Diego Mosqueda, 19, said he was first considering enlisting in the United States Air Force a year or so before he graduated Madera High School in 2023, when he heard about the newly formed branch of the service called Space Force. He had no idea he would become the first Space Force graduate from Madera.
Even the name was intriguing, Mosqueda said. “I first heard about it from my older brother, who was in the process of joining the Air Force. The Space Force was a brand new branch of the U.S. military service,” he said, “and it was a chance to be part of that growth, to travel, with all those new opportunities. I knew it would be a challenge and involve space technology and other things I hadn’t even thought about yet.
Mosqueda spent 7 and a half weeks in basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and graduated in August of 2023 with top honors. He received the Top Performer Award for the class, an honor based on academics, physical fitness, and peer reviews by his classmates in the 1st Delta Operations Squadron, Detachment 1.