From the current and former military folks I know, serving in the military doesn't seem terrible. A friend of mine enlisted straight out of high school, served 20 years, retired with a sweet pension at 38yrs old, and now lives in a big house with a boat and can spend all the time he wants with his young kids. One of my best friends was working at KFC in his late 20's living with his parents and then enlisted in the navy as a last resort for a career. Less than 5 years later he was able to buy a house.
I live in DC where there are many successful military. I live a fairly expensive area and I see active military in uniform that own houses that are easily over 1 million. I live near an expensive private school and often see uniformed military dropping their kids off and picking them up. But I'm sure this isn't typical in smaller military towns like say in Missouri.
I also know many successful corporate white collar folks that served in the military. Just because you serve in the military doesn't mean that you're military for life. I know many guys that served 4 years, used their GI bill, graduated from college with 0 debt, worked their way up the corporate ladder.
Growing up, enlisting in the military was looked down upon like a career path for dummies. Almost used as an ultimatum to do well in school or else you'll have your ass chewed out by a drill sergeant in the hot summer sun vs studying in an air conditioned college dorm. But in the end I see many military that are just as well off vs those who went to college out of high school. With the military it seems like if you can suck it up for at least 4 years you'll be granted a bunch of benefits that can really help you get ahead in adulthood.
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Most people don’t even qualify for the military, for starters. They have criminal issues or don’t fit the mental/physical requirements.
Assuming they do, the benefits of the military are substantial. The base pay is not good, but if you take advantage of all of the included benefits – the compensation is actually very good. You can do 4 years and get your education paid for as well as having real world professional experience on your resume. That’s not the worst option.
You can make a career of it, get all of the above, and get a full pension before you’re 40. Also not the worst option.
You can also join the military, be lazy, and get very little out of it. That is the worst option – but the reality is you likely would have done that anyway.
So no, the military isn’t a bad way to go. You do need to understand that it is a hard and fast contractual commitment, though.
I think attitudes toward the military have changed since we were kids, especially as it pertains to future career opportunities. I’ve encouraged several students to look at military careers. You’re a little older than me, but I think the generation before us were coming off of the Vietnam backlash, and then while we were in HS/MS there were a lot of people who saw a lot of problems with Iraq and Afghanistan, especially with regards to PTSD and veterans services. But as those services have improved (still not great) and fighting overseas has died down (for now) a lot of people see the military as a solid career move.
It’s also worth mentioning how degree inflation and wage stagnation have made college and white collar jobs less desirable than they were when we were growing up.
I did 10 years. Got my bachelors and my masters while I was in along with a few certs. Absolute game changer for me. I got out and incorporate for 7 years. I made a ton of money while doing it and now do part time consulting and work a few hours a day. The military can be a massive stepping stone but you gotta take advantage of the opportunity it gives you.
I did 4 years, didn’t really like it, but don’t really like anything. In retrospect, being out for 10 years, I wish I just rode it out. Everything sucks but at least the military is reliable and has great benefits.
Not a military person myself, but I am a navy brat – my dad was a long-time naval officer, so I’ve seen it from the side of a family member and grew up around it.
You outlined a bunch of the pros. My dad had to join the navy because it was his only chance of going to college, and it was very easy for him to get a job post-military, both because US companies are incentivized to hire ex-military and because former military personnel typically make great employees. Military officers are often given huge amounts of leadership responsibility at a very young age, operate in extremely difficult working conditions (ex: literal war zones, in submarines, at distant military bases) for very long hours, and the military chain of command makes for an exceedingly obedient employee. I am an investment banker, and my ex-military colleagues are absolute machines. “Can’t be worse than the shit I saw in fallujah”.
Think you need to also consider the cons. My dad was lucky to have served during a time of widespread world peace, and even so, he had no life during his twenties. Constantly training for very low pay, was away from his family for weeks / months at a time with very little contact, and constantly did menial, taxing work. He has permanent hearing loss and couple other ailments just from the 15 years he served active duty. I am extremely grateful for those who serve, but I will also say that all of my ex-military colleagues have this aura of a nascent maniac, like they could go hulk mode at any moment if they get pushed too far. Don’t know how else to explain it.
