Our July 15th speaker was Staff Sergeant Dustin K. Cunha, of the United States Air Force. SSgt Cunha is currently tasked as an Air Force recruiter, based in the Hartford Recruiting Center on Pearl Street. He is a resident of Canton, and is married with two young children. SSgt Cunha's primary specialty is in Satellite Communications.

SSgt Cunha presented a set of slides which explained his own family history, career trajectory and reasons for pursuing a military career. He went on to describe the various reasons young people interact with him to explore the opportunities available in military service. Many young people graduate high school but may not have money for education or a defined direction to pursue. Often a period of military service provides time for maturing and self awareness to occur, all while learning varied and transferable skills. He indicated his "primary reward and satisfaction" as derived from his current role as a US Air Force recruiter is "when one of his recruits comes back from training and I get to see how I've changed their life for the better."

The program was well received by our Rotarians, who had many questions for our speaker. From the answers to these we learned that the Air Force is approximately 60% male and 40% female, and therefore the most  evenly split among the sexes among all the branches of the service. We also learned that the reasons given by potential recruits for an interest in military service include: a desire to leave home or Connecticut, hope for educational opportunities at low or no cost, skills training and the desire to serve our country. The Air Force is the only service branch to house its own accredited junior college, the Community College of the Air Force, which grants associate degrees in a variety of technical fields.