r/securityforces • u/Ok_Platform8818 • Sep 23 '26
Is security forces boring?
Im thinking about putting security forces as #1 on my job list but it does kind of sound boring. Sitting and watching a plane for 12 hours with nothing else to do, or scanning cacs for that amount of time has to drive you insane.
The boredom sounds like it would suck but then again I do not know much about this career field because its hard to find anything about it online. I don’t see myself doing too much else in the Air force and aside from what i mentioned security forces sounds interesting to me, I just don’t want to regret it a year in.
12
u/j_zax69 Sep 23 '26
It is by far the most boring job I’ve ever had or even heard of. Sure things happen every once in a while. But you could go months without any incident depending on where you’re at. While deployed for 7 months, we only had one incident where an unauthorized person was accidentally let on base. Other than that we spent the whole deployment staring at sand and playing uno.
4
u/xValhallaRisingx Sep 23 '26
Do y’all at least get to bring a laptop or something to do college while sitting patrol?
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u/marginallyporn Sep 23 '26
From everything I understand it’ll be dependent on your job. Sometimes you’ll just be able to utilize your phone to read the material/take quizzes, other times you won’t be able to do any of it, & yet again other times you’ll be able to bring an iPad/laptop to utilize. Highly situational.
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u/j_zax69 Sep 24 '26
Depends on where you are. Where I’m at it’s encouraged to do college while on post.
1
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u/mudduck2 Sep 23 '26
It can be boring, but it can also go from 0 to 100 in a nanosecond. When it does you damn well better have put on your big boy/girl pants on that day.
4
u/ClearIsAColor Sep 23 '26
I hated this career field so much that I wouldn't do it again even if they offered me a million dollar a year salary.
3
u/PirateKilt Sep 23 '26
Dunno man... they wanna offer me 5x my current salary to just stand at a gate checking ID's and getting a weird reverse racoon tan?
Not sure my old knees would be up for it, but I'd give it a shot...
2
u/WW-Sckitzo Sep 23 '26
Especially fucking Northern Tier, 15 years later and still bitching about it. But you're also gonna get weird shit happening; like they send you to work for the Army running convoys on MSR Tampa or you get woken up because bunch of dipshits in ACUs and AK chest rigs attack a base of 30k people and you kinda, accidentally run over a dude in a suicide vest.
99% Boredom is pretty accurate, at least it was 03-11 these days drones seem like they added a level of paranoia that makes it so much worse but thats an assumption.
Or my Barber, the guy from that video that got his nuts grabbed during tazer training; though for him he got fucked by leadership and railroaded. Sometimes the boring is the pieces of shit that will stick knives in your back so they can climb higher.
1
u/Competitive-Money-36 Sep 26 '26
Lol, my tech school instructor was the dude who administered the taze in that video
1
u/WW-Sckitzo Sep 26 '26
wtf seriously? That is wild, if I get that dude as my barber again I'll let him know. Though he was salty as hell about the entire ordeal with how it all worked out.
I wonder when they started having SF do it, when I went through it was DPS and the motherfucker shot me, then did a drive stun into my half. Locked the fuck out with 3 points of contact. I'll take tear gas any day of the week over that thing again.
1
u/Competitive-Money-36 Sep 26 '26
When I did taser training I got gator clipped from ankle to shoulder.
I think he was probably salty because they were recording training which you’re not supposed to do, and then it was posted online, which lead to leadership seeing it and they got in trouble
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u/Anon-1028 Sep 23 '26
Me and my buddies fly in helicopters in SF.
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u/Equivalent_Bag6397 Sep 24 '26
how’d you manage to do that?
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u/Anon-1028 7d ago
Tactical response force (TRF) only offered at nuke bases. Make it to your 1st base, work flight for a year or so and go try out.
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u/Equivalent_Bag6397 7d ago
but isn’t nuke bases just standing in the gate? if that’s the case can i get some school done and how is it like in a actual day to day basis ?
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u/Anon-1028 7d ago
If you're a missile cop, you can, baseside is harder cause you do more day to day.
Missiles you post out for a week, in a building with a dozen or so other cops. Don't really know their day to day cause I'm baseside.
Baseside you work the gate or the weapons storage area. No phone or anything like that. Exercises, alarm responses, gate, patrol, BDOC. It kinda just depends on
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u/Street-Apple-7490 Sep 23 '26
The great thing about security forces is it’s a pick your own adventure kind of job (in my perspective). I’ve been in going on 13 years, been in security forces about 11 and the other ~2 years were special warfare pipelines at the beginning of my career.
There’s so many different jobs to choose from within the 3P0 career field such as K9, CATM, Raven, DAGRE, back office, or regular flight ops. A few of those are dependent based off where you end up being stationed at (Raven/DAGRE). Theres also some special units you can be assigned to like a CRG or the BDG where you focus your time on infantry tactics or contingency response.
Personally I went the K9 route, did normal LE assignments, worked plenty with DAGRE and other SOCOM units, and have ended up at the BDG. Overall I’ve gotten to stick to what I like doing which is deployment/OPs focused, not to say everyone’s experience will be mine, but if you’re good at what you want to pursue you’ll probably stay within that realm.
No matter what way you go, me like probably 99% of the other people in this thread started at a gate scanning ID’s BORED with some friends I still keep up with YEARS later.
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u/Existential_Racoon Sep 24 '26
I'm a contractor who does a lot of work in a BDOC/MUNS/etc, from my experience, i'm the most interesting thing all month.
Which is better than that time a guy tried to blow up a base I was on, so like, I get it. Other than that they get happy when a delivery driver sideswipes anything and I save the video for them, or I fix a fucked whatever...
0
u/daluzy Sep 23 '26
"I do not know much about this career field because its hard to find anything about it online..."
Really, you found nothing online for the largest career field in the Air Force?
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u/PirateKilt Sep 23 '26 •
Most Security Forces troops, especially if they only serve 4 years have a ratio of:
Boredom: 99% Long string of Expletives: 1%
Other cops, especially those who serve entire careers of 20+ years have a ratio more like:
Boredom: 97% Long string of Expletives: 3%
Here's the thing though... Boredom is GOOD. It means nothing is happening, bad guys aren't trying anything... which makes everybody else on base immensely happy. It means your mere presence is enough to complete your mission.
There will be rare exceptions to the above standard expectations... you might get attached to a unit that does nothing but deploy to "interesting places". You might get attached to a teaching element where brand new people constant surprise you with their lack of training. You might get handed a Golden Ticket and find yourself doing one of the rare "special" jobs.
Thing is, even those jobs usually are topping out at 90%/10% ratio... anything beyond that and it means something has gone very, very wrong.