No. It’s not. And unless anyone has actually done it for themselves you should ignore their “well my uncle was in and x y z happened” or “my cousin was in the *insert branch* and said how horrible it was”
I went from a 17 year old junkie, to becoming an NCO by 20 because of leadership ability I didn’t know I had.
There are numerous benefits in terms of education, special housing loans, waived fees, healthcare, familial benefits etc… But it has to be worth it to you.
The physical aspect of the military was the easy part. Conditioning your mind to push yourself through extreme discomfort and pain, or compartmentalizing things others might find unfathomable is the hard part. Your view on the world going in, will not be your view on the world going out. Maybe it would be different now in “peacetime”.
TLDR: it’s worth it, probably very worth it for non combat jobs.
No. It can be anything from short term means to an end to a fulfilling career with a pension at 20 years. You may not be “rich”, but it’s a solid place to be. Insert usual caution about being sent to meaningless conflicts for defense contractor and congressional profit.
> …they could go hulk mode at any moment if they get pushed too far.
I think that this is just about everybody now. Most people are exhausted trying to fit into this world. Some people have an incredibly difficult life and do not have the emotional or cognitive capacity to regulate themselves.
Not sure my experience 30+ years ago translates, but I joined straight out of HS, Army infantry. Served 2 years. Been paying dividends ever since with college tuition and VA loans for 3 houses (not at the same time).
not a veteran, but have over a dozen friends who have joined between the ages of 18-21 as enlisted, we’re all millennials.
most of my friends feel they were abused by the military, by it as an institution and their commanding officers. from a political perspective, they feel they were lied to and they were brainwashed to do bad things in countries they should have never been in (many of them were in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Haiti at some point). from a health perspective, nearly all of them are considered significantly disabled despite most of them never being in a combat or anywhere near it. here’s my understanding of their experiences:
1. navy guy: felt so abused by his commanding officers he attempted suicide while stationed abroad. he was discharged as a result and has no benefits whatsoever from his service. continues to suffer from PTSD as a result. not exactly sure what they did to him, but i believe it was sexual in nature.
2. paratrooper: was given inferior equipment that resulted in significant damage to his knees, ankles, shoulder, and neck. suffered permanent nerve damage in his shoulder and can’t lift anything or work any sort of physical labor as a result. is part of many class action lawsuits (such as against 3M) that are going nowhere and unlikely he’ll receive any sort of meaningful compensation.
3. navy guy: was at a bar while stationed abroad and was beaten senseless by locals for some weird faux paus. was blamed by his superiors and almost court-martialed. has traumatic brain damage as a result and was discharged with full benefits, but has never been the same, can’t work a job, etc.
4. army guy: was stationed in afghanistan as a 40 caliber gunner on a humvee. is completely deaf as a result. had his leg blown off by an IED and threw away his purple hearts because he feels he was completely abandoned by the military and the VA after leaving the service. he has people who come from non-profit veteran services to try and help him, he scares them off with an AK-47. very, very, very damaged physically, emotionally, and mentally.
none of these guys joined to be “in the military for life”, but their 4-6 year service irrevocably altered their life course in very bad ways. did/do they have more money than they would have if they worked a retail job? absolutely. are their bodies and minds so seriously damaged they will never live up to their full potential? also absolutely.
It’s all what you make it. I did 8 years. My biggest thing was I never wanted to be in charge of other people. Hell, I didn’t have my own life in order so how can I tell others how to get theirs in order?
If you are interested in something I bet the military has a job in that field.
I had lots of horrible shit happen to me while in but most of that was my own fault.
If you want to have a good time and you work to make it that then it’s a good thing. I have a buddy I was in with and that dude used the military to save money. He lived in the barracks and saved money. He didn’t drive flashy cars and all that. when he got out he started a business then used that business to buy another business and kept doing that until now where he owns and runs 6 to 8 successful businesses.
My neighbor when I was stationed at Ft. Hood was going to college full time and getting paid. His dumbass decided to not stay in shape and failed 2 PT tests and got removed from the college program. Every base offers college classes at a very low cost.
