Thinking about making a career out of the armed forces... suggestions?

Rich said:
But that never meant we would really listen to whatever in the hell his butter-bar ass had to say. Nothing worse than a Lieutenant who thinks they know anything.

The 5 things to watch out for in the Army:

A Captain who says "Ya know, I've been thinking..."
A Lieutenant who says "It's been my experience that.."
A Warrant Officer who says "Hey, Watch this shit!"
A NCO who says "I need a volunteer"
And finally, a Crewchief who says "Don't worry about it.. I got that covered"

2 guesses what my job was :huggy:
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He actually feels the same way. And i hope that wasn't a direct shot at my brother because, making unjust statments about an unknown person isn't always the best thing to do.
But, thats why is and has been in the National Guard. He will have servered 4 years as a Private in the National Guard before getting that butter bar.
 
I am biased in this debate but my vote goes Air Force. Been in for 11 years now. Served time in afghanastan and a year in Korea. Loved every minute of it (except being away form my wife and kids). I am an Aircraft Mechanic and have worked many different airplanes. Started with C-5's and since then have worked on C-130, C-17, A-10, F-16, F-15, a little 141's, and even a few Navy aircraft while in the desert. I say the A.F. becuase the pay is the same and they treat you and your family better IMHO. Our tours to the desert are 3-6 month rotations (Rarely a 365 day tour), compared to the Army's 12-18 month deployments. As I said I am bias here, but being stationed at Pope/Bragg and most of my friends being Army I Know they have said the wish they joined the A.F. instead. Just my .02
 
I'm prior service Marine and would not recomend it for your situation. Like everyone has said it will be almost impossible to finish your education because of deployments and "obligations" to hang around the battalion area preparing for gear inspections that never come. EVERYONE I know that is in or have been in LOVES the Coast Guard. They have real jobs that they do every day not just pretend ones like I had as a grunt. If I had it to do over it would be Coastie straight out of high school. What career thoughts do you have for the future?
 
thanks for all the opinions and insight guys....

the air force and coast guard seem to be moving up and the navy seems to be moving down in interest......

i don't know what i want to do for a living... that's kind of why i am considering the move to the armed forces..... i know a few people who had no clue what they wanted to do when they "grew up" and joined the forces that that very reason and they have seemingly found their niche so i thought i might too....

i love electronics (communications, a/v... low voltage mainly) and i love hands on work...

i am single, and -think-i want to stay single.... i don't see a relationship in my future and i really can't see children so traveling a lot isn't really a downside in my eyes.... in fact, i'd kinda like to take advantage of my freedom and roam around with "work" for a while....

i'm late for a meeting with pops otherwise i'd keep typing but i've gotta run.... tomorrow i think i may visit a recruiter or two.....

-Erik
 
afsc?


yea i love that kind of stuff... just can't find a way to get into that field up until now....
 
if you want to know what military might be like, and also want a degree, go to a military academy like west point, or VMI
that way you will come out with a degree, and you can go either officer or enlisted. i know many people who have gone through both of those schools, and gone both army and usmc. I went usmc, feel free to pm me if you want some info other that recruiter info

chase
 
I have been active duty Marine Corps for almost 22 years and as a prior recruiter, I can answer plenty of your questions.

Your comment about mainly being on the land for the Marines,...that's funny right there, I've got more sea time than most of the sailors I know, four years of ship board living. It all depends on MOS and unit.

As for the advice to not talk to a recruiter, that's BS, talk to them, but don't do anything, no matter how hard the may push. Get all the answers that they have, then research the answers they gave you. A recruiter, contrary to popular belief, doesn't know all the answers, and a good recruiter will tell you that.

As for serving in the Corps, it's not for everyone. My first 16 years I was in the infantry, I loved it, but there comes a time when you need a change, so now I sit in a room with no windows and only I know the combinations to get into. I would not have stayed in so long if I didn't enjoy what I was doing. The day will come when I get tired of putting the boots on, and when that day comes, I'll drop the retirement papers.
 
Also, for those saying that you can't finish your education in the Marine Corps, it's complete bullshit. I personally have no desire for college, but at two duty stations that I have been to, the command made time for you to go to college. In Albany, Ga, for example, I knew several Marines that would go to work at 0730, leave for school at 0900 and come back to work at 1530 to get off at 1630. I had never seen so many LCpl's with degrees in my life.
Much of it is what your MOS is and where you get stationed. A combat arms MOS will put you in the highly unlikely catagory.
Another thing to look out for is that even though you like electronics, that doesn't guarantee that you'll get electronics. Don't, don't, don't let a Marine recruiter push you into a communications electronics program, while there are MOS's in that program that are electech's, you would be rolling the dice on getting it, it would be a high possibility that you'd end up as a radio operator. Look into the more technical programs, something that contains the 2800 MOS field, can't remember the program off the top of my head.
Lastly, are you qualified to join?
Asthma????
Counseling at any age?
What bones have you broken and surgery's have you had?
Legal problems?
Drugs? Type, how much?
Offspring? Got any? Who owns them?

This is the Marine recruiters guide for qualifications, it's long and it's boring, but there are a couple of sections that you should look at, go through the medical qualification section and the one that deals with legal stuff. On the legal side, a misdemeanor for civilians might be a felony for us and vice-versa.

Just like was said earlier and what I would tell my applicants, it's not a matter of if you will go to combat, it's when, be mentally prepared for that, whether you agree with the war or not, you'll be signing up to go.
 
