. Well the GI's there. Yeah. Yeah, very nice people But yeah, she was like, yeah, let's get on the train. I really enjoyed going to Seoul.
0:09:45
(Speaker 1)
Obviously, Seoul's a cool city. And Suwon is pretty nice too. Yeah. See, I went to, I just went to kind of, I went to Gunsan just outside a little bit and then I went to Seoul a couple of times, but most of the time I just had a, I just had a blast hanging out at the base and just out with everybody there. Oh yeah. Yeah. Kunsan's interesting culture too. What were all the bars that the units had? I don't remember. Oh, the hooches? Oh, the hooches.
0:10:09
(Speaker 1)
I call them hooches. Yeah. Those were so much fun. And then, oh, and the DMZ. I did get a chance to visit the DMZ. See the little blue building, see the North Korea for five minutes. They're staring at me and I'm staring at them. Yeah, that was pretty crazy.
0:10:26
(Speaker 1)
It is a little of a surreal experience, especially that your tour includes a section where they take you into the incursion tunnels. So for- Oh yeah, the big tunnel that they conduct. For people that don't know, the North Koreans just dug tunnels straight under the DMZ so that they could get to the other side.
0:10:47
(Speaker 1)
They did a good job too. Yeah. They were plenty big enough to walk in. Oh yeah. And then you can take a tour down into the incursion tunnels before you go up to the DMZ and stare across the demarcation line to North Korea.
0:11:02
(Speaker 1)
But yeah, that's always a pretty interesting thing to do. If you go to South Korea, you've got to put it on your bucket list. Yeah, definitely put it on your bucket list. That and seeing, what was it, Propaganda Village. That fake city that North Korea built just over the border. And they have those flags.
0:11:20
(Speaker 1)
I think South Korea put up a flag, and then North Korea put up an even bigger flagpole. It's like the third largest flag in the world or something like that. It's huge. Yeah, that is an interesting thing. There's a tit for tat. So Propaganda Village, you can stand on a little ridge line and look down at this village in the valley. And it's got a ginormous flagpole with a flag flying on it. Well, the South Koreans, not to be outdone, did their own version of it on the other side
0:11:48
(Speaker 2)
of the de-Harkation line.
0:11:49
(Speaker 1)
Yeah, it was really funny. It was like, wow. Okay then. And then during your time in, did you deploy? I did. I deployed to Afghanistan.
0:12:01
(Speaker 1)
I went to Kandahar in 2010. And then I, I would say kind of deployed in 2015 to Turkey. Just but that was to the airbase and in Incirlik. And I don't know some folks there's a there's some folks out there that call Korea deployment. I wouldn't have called it that it was a you know, it was a one year assignment. Yeah, it's too long and it's too posh. You get to come and sleep in your bed every night. Yeah. Even if you have to walk there in chem gear.
0:12:32
(Speaker 1)
Yeah. I've done a few TD wise to a couple of really cool places. I've been to Romania a couple of times. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's a really, really wonderful country. I've heard that. Yeah. And what was Afghanistan like the ops tempo and stuff while you were there? In 2010 it was
0:12:49
(Speaker 1)
what we we deployed in the summer. So it was right in the right in the start of fighting. I call it like fighting season. but Kandahar was pretty. It's an international base. So there's a lot of different countries there. And it was it was weird. So this is this is kind of interesting. So like it was during the World Cup.
0:13:09
(Speaker 1)
And so one of the things was we would normally have rocket attacks. We couldn't really time them, but then after a while we noticed a pattern. There wouldn't be too many rocket attacks while the World Cup was playing. We just noticed like, yeah, it was in South Africa and you were watching, we're kind of half watching the World Cup
0:13:30
(Speaker 1)
on some bootleg computer website. And as soon as like the last game was done, then it would be,
0:13:39
(Speaker 7)
and that's the alarm.