National Guard in many states will get you free tuition then you get your GI Bill. So you can go to school full-time and still have money to live off of.
I am 18 years active duty AF. It has been great for me. Got me out of Nowheresville and gave me real career experience. I have lived in 6 states and 2 other countries. I can retire in about 2 years and collect money for the rest of my life. I recommend it to anyone who is interested. I dont know where I would be if I didnt join. I suppose somewhere making $25/hr or something.
Its a great path if you either 1) Have nothing else going for you or 2) are ready to sacrafice a lot of your freedom and personal life for 10 years+ in order to get free higher education, easy house loan, long term health care and all other veteran benefits.
I was a military husband. My ex-wife joined when she couldn’t afford to continue paying for school and her mom said she had to stop living with her. She had nothing else she could really do as she was already working full time and trying to pay for college.
She did 6 years, got a VA loan for a house with no down payment + some other perks/benefits. I think it paid for her to finish college but we were divorced by then so not 100% sure.
Those six years were intense for her though. Some times it was a breeze, but she was up at 4:30 every day getting ready for PT. She would spend weeks in the field. When we had vacation time it was awesome, but otherwise she was living the military schedule with a small amount of evening time to watch some TV and weekends were sleepign and some occasional daytrips around Germany (was cool being stationed in Germany)
I have two good friends who are vets:
Friend 1: Naval ROTC to Officer track, Naval Aviation. Free college, learned to fly, spent several years ordering marines around, got out in his 30s, married another Navy officer, went to law school for free, now is a Big Law attorney with kids and multiple properties. Loves the Navy, dude will be in Congress one day.
Friend 2: enlisted as infantry during Iraq, fought in Fallujah, took heavy casualties protecting convoys. Got out with bad PTSD, went to college, couldn’t find work so took factory jobs, got his CDL and now drives trucks. Awesome dude, regrets his time in Iraq and wishes he did ROTC instead. Feels like his friends died for nothing, given how Iraq and Afghanistan played out in the long run.
Most ex-military men/women I’ve met came across were fairly intellgent, has common sense, and have a type of drive you don’t find in typical civilians. I’m sure there are dummies and all that within the military but ratio wise I’ve seen more good then bad compared to civilian counterparts. They generally whine less and have a better attitude about things.
If the military did that to them then I cannot with a straight face say it’s a road for “losers”.
Of the half dozen guys that I graduated high school with that joined, two (Marines) have committed suicide and another guy (Marine) lost half his face and a leg in Iraq. One guy (Navy) is still in and very much seems to enjoy making a career out of it. He’s some sort of instructor now. The other two (Army) got out after their initial 5 years or whatever and seemed to want to move on with their lives. But I graduated in 2002 so not exactly peacetime. Most of the people I have talked to that really tout their time in the military as being a great choice for them didn’t experience much or any combat.
I can only speak from my own experience, I joined the marines after highschool with plenty of opportunity, but I didn’t want to go to college.
I got what I was looking for (minus the combat deployment) came back and got my college degree with no debt and I’m now doing very well.
Yes, it’s not for everyone, I have had shitty experiences with toxic people but other than my hearing loss it was largely positive.
It’s how you frame and it and a lot of it being luck. I’m sure I wouldn’t feel this way if I’d gone through some of the horrific combat of the 00s that many Marines saw.
Well, I mean… being dead due to war has its downsides. I served. It is a reasonable way to make a living and/or fund an education.
20 years and you can start a second career!
That said, if I were to do it again, Air Force. AC is nice
Enlisting was always my back up plan.
So is this the strategy recruiters are using now? Like I know we’re struggling with quotas but, man the follow-up posts are ridiculous. You guys gotta do better. My favorite is:
> Best decision ever, joining and going to combat.
lol wut. Bro I joined the USMC in 2003 — “every Marine a rifleman” — and getting shot at isn’t fun. There is a reason I don’t play FPS games and avoid fireworks shows. I miss my A4, tho.
