Guys, things are getting a bit too personal and heated for IMHO. Take it to the Pit if you want to get all up in each other grills.
Exactly. And if the president decides that he wants to annexe Canada, (as he did in 1812), your sworn duty is to invade Canada. Whether you agree with the action or not, you will do it, right?
And if any Canadian has the opinion that the invasion is wrong, you will be the one trying to stop them from expressing that opinion.
EpicNonsense, I admire your decision to enlist. My feeling is that anybody who is curious about the Army, who thinks he or she would probably like it and fit in well, definitely ought to do it. I doubt you will regret your decision. I sure didn’t.
No, I’ll be (would have been) one of many following the lawful orders of my chain of command. As enemy combatants are not part of my chain of command, I don’t particularly care what opinions they hold or express.
Epic–the Dopers all owe you an apology.
Because nobody seems to be paying attention to your posts.:dubious::smack:
If there is some form of civil uprising, National Guard, rather that Regulars, are usually called up to restore order.
So, probably not.
Does that help?
Now, as to branches: have you considered the Coast Guard? Saving lives, preventing bombs being smuggled in, saving lives at sea by rescue & firefighting, enforcing the law & protecting our environment. You can learn plenty there, & get college money too, just like the Army.
And probably take a Greyhund home for Xmas.
Cpl. gravitycrash USMC. Checking in here. I did my 4 year commitment.
No offense EpicNonsense unless you scored off the charts on the ASVAB there is no way that you could be eligible for any MOS that you choose. It sounds like your recruiter is a good salesman.
I wish you would say more about your personal life because that would help in the advice. Were you a screw up in high school/college. Do a lot of drugs? Pissed off at your family life? No girlfriend?
I was all of the above except no girlfriend. And she wasn’t enough for me to want to stick around.
If you would like kind of a funny story about how I was recruited I will share.
It’s okay, I’m not too worried about it. It’s extra entertainment on the side.
Good point there should a Civil uprising come up. As well as the comment IntelSoldier made regarding this. Thanks…
I actually chose the Army a while back. Early this month I did go through and talk with recruiters from all of the other branches. None of the others, besides the Coast Guard, seemed very interested in me, but I wasn’t interested in the Coast Guard, and they were aware of that. I just went through them to get my asvab done. The other branches always try to pressure me into something with them. Coast Guard was cool and layed back. And I’m talking recruiters, not the branch in whole…
Yes, I would, if people here wanted facts. The reason I don’t usually reply to these threads is that ISTM most posters will believe what they have heard rather than what someone who knows, will post.
Anyway, EpicNonsense, I respect your decision to consider the Armed Services. In the Army, you can take a test, similar to the ASVAB, at your recruiter’s office and find what jobs you may qualify for. I say may, because we cannot do a full physical examination. We cannot determine your moral/legal qualification for your job. As to the physical, I had a young man apply to go infantry. That was all he wanted. He had an ASVAB score through the roof. I reserved him an infantry job. He was color blind, and at the time did not qualify for Infantry. I talked to him, I called my higher ups, called his parents and made sure he got a job he would be truly happy with. He was at the MEPS past midnight, but I made sure he got a job he wanted.
There is no way for the Army to reserve job training for someone in anything other than what the person chooses. If the applicant is not qualified for the job, he/she will know before the contract is printed. The applicant will be given a chance to pick another job. If there are no jobs that the applicant wants and is qualified for, a good recruiter will try to find a job that the applicant does want and is qualified for that may not be currently available. The ship date to Basic Training may be delayed. If all else fails, the applicant may walk off the floor of the MEPS and may come back again at a later date, or never.
If a Soldier fails out of his/her job training, or arrives at training and is found to be unqualified, the Soldier will be given a choice of jobs he/she is qualified for, usually in the same field. If the Soldier does not complete the training for this job, there are no hard and fast rules, but the Soldier may be allowed to separate from the Army.
FWIW, I don’t lie to my applicants, I don’t lie to my Soldiers, and I don’t lie to the friends and family of my applicants/Soldiers. That is why I work long hours. I don’t mind. In two and a half years, I will be back to the Regular Army.
