Stand Up!

It has been brought to my attention that I have been slacking on the "Stand Up" section of the blog. Many of you may have forgotten about this section or many new readers may be unfamiliar with this section. Either way, the blog post "Still Waiting.." on June 1 gives an explanation of these sections that I DO intend to do more of!! As Matt and I go through these new experiences of the military life, we both encounter new and unfamiliar things that soon become very common and familiar to our everyday life- which we think is important and fun to share with others!

For this stand up I have chosen to discuss Ranks! I have found ranks to be very confusing at times (however, I am getting the hang of it)! In the beginning, I could probably spit out a list of ranks to you without really knowing the correct order or insignia that represents each ranking. After being around the uniformed men so much lately and asking Matt "ok, so what is he?", "what out ranks him?", "is he army, air force, or navy?", etc.- I am now fairly comfortable picking them out on my own!! :)

Ranks, insignia, and the locations on the uniforms do vary among each branch in the military. Today I will only be discussing the Air Force! For the enlisted uniforms, you can find the Rank insignia on the arm as shown in this pic:
As you can see- this is a picture of Matt when he was enlisted. Here is a listing of the air force enlisted insignia's:

Now- Matt is an Officer in the Airforce. The officers insignia can be found on the shoulder and hat. Here is a picture that both provides a visual and the order of rank for Officers:

If you look closely enough, you may have noticed that some of them have gold where as others have silver. So why is silver over gold for higher rankings? This is because the “gold” was actually brass, a less expensive metal than silver. I thought that was a fun tid bit of information-which came from the Air Force Spouses Hand book which is filled with a LOT of wonderful stuff that I will continue to share!!!

Hopefully this will help you next time you see a member of the Air Force and wonder what rank they are!!! :)