The second installment from my tour as an Officer Instructor at AFROTC Detachment 175! Catch up on the first here. Check out the merch shop for some cool merch, including shirts, pens, reverse fan mail, and books! If any of my cadets are reading this, get back to studying, you have finals this week!
I first decided I wanted to be an Officer Instructor training the next generation of Air Force Officers while at an exercise at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. My team was standing in a circle around a foam cooler filled with cheap beer sitting on my pickup’s tailgate. We were celebrating the end of the exercise on our last night in El Paso. I was the only officer in my team, and amidst the empty Keystone, Coors, and Bud light cans, the wisdom started to flow.
My team was all enlisted, a mix of junior Airmen and young NCOs, and all of them had some story about officers who didn’t “get it.” They told stories of officers who were unwilling to do the work they charged their airmen with, officers who didn’t care for their Airmen, and officers who were hollow uniforms not worth the paper their commission was printed upon. The members of my team had either decided I was one of the “good ones,” or I hadn’t strayed too far off the path and could be saved. Either way, their encouragement goaded me into saying out loud, then thinking “I should go back to the Academy or to an ROTC detachment to be an instructor.”
Well, I ain’t no liar, and I wasn’t going to let me turn me into one either. The first chance I got, I put in a package to be an Officer Instructor. To get assigned as an instructor for an Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC) Detachment meant that I first had to compete in the Officer Instructor & Recruiting Special Duty (OI&RSD) board, then I had to get accepted by both the detachment commander and the school. In November 2021, while on my third deployment, I found out that not only had I been picked up to be an AFROTC instructor, I had been picked up for Detachment 175 at the University of Hawai’i Manoa.
When I checked into Detachment 175 in July 2022, I was “dual-hatted” as both the Education Officer and Recruiting Officer for the detachment. As the Education Officer, I was placed in charge of managing the various educational goings on of the detachment. I wrote lesson plans, adapted guidance, interfaced with the University of Hawai’i and our crosstown universities, and counseled cadets on their academic careers. Sometimes I would have to counsel cadets that their chosen major wasn’t for them (if you’re bad at math, you shouldn’t be an engineer), sometimes I had to counsel cadets that college wasn’t for them. These were all expected parts of the job.
For some reason, I didn’t pay attention to anything after the ampersand in OI&RSD. Realizing I had to not only instruct but also recruit officer candidates was a small surprise that I had to adjust to. Recruiting means that I talk not only to prospective cadets, but their parents as well. By and large, these parents are respectful of our time, supportive of their child, and ask relevant questions. I’ve gotten used to talking to both future Officer Candidates and their parents, for the most part.
I still have not adjusted to is talking to helicopter parents. I do not like their behavior, and if you are a parent who is looking at sending your kid to college, a trade school, to get a job, or join the military, the rest of this article is a not-all-encompassing list of what you should not do in any circumstance.
Before that, here is what I have seen from parents that makes me take their child more seriously: The child is not only present at the meeting/interview, but is in control and driving the meeting with their own questions. The parents are interested, and sometimes chime in with questions of their own, but they take a back seat. That’s it. For this program or any other Officer Training program, too much parental engagement can be a big red flag.
Don’t get me wrong, my own parents were supportive of my desire to commission in the Air Force. They helped me a lot on my journey towards going to the Air Force Academy by helping me edit essays, formulate requests for letters of recommendation, and gave me a ride to make sure I went to my Academy Interviews on time. They did not ever, to my memory, say “When we go to the Academy,” or “when we join the Air Force.” My mom does occasionally say she’s going to call our congressman to demand I get the assignments she wants me to have, but I am pretty sure she is at least 75% joking on that one.
As the recruiting officer for Det 175, I have encountered Helicopter Parents that are entirely next level. One common issue I see is parents saying something like: “When we enroll with Detachment 175…” while on a phone call or in an interview. There’s no “we” here, just the cadet, and I make it a point to answer their question with “No, when *Insert potential future Air Force Officer’s name here* comes to our Detachment they will…”
On one afternoon alone, I received three bat-shit crazy phone calls from three different parents. The first was a father, who started with the standard questions. His son wants to be a fighter pilot, but doesn’t want to go to the Air Force Academy because “it seems too intense.” His son is in high school, and wants to stay close to mom and dad, can he join the Hawai’i Air National Guard (HIANG) instead of going into Active Duty so the son can stay on Oahu? If his son has to go Active Duty instead of into the HIANG, can I promise his son will get stationed at Hickam Air Force Base? This is not an uncommon line of questioning from a parent, but frustrating for me. First, openly telling the Air Force Recruiting Officer that the reason your son/daughter wants to join the program is simply because it seems easier than an alternative is not a good plan. Second, why are you calling me and not your son?