I have just retired with 24 years out of the Army, 10 active duty. You will only get out of ANY serrvice what you put in it. As for the training you do realize that the Marines do very little of thier own training. I have a son that is an Aviation electronics tech and after Boot he has not been to any training run by the Marines. It has all been by the Airforce and the Navy. As to the continuing education he has a 4 year degree that he has got while in the Marines for 5 years. My only recomedation is to NOT take any combat MOS. I enjoyed what I did while active , but it helped me 0% after getting out. Unless you are going SWAT there is no call for jumping out of planes and shooting people.
 
durnzuki said:
I have just retired with 24 years out of the Army, 10 active duty. You will only get out of ANY serrvice what you put in it. As for the training you do realize that the Marines do very little of thier own training. I have a son that is an Aviation electronics tech and after Boot he has not been to any training run by the Marines. It has all been by the Airforce and the Navy. As to the continuing education he has a 4 year degree that he has got while in the Marines for 5 years. My only recomedation is to NOT take any combat MOS. I enjoyed what I did while active , but it helped me 0% after getting out. Unless you are going SWAT there is no call for jumping out of planes and shooting people.
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Many of the services are doing combined schools for cost effectiveness and those Navy schools that we go to, have Marine instructors along side the Navy instructors.

As for not having marketable skills in a combat MOS, that's BS. There are plenty of companies that hire you strictly based on your management skills that you've gained. I've been offered jobs that have absolutely nothing to do with my current MOS or my infantry background simply because of management skills attained, and I'm enlisted.

I was at an even a couple of months ago and was offered $50k starting and the only thing the guy knew about me was that I've been in for over 20 years. $50k may not seem like much, but that on top of retirement is plenty enough for me, but, I'm staying in a bit longer ;)

You are only as marketable as you make yourself out to be, the things that we/I took for granted while serving in the grunts, business are looking for.
 
great information guys, thank you. i'm going to visit a recruiter in about two hours for the military, and around noon i'm supposed to be visiting a coast guard recruiter...... hopefully i'll get a better feel for the whole thing.

as for if i meet the requirements to join..... i'm lazy, and rusty in some areas, but i don't do drugs, the only bones i've broken were a couple toes a few years ago and then the thimb incident..... no legal trouble, no asthma/health problems, no mini-me's running around, etc.....

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-Erik
 
My .02, I was in the navy , I went in when I was 17 and had a blast. 13 different countries in 8 yrs, 5 of which were in the reserves. I was on the USS Sacramento AOE-1 which is a aux oiler (floating 7/11) food, stores, fuel, ammo,( I cannot confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons onboard the USS Sacramento) I had alot of good times and meet a lot of cool people, and of coarse a lot of dirt bags too, I still keep in touch with a few people. The most time I spent a sea without pulling into port was 34 days in the Indian Ocean. Most of the time when your on deployment your only at sea for about 2 weeks, which flies by. As for making a career out of it , at the time 20 yrs sounded like a long time but 3 yrs ago I would have retired at 37. time flies when your having fun, or is it fun flies when your doin time. anyhoo
My suggestion is, pilots have the best jobs in the military, shoot for flight school. If not go for aviation electronics in the cg, navy or airforce.or if your smart enough get in a nuclear program! I am an army brat my dad was a career pilot, so I'm partial to the aviation side of things, usually flight crews have a little better duty than the grunts. especially onboard ships.
 
Erik said:
great information guys, thank you. i'm going to visit a recruiter in about two hours for the military, and around noon i'm supposed to be visiting a coast guard recruiter...... hopefully i'll get a better feel for the whole thing.
as for if i meet the requirements to join..... i'm lazy, and rusty in some areas, but i don't do drugs, the only bones i've broken were a couple toes a few years ago and then the thimb incident..... no legal trouble, no asthma/health problems, no mini-me's running around, etc.....
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-Erik
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Just do yourself a favor and give all the branches a chance to present themselves to you, you don't want to be one of those "I could've been's", meaning "I could've been a Soldier or I could've been a Marine, or I could've been a Sailor or I could've been an Airman".;)
 
Good luck with the USCG recruiters. They were total asshats when I went in to talk to them last winter. I walked in and stood there for 10 minutes while they finished their lunches and told jokes and completely ignored me.
 
Erik if you wanna come check out the base here at Lejeune give me a shout. We can link you up with a coupld of different fields for a say so you can see what really goes on. For some it starts like this. Physical training at 6 until 7-7:30 an hour to shower and then to work. Depending on your job you may go to the field or to an office. It just depends on what you want to do. If you Jump on the Jville Jeepers site you can get a good background of Jobs and experiences since more than half the people on there are In the Marine Corps or closely assosciated. Every buddy has an opinion and life experiences from the Military. I can't complain now but it sucked when I was young. If I was starting out fresh again I would go the 02 fields as they have great bonuses and extremely good option when you get out. Just ask Marindawg on the Jville site. Not sure this helps much and I didn't read everyone elses answers. this is just my 2 cents.

When i was joining I asked my Dad what he thought and he said it was my decision. He said it is only 4 years and if I didn't like it I could get out then. Well it is 17 years later now. Funny thing is my recruiter lives about 3oo yards from me and I ran into my Drill Instructor a couple months ago. Good luck with your choice cause it is a tough one.
 
i'm lazy, and rusty in some areas, but i don't do drugs, the only bones i've broken were a couple toes a few years ago and then the thimb incident..... no legal trouble, no asthma/health problems, no mini-me's running around, etc.....


If lazyness is your thing join the Airforce. I have never seen them do any form of PT exept for ride a bicycle. They have the best Accomidations a work little as possible. My brother inlaw was in the Airforce and always said every other branch works to hard. I was stationed at HAAF in Savannah with the
1st Ranger Battalion and never saw any of the aiforce personnel do any physical labor or activity. If you are no lazy on the other hand the other branches are ideal. You would have to choose according to your preference of life style.
 
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