Do you guys know if civilian jobs in the US Armed forces (airforce to be exact) would qualify for expedited citizenship, or is it an actual battlefield enlistment that does?

Civilian employment does not cut it. You have to be on active duty or recently discharged.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/immigr...ilcitizens.htm

nettlebed,

thanks for your response I actually came across the link you gave me but thought the term "active duty" meant any type of employment. But as it turns out, you must be an actual soldier. Not an engineer or anything of such sort.

Yep. You have to hold a military position, not a civilian one. Otherwise, I'm sure there would be many, many more people applying for civilian positions. Then again, there are security restrictions for a significant proportion of civilian engineering and scientific positions, so it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation anyway...

It doesn't mean you have to necessarily be in the service at this very moment and I will give an example only because there might be others out there in a somewhat similar position/situation.

DH was and still is in the New York State Guard. When 9/11/01 happened, his unit was activated to help assist protect NYS and assume the duties of the National Guard in NYS. As a consequence, he was given the right to expedite his naturalization. Although he did not use it, when he did apply for his naturalization in 2003, his paperword was rushed through and he became a USC within 5 months of applying. At that time naturalizing in NYS was taking a year or so.

Yes, I noted that recently discharged would be good enough. Of course, I didn't go and find out what constituted "recently".