REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. -- Lauren Smith and her father "talk shop" fairly often these days.
Whether on the phone thousands of miles away from each other or during visits home from the Air Force, the two have found a common ground in the work of an enlisted munitions systems technician.
Yet, these days, that shop talk has taken a different twist. Instead of Air Force retiree Master Sgt. Mike Smith talking to his daughter about his job, it is the 27-year-old Lauren Smith talking to her dad about all the challenges of being a munitions systems technician in today's Air Force. By a surprising coincidence, Smith, who worked for the Aviation and Missile Command Public Affairs Office before joining the Air Force, is now excelling in the same military occupational specialty that her dad turned into a 24-year Air Force career.
"I wanted to do what everybody who joins the Air Force wants to do. I wanted to fly," Smith said. "But my eyesight disqualified me. The munitions systems technician MOS picked me. I had a long list of jobs I qualified for. I made a wish list of jobs and munitions systems technician was about mid-way down on my list. After I went to MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station, Nashville), I got a call from my recruiter that there was an opening if I wanted it."
That was late August 2013. Two months later, Smith was at basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.
"I expected it to be a lot worse," she said. "Yeah, they yell at you and stuff. But they can't touch you and they can only put you on your face (make you do a series of pushups, sit ups or leg lifts) a few times," Smith said.
"I was the laundry chief and I was in charge of three others assigned to laundry. We had to make sure all the laundry was clean and good to go. I worked hard in the laundry, did my PT and basic training, and stayed out of the drama that happens when you have 40 girls living together. I was 24 when I went in, so being older helped me a lot. When you are in basic, you get absolutely no sleep, and that can make tempers flare."
Smith endured things like 4 a.m. physical training runs and dorm raids where a female officer would check to see who wasn't sleeping. At graduation, she was surprised when her dad wore his full Air Force PT gear and presented her with the airmen's coin.
Ammunition technical school at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, followed basic training and then she was off to her first duty station -- the Misawa Air Base in Japan, home of the 35th Fighter Wing.
As a munitions systems technician -- more commonly known as AMMO -- Smith is charged with shipping and receiving, building, testing, operating, protecting, inspecting, storing and performing maintenance on all types of munition systems. At Misawa, she worked with Precision Guided Munitions.
"The first 12 months you spend in on-the-job training. We had to learn each missile system and we had to know how to use the technical data that tells you everything you need to know about a missile system," Smith said. "We had to know how to pack and unpack the missiles, how to store them, how to maintain them, how to test and inspect them. If we had a missile that wasn't functioning properly, we had to know if we could fix it and how to fix it."
Smith's specialty is the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile, a supersonic, heat-seeking, air-to-air missile carried by F-16 aircraft. It is also effective as a surface-to-air missile.
"The missiles fly on the F-16s and then we have to rotate them out constantly. We had scheduled inspections where the missile is pulled off the aircraft, inspected and then readied to go back to flight," she said.
"If a pilot has an indicator that a missile isn't working properly, then we have it pulled off the aircraft and brought to the shop so that we can inspect it, figure out what's wrong and then repair it. There was a lot of trouble shooting involved in that."
Smith has been promoted to a level five technician, which makes her a crew chief able to run a missile operation. The most difficult challenge so far has been the transition from a deployment back to Missawa's normal working environment.
"Deployment was very high tempo. We worked 12 to 14 hours days, and the first two months we worked seven days a week, and then fell back to six days," Smith said. "You really had to keep up the pace or you would fall behind. When I got back to Missawa, I had to slow down to the pace of a regular shop. That was not easy for me."
Smith's next duty station will be Moody Air Force Base, Ga., where she will report in early March after a few weeks at home in Arab with her mom, Tammy, who works as a budget analyst for AMCOM; her father Mike, who works as a ???.. for the Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center; and her sister, Morgan, who is a sophomore at Arab High School.
"It was hard being so far away from my family," Smith said of her assignment in Japan. "But since I come from a military family, it was something that we already knew. I couldn't have a better family for support.
"I'm spending this time catching up with my family. But I'm also using it to acclimate back to American life after being in Japan for so long. I really enjoyed Japan, and the Japanese culture and its people."
Her new assignment will have Smith closer to home so she can visit more often. During her three years in Japan, she only came home for her grandmother's funeral.
Smith will also take on a new challenge at Moody Air Force Base.
"They have different aircraft -- A-10s -- and that changes the type of missile you are working with," she said. "But, that's not a bad thing. I love missiles, all types of missiles. I would really like to stay in missiles for my entire career, but that will hurt me in the long run.
"The Air Force wants us to be well-rounded. They want us to shop hop so that we get different experiences in different career fields. So, while missiles are my thing, I will eventually also have to work in equipment maintenance, storage and accountability, which are all part of the munitions systems tech field."
Although she was an older enlisted airmen, the Air Force has changed her life for the better.
"My experiences have helped me mature a lot. When I went to Japan, that was the first time I was living on my own. It was good for me," she said.
"Now, I see these 18 year olds coming in and they seem so lost. If I can, I will take them under my wing and try to help them. That's important when they are on your team and working in your shop. You are as good as your weakest link. If you strengthen the weakest link than your shop will flourish."
Smith hopes to eventually run her own missile shop as a master sergeant. She needs only two more training classes to receive her associate's degree in the Community College of the Air Force. Next year, she will be eligible to test for staff sergeant and start working on her master's degree. In two years, she will be eligible for the Airmen Leadership School.
"I love enlisted life because it is very hands on," said Smith, who graduated from the University of Alabama-Huntsville in ?? with a degree in graphic design and digital photography.
"I could go into Air Force public affairs and use my degree. But I love what I am doing in the maintenance world and I wouldn't trade it for anything else. I still can use my degree on the side. I have been designing coins for AMMO, so that allows me to use my graphics skills."
Eventually, Smith hopes her Air Force career will take her to Europe and, especially, to Italy, where she lived as a girl when her father was stationed there.
"I'm happy wherever I'm assigned. Each base is what you make of it. It's not about where you go in your military career. It's about what you make of it once you are there," she said.
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