Not that every branch doesn't have its own issues, contradictories and short comings. But in passing during my search about the Navy I came across the "Fat Lenard Scandal" I'm not exactly enthused about how it was handled top officials get pushed into retirement early, lower level Officers and Enlisted members got martyred while gaged.
More recently LCS-8 USS Montgomery top CO's "fired"(re-assigned) over "loss of confidence in ability to lead" (handling of sexual harassment investigation)
As you said, they signed their name and swore an oath. What is it worth if you have people acting like this? Are the core values just lip service while no one ranking you is watching?
I'm not one for titles or name dropping who I know, But I don't have a lot of patience for mindless bullshit and unnecessary drama.
Full disclosure - have nor served personally. I learned early on it wasn't for me, but I have many friends and coworkers that are vets in various stages.
I'm going to be completely frank. Suprised only
@jeepinmatt has picked up on it.
If thsi kind of shit bothers you, then you really don't need to be considering an Officer career in the military.
That bit about Montomery etc is not really uncommon. Shit like that happens in all branches, and always will. People are always getting pushed into retirement for questionable reasons. Its only a question of how public it is. And with the increasing level of PC-ness and wokeness going on, its not going be less any time soon. Avoiding Navy over any other branch of service b/c of that is, frankly, asinine and you're eyes will be opened too late.
The DoD is literally built on mindless bullshit and unnecessary drama. Its part of the governemnt for Christ's sake. Ask anybody who has had service time about mindless BS and you will hear plenty of stories.
If you were enlisted and doing, er, grunt work, its easy to just shake your head and say "well not my problem." But as a guy that already has a college degree, as has been mentioned you'd be a fool to just enlist.. that ship has sailed. As an officer, especially if you really want to be a career guy, you're going to be in the thick of a lot of bad decisions and frustrating lack of intertia and having to shoose when to fight the current. And there's gonna be times when you're the guy they are bitching about making bad decisions that affect lots of people.
you really need to think about how you feel about that.
Sounds like student loan payments are a big driving factor. That is no reason to join the military. Recipe for regret.
Agree w/ this 10x. Yeah there are good financial incentives, but it should really be a small portion of why to do it. There are lots of ways to get loans paid for. There are programs allowing deferrment of loans for taking certain service sector jobs. Some even come with forgiveness. Or, want to support DoD but not active duty? Go to grad school on a SMART fellowship, get fre tuition AND and stipend AND a guaranteed DoD Civilian job when finished.
Hell... taken night classes and learn a technical field, get a higher paying job and just pay down the loans. Engineers and many technical fields are in such short supply, starting salaries are going through the roof.
Or even find yourself a good sugar mama first wife. You could have your debts paid off, deal with the same leve lof emotional abuse, and be divorced and out in a shorter time that that first contract
Unless we're talking multiple hundreds of thousands in debt - honestly, no reason to sweat it. I mean, yeah, the debt SUCKS, but its *very normal* these days to have student loan debt. Its not the end of the world, and IMO not a good primary reason to jump into military service.
Looking back, what I see in your questions is just that you're fishing out "a career of some sort". I'm not seeing a passion for service. Hell never in all this have you said, "I want to do something to serve my country and others" or "I'm looking to explore being a leader" or the typical reasons people sign up.
Maybe I'm just totally misreading you - just wanted to throw in my 2 pesos.
