Nah, it’s even more boring than that. Most jobs in the military involve a lot of sitting around, filling out paperwork, or picking your teeth. There are some exciting and challenging positions (depending on what your definition of those is; for some it might be doing Ranger school and light infantry, for others being a nuc onboard a submarine is the cat’s nads) but it’s mostly like Catch-22, only longer and more absurd. And, unless you are very bright, very talented, or very lucky, you don’t have a lot of control over where you go and what you do. The commercials look exciting, but then, so do action movies, even though most of making films is standing around listening to the grips argue over how they can turn union rules to their fiscal advantage.
It depends on your captain: “This is the captain speaking. Some misguided sailors on this ship still think they can pull a fast one on me. Well, they’re very much mistaken. Since you’ve taken this course, the innocent will be punished with the guilty. There will be no liberty for any member of this crew for three months. I will not be made a fool of! Do you hear me?”
Well, you could have rust and paint races - see which will flake off first.
ETA: In your case, obviously the Captain had an unfair advantage, and would win [del]handily[/del] by the head.
Do you have idea what branch you might be interested it? They can be quite different.
The choices are:
Army
Navy
Air Force
Marines
Coast Guard (maybe but I don’t know how that works)
I won’t comment on the comparative difference because people tend to get pissed but I know a couple of general comments. I was in Air Force ROTC (That is officer training that you complete in 4 years and then become and officer). I got out, not because I didn’t like it, but because I was scared of the commitment involved when they told me that my chances for flying a plane were low and I wouldn’t know until after a made the commitment.
Air Force enlisted people tend to have the jobs most similar to civilian jobs. The base accommodations tend to be the nicest as well. You wouldn’t be able to fly planes but you could work on them and be sent to bases all over the world.
If you want hard-core military, the Marines are good for that. My mother basically forced my little brother to joining the Marines. They turned him from a directionless, close-minded, zenophobe into the worldly, educated, and understanding person he is today. He was rapidly sent to California, then South Carolina, then Japan where he served for three years. His best friend was black and a Japanese man cooked his version of Thanksgiving dinner every year. If you knew my brother before and after, that would be the same as lightning striking the same person every day for a year.
An Gadaí, as has been said upthread, you have to be legally able to work in the US an have your green card. I don’t have my reference here with me, but I will PM you tomorrow with the required documents that you will need to enlist in the US Army.
I could understand how someone who has never been in today’s Army could see it as you describe. When I was in garrison, I woke up about 6am to do physical training. There are many civilians who get up early and go to the gym, and 6 am, at least to me is not an ungodly hour. Of course, YMMV. As far as the Army being a “deadly option” I have known people who have served for over 20 years and never been shot at. Most people who serve, don’t regularly feel at risk of death. You have to keep in mind that there are over 150 jobs in the Army. Most of them, like the job I had prior to becoming a recruiter did not involve dangerous missions. I worked in the mental health field and only fired my rifle twice a year on the training ranges. Jobs such as cook, unit supply specialist, personnel administration clerk, and chaplain’s assistant work in similar conditions. Now I am not saying there are not jobs such as field artillery, light infantry, or explosive ordinance disposal where the job can be risky at times, but the Army has many more jobs than that.
Yeah, the best Army recruiter I know is the Air Force recruiter. :smack:
But seriously, we have sort of a gentleman’s agreement with the other branches. If we can’t get they applicant what he or she wants, we may give the contact information to another branch. Currently we can accept some people that the other branches can’t, so they may send the applicant our way, but I gave one person to the Air Force two weeks ago and another to the Navy last month.
