Is the military really that bad?

Great Debates
1

A couple years back I was trying to decide weather to go back to college to get a BS or join the Navy. Eventually, I decided to do the college thing, but on the caveat that if I felt like it, I could always join some branch of the military as an officer when I finished school.

What I found strange is that some people I knew seemed to have a very adverse reaction when I mentioned this. One of my friends said that I joined the military, she would kill me. I told one of the officals at my last college that I was considering joining the navy and she looked at me like I had just grown a 2nd head.

In both cases, I found it extremely odd considering I distinctly said “Navy”. Not “Marines”, nor “Army”, nor “His Royal Majesties kamikazie bagpipers squadern”. You know, the branch that tends to have a rather low causatly rate(since we haven’t fought a war againest someone with a decent navy since WW2) and no doubt a higher reliance on skilled people.

I might be biased, as both parents were in the Navy as enlisted for 20 years and both have no regrets about it. I have a fairly good idea what it’s like from people I’ve talked to and so far I’ve really heard nothing horrible. I do realize that certain branches have a varying risk of being killed but that seems rather obvious. Is there some horrible secret nobody has told me so far? Or are these reactions coming from hippies? Or something else?

2

I’m enjoying my time in the miltary, although I am enlisted. If I could do it again, I’d go to college first and then enter so I could be an officer. But all in all, I have few regrets. I mean, for my job (meaning I get paid to do this, and I get a bonus), I get to fly in this.
I suggest Air Force instead of Navy.

3

Eh, when I was at the academy (West Point) I had people saying, “I can’t believe you’d go to school there, you know they make you serve in the Army for six years?” They didn’t seem to understand that some people you know, actually want to be in the military. I think part of it is misconception (ie your job is basically killing or getting killed, when that’s typically not what you’re doing) and then I think there are just people who could never imagine putting themselves into a military situation and can’t imagine why anyone else would do the same.

And yeah, some of it is hippyism.

4

Army vet here. No, the military isn’t that bad. It’s just . . . different.

The military is different than anything else you will ever do with your life. You will do things, see things, and go places you would have no chance of experiencing outside the military.

It’s also a hard life. The saying is that there are three ways to do things: The right way, the wrong way, and the army way. From what I hear, the Navy is even more rule crazy, and that’s pretty farkin’ crazy.

You do a lot of PT. You do a lot of busy work. You do a lot of waiting. You do a lot of wondering about what’s going on back home. Speaking of home, you won’t see it very much, what with being stationed overseas or TDY or being deployed to wherever you’re needed. The bullshit level is incredible. Some of the people you will take orders from will be living saints. Some will be dumber than anything you could have dreamed up in civilian life. Most will be somewhere in between.

If you have a girlfriend or spouse before you went in to basic, you will most likely not have him or her by the time you are discharged (The drills love to bring this up in basic training.). Quite a few vets, myself included, also experience some degree of alienation even from their immediate families. Even if you don’t see combat, you will see enough so that you will not be the same person coming out as going in.

You also have to face the possibility of combat or an otherwise life-threatening situation. In this day and age, you might have to participate in a conflict that is at odds with any moral convictions you might have, and don’t think for a second that your scruples matter in the grand scheme of things. If you are called, you go or face the consequences, and those consequences are horrendous. They will follow you around for the rest of your life.

And yet, I’m so glad I went in. I thank the god I don’t believe in that I enlisted. The army took me and helped me mature. It helped me toughen up to meet challenges. It gave me discipline and a direction in life. Yes, I hated the bullshit, but overall, it was worth it. I think about my friends from college, and how they’re all doctors, lawyers, accountants and insurance executives now. They’re living the same life they were living way back when we graduated. Boringly bourgeoise. Thanks in part to the mental and psychological changes I went through in the army, and thanks to my wife, whom I met in the army, I was able to break out of that mold. I was lucky enough not to see combat, although I still got pretty banged up, which plays hell with my workouts nowadays.