0:13:41
(Speaker 1)
They launched rocket attacks right after the World Cup. It was like, as soon as the cup was done Yeah, al-qaeda or whoever was like, okay now we can attack That's pretty incredibly called the world's most popular sport. Yeah reason, you know, it was even the terrorists were like no shut up Let's see what let's see what Germany's doing. Yeah I think I heard something because they were talking about the World Cup coming to the US and basically like the ratings for the World Cup versus the Super Bowl.
0:14:07
(Speaker 1)
And it's not even close. Like everybody in the world tunes in to watch the World Cup. I'm not even joking, man. It was literally like 9 o'clock. Where I was at 9 o'clock, it was like 9 p.m. was when the last game ended. And 9-0-1, 9-0-2, an alarm. And suddenly we just knew, it was like, oh, we're going to get attacked soon.
0:14:25
(Speaker 1)
And like within five minutes, suddenly a rocket attack would come. And it's like, these guys are waiting till the game is over.
0:14:33
(Speaker 7)
Wow.
0:14:33
(Speaker 4)
That's pretty incredible.
0:14:34
(Speaker 1)
I count that as a, that's a pretty good war story.
0:14:37
(Speaker 3)
Yeah.
0:14:37
(Speaker 1)
So, um, your service wrapped up in the air force and, um're a UNLV alumni. So what made you make the decision to continue your education? Did you get your CCAF while you're in the Air Force? No, I mean, I kind of puttered around and took a college class every once in a while to get a good evaluation of my EPR. Yeah, to check that box. Yeah, just to check that box. But honestly, I wasn't about the college thing, because around that time when I was getting
0:15:05
(Speaker 1)
out, we had a lot of other guys and gals getting out too, and they were actually doing pretty well working for contractors like Lockheed and Boeing, and they didn't have degrees. So we were just sort of like, hey, let me just shake the tree and reach out to all my managers, all my old friends and stuff, get it out. It used to be that way for ammo too, because I knew so many people that left the bomb dump
0:15:29
(Speaker 1)
and then went to work at Raytheon. Yeah, Raytheon's another one. They would hire a lot of ex-ammo troops. But anyways, I kind of went that route. When I got out, I got hired on at M1 Support Services, literally doing the exact same job that I did as a armament
0:15:48
(Speaker 1)
technician and I was a team lead and did the same exact thing. And I worked on A-10s at Nellis. Oh man, it was like you never left your job. Exactly. I just changed uniforms and I was making considerably larger amount of money, which was great. And then the contract went up,
0:16:05
(Speaker 1)
as contracts often do sometimes. Contract would go up and never got renewed. And so when I was sitting there in the office about to be handed my pink slip, getting laid off, I looked around, the guys and gals that didn't get laid off were the ones with college degrees.
0:16:21
(Speaker 1)
Oh man. With bachelors and bachelors or higher. So I was like, you know what, I gotta give me one of those. So then I immediately just looked into UNLV. Okay. And to be honest, I looked at engine.
0:16:34
(Speaker 1)
I went right to engineering cause I've, cause I've also, when you're, when you work on the flight line and stuff, you, you see the engineers that actually work out there too with like special projects and stuff like that. So we got to see how the other half lives. I mean, yeah, those guys are always impressive. Like I remember back when I was an airman, I came to Nellis TDY and that's when they were working on the, they were new at the time, small diameter bombs.
0:16:56
(Speaker 1)
So they were, yeah, they were working on all the technology and engineering when it comes to that. Cause Nellis is a big test base. So they got to try it out and everything. And the A-10, when it got upgraded, any time there was an issue with the upgrade, we'd call one of the engineers. They would come out there, tinker with something, and then they said, oh, we'll go back and
0:17:15
(Speaker 1)
check our notes. And that's it. They never touched or did anything. They didn't rip apart the airplane, they just were going back and figuring it out. And I was kind of like, cool. Yeah.
