Nextlife

My two cents - it's a package deal. You only spend a portion of your time each week actually flying. The rest is queep. In the land of the sequester, in AF fighter aviation, we fly once or twice a week right now. The rest of the time you're not flying with the Army, Navy or USMC, you're a soldier, sailor or Marine. That's got to be part of the decision. If you know what airframe you want to fly, find a guard unit that flies it and rush that unit. That can be tough to get hired though. Active duty gives you options to compete, but most of us that had to work our butts off to compete for fighters were jealous of the Guard/Reserve dude who only had to pass each phase (not as easy as it sounds) to get his dream aircraft. I've loved living around the world on active duty, but not moving every three years would not have sucked.

Lobaeux

Take my advice with a grain of salt, since I'm no longer on active duty.
I'm not familiar with Army or Navy aviation, I was one of the few C-130 guys who didn't go through the Navy flight program down at Corpus.
The Air Force is a terrific way of life. Not all my time in the AF was spent as a pilot, only about 3/4 of the time, but I loved my time and wouldn't trade it for anything.
UPT will be the hardest year of your life. As a student, you're under constant scrutiny, constantly being evaluated, tested and stressed. You'll study constantly, subject to fear, ridicule and berating. It's not for everyone, and plenty of very well-qualified, smart and ambitious people never make it through. It's a "cooperate to graduate" system, but there are a few guys who try to slide through. They're usually found out pretty quickly.
However, the year at UPT was one of the best years of my life. The training is amazing, you learn to parachute, basic survival, how to fly high performance aircraft and how to lead. An absolutely amazing year. And it continues after UPT, there's survival school, resistance training (think how to deal with being captured and put in a POW prison), and then your follow-on aircraft training. All the while being paid quite well.
The days of big time flying are coming to an end though. With sequester, the guys in my old unit are flying about 5 hours per month. After sequester, it may not get much better as the Air Force is in a huge fuel-conservation mode, and a lot of training will be done in simulators. Missions will obviously be conducted in the actual aircraft, but checkrides and proficiency sorties will be conducted in a full-motion simulator. The new simulators are amazing, giving a full range of motion and excellent visuals, but theyre still simulators. I envision guys going through UPT now will be hard pressed to reach ATP minimums by the time their first commitment is up.
But, don't let me be a Debby Downer. It's still an amazing career, a worthwhile and honorable career and one I'd never, ever regret having.
Good luck in your decision, it's an amazing time to be a young pilot.

Grumble

Lobaeux

I met Chuck Norris in College Station on an out & back when I was instructing in T-1s.
Great guy, shorter than I expected, but I'm pretty sure he walked through a glass door without opening it.

Fluglehrer

This is a very sad day. This is basically Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution applied to our USAF to remove all traces of historical legacy/tradition: Eliminating historical patches, offensive nametags, nose art, hawglogs, doofer books, songbooks, coins...I'm sure that will stop the rapists at Lackland.
Did they remove the hands of fighter pilots after performing the hand gestures to "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"? That's probably the next step...

Winterking

Apply to all of them. If accepted into an Air National Guard unit, or any Guard unit for that matter, take it. You can't predict the future. I'm a 27 year Army Aviator. I've spent the last 13 years in fixed wing with three type ratings. I currently have an interview with with a legacy airline. You never know what is going to happen. Bottom line is, you will have a great time flying for whatever service accepts you.