This first call ended in chaos when the father asked his final question: “Once my son commissions into the Air Force as a Fighter Pilot, can you guarantee his safety?” To which I replied “No I cannot.” This response elicited a barrage of angry screeching about how I should never tell a parent such things, to which I replied by hanging up the phone. The second call began about ten minutes later, and since I was the only sap in the office that day, I had to answer that one too.
Another father called and introduced himself as a retired National Guardsman. His daughter was really interested in the University of Hawai’i, and would like to join AFROTC. I told him I would be happy to talk to his daughter about this any time, but the man kept talking. First, he asked how long his daughter would have to be in AFROTC. I told the man that our program takes four years to complete. He then asked if his daughter could commission into the HIANG or into the Air Force Reserves. I told him that we primarily commission 2d Lieutenants into Active Duty. He then asked if, after commissioning, he could be placed on his daughter’s orders so he could move with her all over the world. I paused for long enough to prompt the man to inquire if I was still on the line. I told him that unless he had a medical condition requiring around-the-clock care, he would not be included in his daughter’s orders. He asked why not. I said because the Air Force only moves members and their dependents. He asked how he could get put on his daughter’s orders as a dependent. I said that he would have to develop a debilitating medical condition requiring around-the-clock care. He then thanked me for my time and hung up, leaving me to be slightly concerned about the daughter and her life at home.
I got about a half hour of peace, which I used to grade papers from my freshman course, Air Force Heritage and Values, before the third phone call came through.
“Air Force ROTC, this is Captain Jacobson. How can I help you?”
“I want to talk to your freshman instructor!” The irate mother on the other end of the phone line shouted into my ear.
“This is him,” I said calmly but with growing ire of my own.
“Where do you get off,” she yelled, “giving my son a “D” on his paper?!” I paused here to look at the stack of papers on my desk. In truth, I had just graded a few papers that were atrocious, and the grades reflected that. But I hadn’t finished grading all the papers, and hadn’t given the grades to any of my cadets yet. The woman’s outburst made me momentarily concerned that some psychotic parent had installed a camera in my office somehow. That seemed unlikely, so I responded simply.
“Ma’am I haven’t finished grading my papers yet,” I said tersely, “I don’t know how you would know what your son’s grade is when he doesn’t. Also, I don’t know who you’re referring to.”
“Is this not the Astronomy Department?” A still angry but confused mother asked.
“No, this is the Air Force ROTC detachment,” I replied. A brief pause as the helicopter mother considered her next move.
“Can you connect me to the Astronomy Department?” She asked. At this point, I was very thankful for the old landline phone receiver I held in my hand.
“No.” I slammed the phone back on the cradle harder than necessary. After all that, I decided I had to get out of the office before another crazy parent called, it was a full moon after all. I left the office parking lot with my truck’s accelerator pinned to the floorboard.
Those phone calls all occurred in the course of one afternoon, and encompass a good sample of the types of parents that I encounter. First, the overly protective. This parent probably doesn’t even let their child drive, but thinks the military will do a good job “toughening up” their child. Sorry to say it, but soft kids don’t make strong adults, and soft, coddled kids don’t make it through an ROTC program for any branch of the military, they must have some grit of their own.
Second, the overly controlling. I have parents come talk to me on behalf of their child all the time. The parent sometimes shows up to the office to demand an audience with me, without the supposedly interested child along for the ride. The child is occasionally in attendance, but often they aren’t allowed to ask many questions of their own and most of the time they look like they do not want to be there at all. On other occasions, I have set up a zoom call, and the furtive glances over the camera let me know the parent is in the background, running the meeting from their end and keeping their child in check. I often worry about the health and well-being of these children, or their capacity to succeed in college when they have not been allowed a thought of their own since birth.
Third, the completely crazy, in the wrong parent. They didn’t even verify they called the correct phone number, they just started yelling, trying to bully others into taking care of their kid. I also worry about these kids, because that parent has a super short fuse and couldn’t admit a mistake if their life depended on it.
Not all helicopter parents fall neatly into these three categories, and more often than not they are some combination of all three. All are a nightmare, and it is frustrating how many times I can say “I would be happy to talk to your son/daughter about this any time” without the parents picking up what I’m laying down. The parent’s apparent lack of awareness does not help their son or daughter. In reality, it makes things worse for them.
Over the course of this tour, I have had a lot of interaction with potential cadets and their parents. At this point, I can almost always tell which ones are going to remove themselves from Det 175 as soon as their desire to sleep in on Tuesdays and Thursdays outweighs their fear of their parents. I don’t have kids of my own, but I do understand the desire of a parent to ensure their child’s success. A lot of our cadets are great, and I have even met some of their parents who seem mostly normal. The cadets we see succeed in our program have familial support, but not an overbearing burden of parental engagement.