I could not in good faith recommend the military to anyone. If people press me, I tell them that if I had known what I was getting myself into, I never would have done it in a million years . . . Therefore I’m extremely thankful that I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I knew the risks, I raised my right hand, and I walked in with my eyes wide shut, and a decade later, I have no regrets.

Except for when I told that E-6 to go fuck himself when I was in Korea. I wound up being kind of sorry I did that. Oh well, those port-a-potties don’t clean themselves I guess. Someone has to do it. :smack:

5

I was in Air For ROTC for 2 years as an undergrad. I decided to get out because I wasn’t sure that I wanted to commit. Other than that, I thought it was great and sometimes wish that I did commit as an officer. Of course, that was only training for the military and not the whole thing.

My little brother, the former screw up, enlisted in the Marines at my mother’s insistence. He decided he really didn’t want to go after he signed up and was facing some serious consequences by the Marines. My mother worked out a plan in which the MP’s came to our house and gave him a choice early one morning. He was on a plane to California later that day. He went to to Camp Lejeune and then on to Japan. Here was boy that didn’t like to go to the next state half way around the world. He learned electrical work and is now the model of a stable employee, husband, and father. He thanks the Marines for most of that.

I think the military is a great choice for many and some even decide to make a career of it.

6

One more thing.

My stepfather, who completed college and Naval ROTC, says that the military is the best possible training you can have for leadership skills. As a 2nd Lieutenant, straight out of college, he had command of people and resources that would be unheard of in a business. The civilian sector gives managers responsibility for things a few at a time. In the military, you can be responsible for millions of dollars worth of equipment and dozens if not hundreds of people. The stakes and expectations are also higher than they generally are in the private sector. It makes some skills seem easy once you get back home.

7

Absolutely. My boyfriend, who is a 1st Lt in the AF is 30 years old, and holds a management position that a civilian probably wouldn’t be able to achieve until he was 40. AND he is prior enlisted, so if he had entered as an officer, he would pobably be 5 or more years ahead. He is directly in charge of a staff of over 120 in six network infrastructure sections in a communications squadron. Not bad for 30. The leadership skills he has gained are awesome - what he is doing is probably equivalent to upper management or a VP for a large company.

He was basically out on his own at 18, with no family to support him whatsoever. He joined at 18 and the AF really took care of him, paid for his education, he worked his way up through the ranks and became an officer. He will retire at 38 with a phat pension, and will get a civilian job in the computer field probably starting in the mid-hundreds of thousands. Not bad for a kid who was on his own at 18.

However, he had smarts, drive and ambition. A lot of enlisted guys (well and some officers) he works with just slide by through the system and some are real losers (they don’t last long anyway). So it could go either way.

There are a lot of downsides to the military too of course. For one, you may be called to put your life on the line. And you have to go where they tell you when they tell you, uprooting your family every few years. And I am not too fond of the military culture myself (neither is he). But in his case, it’s been a very good thing.

8

This has come to mind, particulary when I hear the stuff about wanting to keep military recruiters out of school. I understand the “don’t ask, don’t tell” thing, but other then that I get the impression that some people think military recruiters are little more then press gangs.

9

I already do a lot of Exercise. A couple hours a day to keep myself in shape. I don’t see that as being much of a problem. Maybe if I joined the marines(the Crucible sounds pretty daunting, but I guess that’s the point), but that’s not my first choice(they seem to have a problem with being shot at the moment).

GF/Spouse, not a problem. Just immediate family and a few friends(but I see few of them in person anymore anyway).

Being deployed actually sounds like a bit of a bonus. At this point, I really do want to see somewhere else(preferably Europe). I’ve lived in the same city for 15 years.

I’ve just been thinking about it a lot lately.

