I started my AF career at the end of the Viet Nam era. Upon reaching the end of my college deferment with a low lottery draft number (yes there was a draft then), rather than being drafted into the SE Asian swamps, I entered OTS instead. Due to marginal eyesight I did not qualify as a pilot, but became a navigator instead as the only other OTS option at the time, which actually suited my engineering/science background interests much better. For 9 years I flew the KC-135, advancing to instructor navigator and finally to senior wing stan-eval check flight nav. There was no GPS at the time. in later years, for long overwater or over the pole flights, INS might be installed, but I did not much care for it. INS became one more item to babysit, monitor, record and be responsible for. Besides, it was often wrong with a published error rate of 1.9mph per hour, and it too often crapped out altogether. I could routinely do much better than that with DR and celestial.
I enjoyed the career, but not so much the associated AF BS. I wanted to transition into the science/engineering field by attending AFIT, but as a SAC navigator, i was told that navs were too valuable in that position to transition into something else. After 9 years active I had the opportunity to jump into a civilian engineering career with an associated AF research laboratory, with my concurrent MS education being paid for (the AF eventually paid for s second MS degree). I had the very tempting chance to contiinue as a nav with the NG flying C-130s on missions to the south pole, but the required time requirement constraints were too much after what I had gone through in SAC, so I declined that exciting offer. Instead I joined the AF reserves as an engineer in a different division at the same laboratory as my civilian job, finally retiring as an O-5 with 22 years of service. I stayed on with the GS job, retiring as a GS-15 with a combined military/civilian service pension credit of 41.5 years.
Meanwhile, my eagle eye son attended USAFA, spending his career as an F-16 instructor pilot, retiring last year as an O-5 with his 20 years. He is now happily flying for an airline.