0:17:28
(Speaker 1)
So you mentioned to me earlier, you like the troubleshooting aspect of engineering. That's what kind of appealed to you. I liked, yeah, I definitely liked figuring out why the plane, if when the plane landed, why it did something it shouldn't have. That was always interesting to me. So what was it like attending the engineering school here at UNLV? Pretty interesting. I mean, I, yeah, like I said, I enrolled and then I'd never been to college. I didn't know the whole rundown. Oh, so you're super green.
0:17:56
(Speaker 1)
Super green. Yeah, this is, yeah, they're telling me, like, I had classes, like, you need to get a Discord account. I don't know what discord was. I was like, is that, you know, we're the teachers are like, we're going to talk about this. And then some teachers were like, yeah, just watch my lectures on YouTube and then we'll have class and we'll talk about the lecture. And I'm like, Whoa, it's like, this is on YouTube for free, you know? Like, so I'm telling my friend, you know, you can, you can just learn Calc 1 for free, right? You know, there's like, there's dudes with lectures giving like practice problems and
0:18:27
(Speaker 1)
stuff. But yeah, once I got all my, what do you call it, my pre-reqs knocked out and stuff like that and I went into the College of Engineering and started tinkering with stuff, it was definitely a challenge, but I had a lot of, you definitely need a support system. I would say that. No one can just do it alone.
0:18:47
(Speaker 1)
You're crazy if you think you can. What was your support system? Oh, I mean, well, as you probably know, I'm kind of chatty and I was just talking to some of the other students and we all- Making some friends? Exactly.
0:18:58
(Speaker 1)
We all made like Discord group chats and we would help each other with like homework and help each other study and um I mean everybody would give out uh you know notes, past notes, um there's also there's always been a class where whenever there was a textbook required someone somewhere found it for free on the internet. Oh yeah. And we just dropped a PDF so everybody would have the text. That definitely comes in handy.
0:19:26
(Speaker 9)
Yeah.
0:19:26
(Speaker 1)
I've had a couple of classes like that where you're like, is this for free anywhere? And somebody will hook you up. Yeah, exactly. I know it kind of pays off for us, because I consider myself kind of a social butterfly too.
0:19:36
(Speaker 1)
I'll always chat somebody up in class. just email them and be like, hey, you know, you got some notes or what was right out so I can kind of play catch up a little bit. Yeah, it wasn't until towards the end and I was like, you know, I need to start gathering more intelligence on the teachers themselves. Like like who is more of a homework oriented teacher who just does who just cares about just one test like some teachers or they give like multiple tests like three tests out of the entire semester like test one, two and three.
0:20:03
(Speaker 1)
Oh, yeah. Who gives a nice curve, who doesn't, you know, all of that stuff. Who actually teaches mostly out of the textbook. That's a huge bit of information, because we've had teachers, I've had teachers that just. Chapter one.
0:20:17
(Speaker 2)
Yeah.
0:20:18
(Speaker 8)
And it's this.
0:20:19
(Speaker 1)
Or they'll pull lessons completely out of thin air and it's got nothing to do with the book and we're just all like, what is he talking about? I can't find it. I don't know what he's talking about. Or the, you know, well, I guess not so much in engineering, but sometimes a lot in comm school you have like extra reading. So you'll have to go and find the book and the chapter and do the extra reading on top or else you won't know what the lecture's missing something for you. You won't know what to talk about. Right.
0:20:47
(Speaker 1)
What's kind of funny is like, I don't know if this dynamic ever happened for you. Did you ever get put in a group project and find yourself like de facto leader? Oh, kind of a little bit. So it was one of the few labs we had,
0:21:03
(Speaker 1)
like in the very beginning, most of the labs, there is a slideshow presentation you have to do. And after the first, after, I won't say after the first or second lab I did, everyone was like, yeah, we need Eric on our team because his presentations are hilarious
0:21:22
(Speaker 1)
and he's like loud and just kind of you know I'm talking about whatever and I just kind of I don't know like yeah, so that's what they kind of made me Yeah, I've had a couple of group assignments where I'll sit back initially to see if someone will be like hey I'd like to take the lead on this. Yeah, but then oftentimes I find myself Maybe it's just like my nature or being proactive or whatever, where I'm like, all right, let's start dividing this up.