10

I don’t think it would necessarily be awful but I would hate it in the beginning because you would have no leisure time to do the stuff you like to do. It would be like working 24/7 cause you can’t just leave the base and go do anything or enjoy any hobbies. It would suck if they stationed you somewhere lame and not to insult anyone in the military but it seems like a lot of the people that I have met who are in it have their whole life revolve around it and its all they can talk about, sort of boring to be around people like that.

11

The military is more than a job it’s a lifestyle. But I’ve actually rarely noticed any of my fellow military friends talk very much at all about their military service.

While the military is a lifestyle, you do get to have a non-military life while you’re in, and even when you’re deployed.

Of course we’re only talking anectdotally here, I’d bet your perception is probably swayed by a small number of individuals. Whereas I’ve known thousands upon thousands of men and women in all branches of the Armed Forces and basically you see every type of person. You have macho types, gung-ho militeray uber alles types, people that like to spend their free time gardening, nerds, car freaks, gamers, jocks, et al. Basically just about every type of person you see outside of the military you can see inside (although there are probably certain personality types not much represented in the military ie hardcore pacifists.)

12

And actually you do have down time even during basic when you can enjoy certain hobbies. You are limited in your movements but it’s a short period of time and as with anything in any field if you want to get ahead you sometimes have to go through periods of doing things you don’t necessarily like (ie studying in college, having to do internships, having to work at boring entry-level positions etc.)

13

I am/was an Army brat, so I guess I have about as much an idea of what being in the military is like as you do, as you mentioned your parents were in the Navy.

I’m not a bit surprised that you’d get negative reactions in college telling people you might join up. I don’t know what kind of school you go to, but there’s some truth in the stereotype about higher education being anti-military. To a lot of people immersed in that world, the idea that anyone would join the military voluntarily, in the middle of a war (even if you are joining the Navy and will presumably be safer), is outlandish. Especially since you have other options, having gotten your degree – I doubt they would be so shocked if you were a poor inner city kid, or a trouble-maker who would otherwise be heading to jail – ie, their stereotype of the type of person who joins up in the first place.

Go for it, if you’re interested. It’ll be great, if you’re interested in travel – the Navy gets stationed in some really cool places.

14

Based on the replies from the female friend and the school official, it sounds to me that HPL has encountered residual feelings from the Vietnam era. Such folks are not necessarily (ex-)hippies. There are a lot of people who came to see the military as bad at that time. It is not a matter of the danger to you, but the danger you represent to others. (All those Tomahawks flying over the Middle east tended to come from warships, not Army artillery.)

And, of course, some of those old feelings are going to be exacerbated by reports coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan of wedding parties being blown up in air attacks. (Regardless whether the actual event occurreed as reported, the reports are going to reinforce particular views.) And the military, in general, is going to be tarred with the brush of Abu Ghraib.

There has always been a conflicted view of the military from civilians. (Kipling’s Tommy and The Last of the Light Brigade attest to that, along with the city council minutes and ordinaces from any town near a military base.) However, when the military becomes an agent of less than popular political goals, then that issue is magnified.

15

I wanted to add that though the personally think the military would be for me, I think it is a very admirable occupation.

16

Hippies. Definitely Hippies.

I joined the Army Reserve late in life, and have enjoyed it thoroughly. It’s taken me to both Europe and the Far East. I really regret not having gone through ROTC and done an active duty stint after college.

17

One of my friends rode the Navy through college, med school, and her internship and residency. She did two tours, and got out with some of the best training and experience in the world, and zero debt. You can’t beat it for things like that.

18

Bolding mine.

To me, that is the crux of the issue right there.

I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I had voluntarily given up my ability to act in a moral way.

If that makes me a hippy, then so be it.

19

Is there ANY life decision you can make that won’t be criticized by a lot of arrogant jerks?

20

I was Navy enlisted from 85-89.
It is not great but the experience was. The hours are long and the jobs can be horrible.
You get a good life experience and usually supervisory experience disproportionate to the civilian world for your age. Many companies still value military experience.

I would also suggest the Air Force is a better service than the Navy as it is a less arduous life.

Jim (EM3)