MAY 2, 2025 – Being selected for officer training school is regarded as a prestigious honor for some of those who wish to commission. The 9-week course takes enlisted members and civilians, who hold at minimum a bachelor’s degree, and teaches them the foundations of military leadership, and affords them the opportunity to become an officer who will lead the men and women of the U.S. Air Force.
The journey from enlisted to officer can be a tumultuous and competitive one. Many Airmen don’t make the cut. Only a select few applicants are chosen every year, with many applicants applying multiple times in hopes of being accepted one day. For two Airmen from the 22nd Comptroller Squadron, this opportunity will finally become reality.
After multiple attempts, Master Sgt. Brechara Lee and Tech. Sgt. Tiffany Scoggins were notified they were selected for OTS on March 10, 2025. Lee and Scoggins applied for their top choice, acquisition officer, and were lucky enough to get it. Over a month later, they found out they would be leaving to attend the schoolhouse at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, this July.
Lee, 22nd CPTS financial management analysis flight chief, joined the Air Force nearly 11 years ago after feeling burnt out in her pursuit of pharmacology. She had every intention of completing her bachelor’s, finishing her six-year contract and getting out of the military. However, that plan didn’t last long.
“The longer I stayed in, the more I started to see the benefits and opportunities I was getting,” Lee said. “My friends back home weren’t having the experiences I was having, so I decided to extend my contract.”
Scoggins, financial management analysis non-commissioned officer in charge, had a very different journey. In 2015, she joined the Air Force after graduating college and felt like she was at a loss in terms of what she should do next in her life.
“I was going to college full-time and had two jobs,” Scoggins recounted. “I graduated with my associate’s degree and realized I had no idea what to do after that.”
Lee told herself if she hit her 10-year mark in the Air Force, she would try to commission. Believing that commissioning would be more competitive in the Air Force, she first tried to commission with the Space Force.
“I was nervous about commissioning for the Air Force because of how competitive it is,” Lee recalled. “I was curious about the Space Force, and I had friends who were picked up for it, so I applied with them last year, but didn’t get accepted. Then I applied this year with the Air Force and got selected.”
Scoggins’ goal to commission came much earlier in her career. In fact, she knew that’s what she wanted to do since her First Term Enlisted Course instructor spoke about his commissioning process at her very first assignment. However, her road to being accepted proved to be a multi-year journey.
“Honestly, it’s been about ten years in the making for me to get here,” Scoggins said. “I went back to school. I got my CCAF (Community College of the Air Force degree), I got my bachelor’s, and then I went and got my master’s degree. It took me four times of applying to OTS before getting in.”
About a week before public results came out, candidates were notified. Scoggins received a call on her lunch break from her lieutenant asking when she would be back in the office. She had a feeling she was about to receive the news she had been waiting for.
“Honestly, I cried. It was a huge moment,” Scoggins said. “It always felt like a pipe dream and then it became a reality.”
Lee was on temporary duty when she received the phone call from her flight commander bearing the good news.
“Once I found out, I was in disbelief,” Lee said with a chuckle. “After I hung up the phone, I had to let it sink in. I called my parents, and we cried together.”
Both women had different journeys and goals that led them to the same place. They now have the opportunity to serve their country in a different capacity. Aspiring to be the type of leaders who can inspire change from the top down and impacting the future of the Air Force and the Airmen they will oversee. These are goals they strive for now but believe can be achieved to a greater degree as U.S. Air Force officers.
Story by Senior Airman Amelio Brown
22nd Air Refueling Wing