0:21:48
(Speaker 1)
Let me help you guys get on the right track so that we're all rowing the same way and the project gets a good grade. Yeah. I've done something similar in the sense with engineering. It's like you got guys and gals that are super knowledgeable about it, but they're kind of, you know, quiet. So you, you know, it's like,
0:22:08
(Speaker 1)
hey, do you know, what do you know about this? I'm like, I know all about this. All right, so what should we do? Oh, you should do that. Like, all right, you're now the leader and I'm like your second hand.
0:22:15
(Speaker 1)
Like, what do you need me to, how do you need me to go? You know, like, listen to them, and we'll figure it all out together. You know, that kind of thing. That's always great. Everyone always brings their own, like, you know, strengths and, you know, different parts to the group dynamic. Yeah. Hey, I'll take this. You know, you're really good at that.
0:22:35
(Speaker 1)
Yeah.
0:22:36
(Speaker 7)
Great.
0:22:37
(Speaker 6)
Fantastic.
0:22:38
(Speaker 1)
So, attending as a veteran, you know, you got involved in the Rebel Vets organization, you want to talk a little bit about you know, what that is, and what you're involved in, isn't that? Yeah. So I knew of the Rebel Vets when I first, when I first enrolled, and I and I got hired on to work at the military Veterans Service Center here on campus. Ross, the director was telling me all about it. So I, I applied and got, you know, I applied to the group. It's kind of like
0:23:06
(Speaker 1)
a fraternity sorority group for not just veterans, but veterans and spouses and dependents and essentially anybody who wants to join. At the time when I joined, it was pretty nice. You know, there was a, there's a few charitable events that we would go to. We'd help out, uh, do some community help, uh, outreach and stuff like that. And then, um, and then Ross nominated me to be secretary. And I was like, okay, so I ran for that and I won. And so I was the secretary trying to, we were all trying to put together some kind of like a, you know, a reading pamphlet or something like that. And we were also trying to put together hikes and just trying to be, you know, reaching out to all the veterans, just anybody, all the members, essentially.
0:23:52
(Speaker 1)
Yeah, like morale welfare events, things like that. Yeah, exactly. We were working, yeah, we were working with other agencies that were not part of UNLV outside. Yeah, and then eventually I was told that there's a, it's called NATCON, so if you're a Rebel Vet, you become a, you're basically a member
0:24:14
(Speaker 1)
of the Student Veterans of America, the SVA, and that's like a nationwide thing where you're, yeah, when you enroll or I guess enlist to that, you're just a member when you become a member of that. What does the organization do or what do they focus on? So NatCon was major networking and they have a bunch of other little, they have a bunch
0:24:41
(Speaker 1)
of other little trips and little gatherings. There's some leadership ones. There's some ones that talk about for PTSD, for mental health, mental health awareness. I mean, it's just a bunch. You just have to go on the website and check it out. But the NatCon was like the major one where that's where like I think there's over four
0:25:03
(Speaker 1)
or five hundred vendors from all different companies that come to this thing and then they have tons of like breakout sessions that teach you how to write a proper resume, teach you how to talk properly to people because I mean it took me a minute to kind of learn how to speak to normal, you know, to like kids without dropping the F- F bomb or, you know, scaring people away.
0:25:27
(Speaker 5)
Yeah.
0:25:27
(Speaker 1)
I often wonder about that in class because sometimes I'll let the occasional curse
0:25:31
(Speaker 4)
word fly.
0:25:31
(Speaker 3)
Yeah.