All told, it worked out okay for me, I had a field signals MOS that got me good jobs in the real world, but I know plenty of folks who didn’t get so lucky. Both in the sense that they ain’t got no legs, and in the sense that they did 4 years in the service working as a dental assistant in Missouri, not getting laid, and doing shit they hate for 4 years. That said, they still got the GI bill and are doing okay doing IT, but homie could have gone to Community College.
Vet here, the military is a cross section of America. It’s got people from every walk of life, and the jobs to match. Your experience as a Marine Door Kicker will be very, very different than your experience as an IT guy in the Space Force. Even then, your cushy IT job in an air conditioned room will vary service to service. I work with an ex-USAF IT guy that’s got baggage from working IT around drones and the high-collateral-casualty situations they cause. If he did everything right, people that were alive ended up dead. On the other hand, I also know an ex-USCG IT guy that’s doing great and the service has been nothing but a great stepping stone to get him out of a rough place in life and into a much better position. If he did everything right, people that were about to die ended up saved.
Your branch, and your job within that branch matter far more than people on the outside realize.
The 4 years I did was the funnest work I’ve ever done. Worked on jets with a bunch of guys my age, partied hard, worked a ton of hours and traveled. It was worth the hours worked for the free school and VA loan
depends which branch.
I out of high school in 2005, my best friend joined the army. He went to Afghanistan and he came back a different person… For the worse.
He was a horrific racist, smoked two packs a day, and he had severe PTSD from combat.
I had another friend who joined the Marines in 2011. Similar story.
however, I had a brother-in-law who was struggling with direction but had a good head on his shoulders he join the Air Force and has been absolutely flourishing ever since.
I have a cousin who became a Navy seal and he also suffers with severe PTSD .
This is totally anecdotal,
But I have a one year-old son, and I would do everything I could to commit some to not join the military unless he was interested in the Air Force
9 years as a combat medic in the reserve.
Enlisted at 19.
I’ve since gone into the mental health field.
Now 49.
The training is literally designed to rewire your brain. Something like 18% can pull the trigger, about 6% can do it twice. The training is designed to make people react to orders or threat without extended thought. Partially because the half second it takes to consider a move under fire makes you a statistic, and partially to build a tolerance to violence through exposure.
“Build tolerance to violence through exposure”
People walk out of basic with ptsd they didn’t go in with. Not everyone, but it happens.
Then there’s combat exposure. People think they can handle seeing some one die. “I watch TV, I’ll be fine”. I lost a patient 29 years ago. I still see his face. I didn’t end him, it wasn’t even combat related, but I thought of him as mine and he didn’t make it. Now try that in a combat environment, with them bleeding out in your arms. That isn’t medic specific, it happens. Though seeing your friends blown up by an IED is more common these days.
Then there’s the physical toll. When you’ve young you feel invincible and strong, and no lie, you’ll hit peaks of physical ability you hadn’t dreamed of in basic. There’s a price to pay for it later. Chemical exposure, spinal damage, joint damage. That’s without combat time, and it all comes due later in life.
Oh, and those benefits? You gotta fight for them every step of the way. It’s the government, keeping their promises isn’t really in their wheelhouse.
There’s plenty of stolen valor on the streets, but there are also an astounding number of veterans. Usually combat vets. Clearly not everyone gets that happy ending with the retirement at 39, so look at it this way:
You’re guaranteed physical damage and a rewiring of the brain, very likely mental trauma, and a degree of separation from civilians that often leads to suicide due to isolation. That’s your ante (without deployment) to roll the dice and try to win the retirement, college fund, and house.
You can up the odds of winning by getting deployed if your government decides you should. It’s not your choice though. Of course, by that point you’re betting your life, raising the mental health and physical harm stakes.
Your choice, but I like to know the odds and the stakes before I sit down at the table.
I think it can be amazing career. We have a friend’s son who was an Engineering major and ROTC in college and went in the Air Force. At 37 he has already overseen launching the partnership with SpaceX for Air Force projects, achieved a Master’s and PhD, and is now in an International Command position living in Europe. Oh, he was Captain of one of the Air Force Sports teams that played in International Competitions. There are some incredibly smart people in our military doing amazing things. He isn’t the exception, have friend’s older and younger doing well too.