SSG Schwartz
Sorry to continue harping on this, but it is required, by very very important federal law, that the National Guard be called up on a state level. The National Guard cannot be federalized to quell a domestic uprising.
In order for the regular army to be used to quell rioting or whatever, you would need the majority of both houses of Congress to approve it, followed by either presidential approval or a 2/3rd majority in both houses. The chances of this happening during any sort of national uprising are, quite obviously, nearly non-existent. So the chances of a lawful order to go shoot protesters or whatever the military would do in such a situation is nearly non-existent.
After the Civil War, they wanted very, very, very strict laws against using the military on American civilians. The strength of those laws has been reduced somewhat by revisions to the Insurrection Act, but it’s still an almost unthinkable possibility.
But seriously - if you post here you’re probably a fairly intelligent guy, Epic, so don’t join. You can do a lot better. If you want to serve your country, get into politics, or join the Peace Corps or Teach for America or AmeriCorps or the Public Health Service or something like that. Unless you’re a serious screw-up, the military is probably not your best choice.
I’m paying attention to his posts. For instance, I suggest he doesn’t tell the recruiter that he [post=490246] got some girls to cover his body with Icy Hot ™[/post] , or he is surely going to wind up with a weird posting.
'Course if you want to back out, you can always claim they were really guys.
I just hope you don’t know my recruiter.
That is exactly what the United States Military wants. Nothing but serious “screw-ups.” :rolleyes:
Why would you post this? Really, I want to know. Why should intelligent people not join the Army? I got a 97 on my QT score, goddamn, I am too smart to serve my country? Wish I had met you about 9 years ago. I would never had jumped out of an airplane, I would never have seen South Korea, I would never have even seen the house of Abraham. Shit, that sucks, I should have said I am too intelligent to have these experiences, let someone less intelligent have my place.
uc o NinjaChick
SSG Schwartz
I knew someone would go there, but I missed it until SSGSchwartz pointed it out.
I’ll keep this nice. There are plenty of quite intelligent people in the military and there always have been and always will be.
Seriously, NinjaChick, there’s always someone coming along in a military thread and insulting the intelligence of millions of people, but I didn’t expect it to be you. Perhaps if you had applied yourself a little harder to acquiring knowledge, you would know this.
Just a general chime-in: talk to a recruiter from at least 2 services. Often, the difference between Army and Marines recruits is like night and day, and the recruiters will work with each other to send “more appropriate” recruits their way. Think of it this way: strong as an ox, dumb as a stump? Marines. Smart as a whip, but poor attitude? Army. Behavior issues/want to learn a skill? Navy. Smart and a college degree? Air Force or Army.
Seriously, look into them and get some other opinions on which branch. When you take your QT, your grade is going to determine very well what branch is more your speed. Also, do you have ANY college credits? If you can get a degree first, you’ll go to officer much faster. Do the ROTC while you’re there, and you’ll find that the armed forces will be much better to you.
Hooah.
What I wish to post is appropriate only for the pit, so instead I will say that you’ve just insulted a vast array of incredibly decent, intelligent people that you obviously have not the first idea about, including myself, my husband, and my son.
For the record, just in case you’re interested in the facts, I graduated first, as in #1 in my class, from The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. I was 35 at the time, with three children at home. My classmates were mostly single 20 somethings.
Today, I helped save the life of a 2 year old Afghani girl who was playing with a Soviet-era landmine. The techs who also helped? All incredibly intelligent, professional young enlisted folks, not a screw up in the bunch. Tell me, what did you do today?
Yeah, and doubtless the guys that laid those mines in the first place were also incredibly decent, intelligent people.
Ya know, I have no idea, never having known any of them. Given the zeitgeist and dynamics of the Soviet military, it’s probably a good guess that at least some of them weren’t. However, I have known a great many US servicemen in the past 22 years, and I know for a fact that the vast majority of us are.
You’re making it hard to hear the folks actually posting stuff in this thread.
Could you maybe grind your ax somewhere else?
Are you in the Marines?