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JROTC cadet gets glimpse of life as an AF officer

  • Published
  • By Angela Pope
  • AFNORTH Public Affairs
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  He won't be a commissioned Air Force officer until 2015, but one high school senior already has an idea what his future might look like courtesy of Air Forces Northern and the 325th Fighter Wing.

Tyler Atkinson, a cadet second lieutenant in the Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps at Randolph Macon Academy in Front Royal, Va., recently spent a day shadowing two officers at Tyndall Air Force Base.

The shadowing idea was born a couple of weeks earlier during a chance encounter at an off-base event where Cadet Atkinson's father, who lives in Port St. Joe, Fla., met Jim Frishkorn, the 325th FW director of staff. A few days later, the two men ran into each other at the Gulf Coast Salute air show here at Tyndall. Mr. Atkinson introduced his son to Mr. Frishkorn, and Cadet Atkinson asked about the possibility of a visit to the base.

"I graduated from Virginia Military Institute, and Tyler is preparing to attend a military college in the fall," Mr. Frishkorn said. "I understand the road he is about to travel. I was afforded an opportunity to shadow Air Force officers for a day at the Tactical Air Command Headquarters while I was a senior in college, and it was an eye-opening experience for me that answered a lot of questions and helped propel my future. I wanted to give Tyler the same opportunity."

Cadet Atkinson will be attending Norwich University, in Northfield, Vt., where he plans to study communications security. Mr. Frishkorn identified two officers who were ideal for the shadow: Col. Scott Normandeau, AFNORTH communications director; and Capt. Margaret Rios, a communications engineer with the 325th Communications Squadron.

"I wanted to provide Tyler with two diverse opportunities to experience life as a communications officer," Mr. Frishkorn said. "The first involved experiencing a typical day as an operational communications officer responsible for supporting a 24/7 mission like what AFNORTH provides in defense of North America's skies, and in support of disaster relief efforts to various government agencies.

"The second involved seeing what a base-level Air Force communications engineer does, and how that officer is responsible for delivering critical communications and information technology support. This piece also provided insight into how critical protecting the cyber domain is to waging America's current and future conflicts," Mr. Frishkorn said.

For the first half of the day, Cadet Atkinson spoke with Colonel Normandeau, who is a Norwich alumnus and has a son currently enrolled at Norwich. After outlining the details and requirements of his job, Colonel Normandeau took Cadet Atkinson on a tour of AFNORTH and showed off the massive systems required to keep the organization's critical mission going.

During the afternoon, the cadet paired up with Captain Rios, who recently returned from an overseas deployment and showed him how the base keeps its systems up and running.

"Today was a lot different than I expected. I didn't realize how in depth the Air Force communications field is," Cadet Atkinson said. "I think I now have a better understanding of what exactly it means to be a communications officer in general. This experience not only gave me a glimpse into my future, it also helped clear up some misconceptions I had about the job. I am so thankful to everyone who helped make this day possible."