He would be in the Air Force from his date-of-commission, which he would obtain upon graduation from the Academy. Not all cadets who attend the Academy go on to serve in the military [however, those who do not are liable for repayment of their tuition], and at the cadet's discretion, he or she can request a commission in another service: the classes of the 1970s and early 1980s frequently requested Army commission in protest against Air Force integration policies.

Incidentally, though it is not relevant to Jack's schooldays, with a birthdate of 1952, it is pretty much certain his father served in WW2 or Korea or both. We have no canon on Jack's family, other than that little essay Rick wrote, but I like to think of Jack's father as being Army Air Corps. His mother, of course, could also have been...

*scribbles notes happily*

If you don't mind my asking, are your Mad Military Knowledge Skillz the result of direct experience, or intense research? I'd be really, really interested in someone who can field specific questions from me on an ongoing basis, so I can actually write the military details of Stargate without sounding like a moron.

*g* INTENSE research! But I am happy to share!

BTW, over on LJ there's a comm called "military beta" http://military-beta.livejournal.com/ for specifically [i.e. "real world"] military questions [where they have actually military on tap as mods, I believe]. But so many Stargate Military questions are just a little bit... unique...

Unique indeed.

I read some of your DW entries and ended up subscribing out of a passionate adoration of your delicious snark. Besides, you're a friend of Sid's!

Any speculation as to why Jacob Carter has such a small collection of ribbons (on his first appearance in full-dress uniform), other than the desire of the producers to make his chest candy look so much sparser than Jack's and Hammond's?

Sid is love!

[Come for the snark, stay for the deeply-obsessive canon...]

Huh. I never thought about that. We really only see him in uniform in the Washington ep [my brain for episode titles is apparently out doing research...][It's "Secrets". *DUH*]

My first guess would be that Jacob was Support Track rather than Combat Track [you specialize in one or the other fairly early in your military career, and it's Conventional Wisdom that Combat Track gets the best promotions; for example, both Jack and Hammond are Combat Track officers]; but there isn't much canon on Jacob. I don't think anybody's ever done a takedown on his fruit salad, either.

But I get the impression from the fb in which Sam thinks about her mother's death [I think that's "Netu, Part 2, where Jack drinks something that reminds him of the Seventies"][okay, it's "The Devil You Know", because I can't live without checking], it's clear that Jake is Stateside at the time, which [in my mind] lends weight to him being on the Support Side. That, and the fact he's clearly in his native habitat at the Pentagon [which must have been such a joy for Sam while she was stationed there...]

There's a site with just such a 'takedown', which I've been poring over (over which I have been poring?) -- if we're being snarky, the site looks like it was built on 1998 code, but There Be Data Thar. It also has a page for Janet.

http://personal.geah.org/stargate/jacob.html

It includes this marvelous footnote: "This is based on the medals we saw General Carter wearing in the episode 'Secrets' (209). It doesn't appear to match the medals being worn in Sam Carter's 'dream' in 'The Devil You Know' (313). However, it would appear that the general is also wearing the wrong style uniform for the period in this episode."

Based on this, I'm entirely discounting the uniform in the flashback/evul vision, and not placing too much reliance on the vision itself.

I figured I could make a good case for Jacob having flown too many desks, but I'd be happier with more thoughts than just mine on the subject.

1. Combat pilot my ass.

2. If they can definitely nail when Sam's "dream" takes place, I will give them a cookie, since she's saddled with two different birth-months [August, and - I believe - May] and never assigned a birth year...

2a. Given how scrambled Jack's dream/vision was [and Daniel's!] we can forgive Sam for getting a number of the details wrong while she's blasted on wirro....

3. Totally a paper-pusher IN HIS SOUL.

Still, useful site yay! Thanks for pointing it out...