Career fair introduces students to wide array of military jobs

By Jazmine Knight

Hundreds of high school students from across Missouri learned about potential military careers Tuesday at the Missouri Air National Guard 139th Airlift Wing.

The three-day career fair, with over 280 attendees coming from as far as Blue Springs, Missouri, wanted to show students the endless possibilities the military has to offer. Along with traditional military careers like pilots or artillery operators, there are also roles like lawyers and dental technicians.

Michael Crane, master sergeant and public affairs specialist, said the military has all sorts of jobs that many aren’t aware of.

“We offer all sorts of jobs from aircraft mechanic to vehicle mechanic to pilots. We have doctors, lawyers,” Crane said. “Pretty much any job that takes to run a small city or a town, the Air National Guard has some sort of job that touches on that.”

Crane said this career fair is crucial in combating low recruitment numbers.

“This is something that we started doing after the pandemic started to try to just reach out to the community and try to boost our numbers,” he said.

The recruiters try their best to get out in the local schools to find interested students, but the career fair offers a different experience.

“This is an opportunity for us to invite them to our house and see what it’s like,” said Crane.

Crane noted some selling points for students, including benefits. Even for part-time employees, they receive full-time benefits.

“They only have to work one weekend a month and two weeks a year. That’s part of the service commitment,” he said.

Along with that, the Air National Guard offers tuition reimbursement.

“We’ll pay for any school, college or university that they go to as long as it’s in Missouri and we’ll pay 100% of that tuition,” Crane said. “They’ll also get a check from the VA every month while they’re in school as a full-time student to help pay for any supplemental costs associated with education.”

Some other positives, Crane said, include low-cost health insurance and a sense of pride and community support.

“The pride that goes along with wearing this uniform is something that, you know, you can only experience by wearing it,” he said. “We experience a lot of support from the community. So a lot of times if I’m in town somewhere, people will thank us for our service.”

Many students took all of these potential benefits into consideration. Onnaly Shumate, an attendee, said she might join the National Guard, though she’s not sure what position she would be interested in.

Her biggest takeaway from the fair was the ability to work with others in the military.

“Well, you work a lot in groups and everything, and I think that’s really cool,” Shumate said.

For her, no one in her family is in the military, so if she joins she knows it will surprise them.

Other student attendees, Kayla Harris and Lilly Kasch, said they enjoyed seeing the planes take off and learning about the different avenues the military has to offer.

“I like helping people and saving people’s lives,” Harris said.

“I will be joining a form of the National Guard. I don’t know specifically Air Force, but I just overall like the fact that it’s part time, but I’m still able to have a civilian job,” Kasch said.

Kasch wants to work as a lawyer or engineer and hopes the military can help her with that.

“That can be really expensive. And it just, like, this is opening up a lot of opportunities to actually go to college,” she said.

For those interested in a career within the military, visit the Missouri Air National Guard website at https://www.139aw.ang.af.mil/.

Crane said joining was one of the best decisions he’s made.

“I would definitely promise anyone who joins that it’ll challenge you to do things and achieve things that you’ve never thought possible,” Crane said.