Should I join the Air Force or Navy?

In My Humble Opinion
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SeaBees Can Do! Glad to know there are few of us here, I was in NMCB 25 (Reserves) and when I did my 2 weeks was usually attached to NMCB 4, wherever they happened to be.

I wish I had done my active duty enlistment as a SeaBee, but I don’t think my recruiter ever brought them up. Instead I was a AO, which is how I earned that (AW) that is pretty rare in the 'Bees.

You make a great point about assignments, my first duty station was to the drydocked Enterprise in Newport News VA, my best friend in ATD was assigned to VXE-6, the Operation Deep Freeze squadron. He was from VA and I had always wanted to go to Antarctica, but they absolutely wouldn’t switch our orders, didn’t even want to hear about it.

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Whatever you decide, Raguleader, good luck and Godspeed. We’re all grateful for your (prospective) service to the nation.

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I’ve never been military, but I have been a military contractor for 17 years, so perhaps I can provide a different persepctive. (And, I have been on a cruiser and an aircraft carrier, but for less than a week.)

When I was in college, the various services and their ROTC programs were rated by most students in this descending order: AF, Navy, nothing, Army. Now that I have worked with the AF and Navy, I rank them: Army, Navy, AF.

First point. None of the services teach you to fly anywhere you want to settle down, but at least the Navy puts you on the coast. (Although, Del Rio’s reason for existence escapes me.)

Second point. If you don’t fly, being in the AF and Navy can suck. Pilots are number one, although the Navy allows an out with the nuke force, and the AF with Space Command.

Third point: Being on a ship for any length of time must get old. Being on a sub just plain sucks. At least for most people. But, the smartest guys in any service are on submarines. Submariner is also about the safest possible job in a service; we’ve only ever lost two nuke boats.

Why do I rate the AF lower than the others? It is one large beauracracy. There are reasons that the AF has the highest ratio of officers to enlisted of all the services. (One joke runs that the AF needs to change their camouflage to make them look like office equipment.) Getting anyone to take responsibility for something can be all but impossible, unless you are working with the guys that fly. (Remember none of the forces is only about flying. There’s logistics, procurement, satellites, etc.) I’ve never met an Army or Navy officer who wouldn’t make decision; I’ve met AF officers who couldn’t pick a bar.

I think it comes down to the fact that the Army guys do what they do in peace time or in war. If you are in the artillery, you will fire big guns wherever you go. If you are in the Navy, you spend two years out of four afloat and doing the things you would at war. In both services, there is real motivation in making sure you know what you are doing and that your coworkers do. In the AF, not so much. If you totally screw up in Space Command, no matter how badly, you don’t die. If your buddy totally screws up, you don’t die.

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So, on a related note, if I decide to do ROTC and hope for acceptance into the Professional Officer Course, what are some of the more affordable schools? I’m an Arizona resident, and I think I can just barely afford Arizona State if I can somehow get some scholarship money coming my way.

It has been suggested that I just take out some loans outside of my stafford loan, the reasoning being that if the gambit pays off, the 28,000+ salary of a military officer should be able to pay off the college loans easily enough, and if not… hey, what’s another couple thousand dollars of debt after 4 years of college? (Note to self: Build a time machine, travel back in time to 2002, kick the shit out of myself until I start studying. Also, stock up on Pasta Anytimes back when I could find places that sold them, and advise me to ask out that cute brunette before she gets/got a boyfriend)

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The Navy has distinct enlisted and officer recruiters. Ask the (enlisted) recruiters flat out who else you need to talk to to find out about the officer programs… they’ll probably give you the number of the officer recruiter in your area.

Do not enlist with a note “interested in officer programs” in your file and think you’re following the right track to commissioning. You can go into the military as an officer (to be) from Day One if that’s what really interests you.

You can get the military to pay for your school by signing up for a certain number of years of service. Seriously, find a way to talk to someone whose job is to recruit people to be officers.

After they make an offer to entice you to sell your soul remark that the recruiter from the other service made an offer that seemed better.