0:25:32
(Speaker 1)
So far I haven't been stopped or corrected by any of my professors. It's a normal, yeah, it just comes out. But then people are, are you really mad? I'm like, no, I'm not. Why would you say that? I'm just, you know, oh, I said the F word. Whoops, my bad. But, but yeah, no, it's a really good, it was a really good event. I got a chance to go to it because I
0:25:51
(Speaker 1)
was a part of the, you know, the upper leadership of the Rebel Vets. Where's it held? It's held in different locations every year. One year, I think it was held in Orlando and another year it was held in, this past one was held in Nashville, or not this past one, this past one was held in Colorado Springs. The one that I went to was in Nashville. Did you go out and listen to live music and all the good Nashville stuff? I went out once to watch the football game, but I'm an old man. I went
0:26:28
(Speaker 1)
back to bed. I had some Kentucky bourbon, or I had some Tennessee whiskey, excuse me, and then I went to sleep. Spoken like a true 40 year old. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Well, to kind of wrap things up here, do you got any advice for guys still serving and guys about to transition to, you know, to becoming a veteran and what's your advice for them for pursuing an education? Because obviously like, you know, this engineering degree is going to take you, you got job opportunities
0:26:59
(Speaker 1)
and things that are going on? Actually, yeah. So like NatCon, that's where I actually, where I, so one of the things is when you do the NatCon thing, when you register for it, they ask you to submit resumes and I submitted, I uploaded a couple of resumes and they'll disseminate it to all of the, to the vendors. And a couple of the vendors, Northrop Grumman replied back, we like your resume, we'd like you to stop by our booth. I wasn't thinking of much of it because first off knock on I had to wear a suit. I hate wearing suits. I hate
0:27:28
(Speaker 1)
him. I hate him. I hate him. So I'm wearing a suit. I have a look on my face like you can tell I hate wearing this damn thing and I go to North. I go to the booth Northrop. I handed my resume their eyes got real big and they're like, oh man, okay, you were how long? 15 years, yeah. Can you get a top secret? Yeah. And they were like, hey, hey Bill, come over here.
0:27:49
(Speaker 1)
They're like grabbing other guys to look at my resume. And they're like, we want to give you an internship like at Melbourne, Florida. And I was like, okay, yeah, I can do that. And then fast forward, I went to the internship. I went to their site, I learned a whole bunch of stuff, can't talk about, but they love me, they were blown away by I guess just how
0:28:13
(Speaker 1)
well I did, how well I got along with everybody. And then they're offering me a job that's actually, I'm going to start August 25th of this year, I'm going to move down to Melbourne and start the new job. Well, that's fantastic. Yeah. So it does, it does work. It's really cool. Yeah. That's really awesome to hear like, yeah, that all these opportunities got, you know, came your way as a result of, you know, this organization that, yeah, that provided you support, you know, while you're going to school here and hooked you up with so many networking opportunities. Yeah, it was really, really cool.
0:28:46
(Speaker 1)
But yeah, I'd say a bit of advice. Don't shut yourself off. Be active. Talk to people. Take it with a grain of salt. Nobody knows what you've been through.
0:28:58
(Speaker 1)
Nobody knows that you've traveled the world and you've seen things. Most everyone is just going off of what news or tick-tock or whatever is telling them just kind of like be kind of just sort of like oh yeah you know learn about them you know because I guess that was that show Ted Lasso be curious don't be judgmental be curious yeah that's that's great advice that's kind of what I went with yeah because there's always
0:29:24
(Speaker 1)
the perception of the military that yeah get from movies and TV and the reality is a little bit different. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, all right. Well, thanks Eric. And, um, I really appreciate you coming on the show. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Thank you everyone for listening to this podcast. If you want more information about the show or the guest interview, please send an email to rebel vets at gmail.com and to my veterans out there, Thank you everyone for listening to this podcast. If you want more information about the show or the guest interview, please send an email to rebel vets at gmail.com and to my veterans out there, thank you for your service and your sacrifice until Valhalla.