Should this kid be in the Army?

A dear friend of mine has a 23 year old son who has been at loose ends a lot of his life. He is addicted to prescription painkillers but is slowly withdrawing using a drug called savoxin/suboxone which is being given to him by a friend who is also withdrawing. His drug addiction has calmed down substantially from several months ago when he was selling off his his mother’s DVD and CD collection to buy drugs. He has lived with her virtually all his life and has floated between a series of low level retail and food service jobs that he quits when he gets tired/disgusted or is fired when they tire of him. His mother has been trying to get him into an inpatient treatment program, but he keeps making excuses and delaying saying that he believes he can handle his withdrawal himself.

Anyway, his latest thought is to join the Army and his mom is firmly opposed to it as she believes he is sensitive and artistic and she believes they would eat him alive. (He does have superb graphic art skills, and he is very talented for someone who is not a professional artist). In some ways he’s almost a caricature of your classic slacker, but I’ve had him doing some odd jobs for me like yard work, and he’s completing the tasks I give him. I get the vibe that he really wants to break out this cycle of going nowhere but he’s not sure how.

He still needs to get his GED, and interestingly enough he has an absolutely clean police record as he has never been caught at any public drug use. He’s 6’1 and weighs around 145 lbs and is on his way to getting pretty fully tattooed. I discussed the minimal Army physical push up, sit up and running requirements I got off the web and he believes he can do them all without problems. He’s a smoker (pot and cigarettes) but says he can quit those. His mother has told he he also has asthma.

If he stays clean long enough to get the pot and suboxone out of his system and gets his GED could he make it in the Army. He thinks the Army structure would help him and to frank I really don’t disagree. His mother thinks this is simply a foolish setup to a spectacular crash and burn given his historical lack of discipline and while emotional, she’s also a fairly astute person generally, and his mom, so … I don’t know quite what to think.

I’m tempted to step in and offer assistance, but I’m not his dad (who left the family approx 11 years ago with little to no contact and is overseas now) and being the son of an alcoholic mother I’m very vary of the real world limits of what you can really do to help drug addicted people.

It might be different if we weren’t at [constant, perpetual, never-ending] war, but since that’s the case, how about some different kind of structure or service like, say, Peace Corps, Job Corps or Coast Guard? It seems like being in the middle of combat when you’re fundamentally ill-suited to it and trying to learn as you go is an extraordinarily bad idea. If he can’t stand the idea of inpatient rehab, why does he think he can tolerate the military? At least with inpatient, he has a chance to come out with all the limbs he went in with.
Just my $0.02.

I think most of the other services (service or military) are going to be looking for a HS degree. I think (I’m guessing) that the Army is the only group that might plausibly take him given his lack of well… everything.

No high school required for Job Corps: Job Corps - Wikipedia
I think you’re in San Diego, aren’t you? They have a center here somewhere…

If he wants a kick in the ass that bad, there are some hardcore drug rehab programs that rival the military but he’ll, y’know, live. Can you seriously see this kid in Iraq?

OK, hate me and I shouldn’t say this:

The US Army has become the last resort of the hopeless.
Let’s be honest.
Signing up for the Army is a direct flight to Iraq.
Most kids of that age are smart enough to know this and will only use this as an option of last resort; get out of a bad environment, get financial aid for college, earn money somehow for your family…
Or their parent(s) hope(s) it will “straighten them out”.
Yes, there are still a few kids who sign up for more patriotic reasons, but at this point in time, is there any doubt that new enlistees will be in Iraq before they can find it on a map?

In the “old days” there was a draft and you couldn’t get out of it.
Today, the Army relies on finding new recruits in any way possible…they have lowered every requirement to the point that, unless you are severely impaired, they will accept you.

I just think it is a shame that many kids who enlist today are doing it out of desperation.
The US forces have always had a reputation of being strong, and I don’t doubt for a minute that this kid will go through rigorous training and, who knows, maybe it actually will “straighten him out” as it were.

It is a sad state of affairs when the Army is being used as a de-facto re-hab center for kids who can find no other alternative.

I’m just wondering about the description by the kids mom of him being a sensitive artist.
If you ask me, she’s made her emo kid, now she has to deal with him. The good news is, you don’t have to go anywhere to fix yourself. If the kid wants to be a productive human, all he has to do is be one.

On the other hand, I think more kids should experience the type of discipline found in the miitary. Or at least, discipline.

Maybe him joining the army would do him some good, I don’t know. But it doesn’t seem like him joining the army would be good for the army.

Hey, the army needs people to work as cooks and drivers, too. It just doesn’t turn them into anything other than cooks and drivers.

No. His situation has too many variables that will set him up for failure. Besides his obvious physical limitations, (Asthma, underweight) he’s got a substance abuse problem, and is uneducated. What he NEEDS to do is clean up, (which he seems to be doing), and find some direction that does not depend on ruthless discipline and placing weaponry in his hands. He is at best unreliable, and at worst a drug addict.

I would advise all involved to help him along with his recovery if he is serious. Once he’s CLEAN he can continue doing odd jobs for a time while he gets his head straight about what he would like to do with himself.

Mom needs to stop enabling bad behaviour though. I’m assuming he lives at home? He will have to pay out a pecentage of his odd-job money as “rent” (which she will keep secretly in trust for when he cleans up). He will agree to an acceptable, reasonable schedule and stick to it, including getting up by a certain time during weekdays.
From that point if he still wants a structured environment then he ought to consider JobCorp or Peace Corp, or some other local service organization. Hopefully by this point he will either have an in on a position that will allow him independence, if only a meager type of independence, or have decided upon some education to help himself out. He ought to consider tattooing if he’s that artistic and interested in body art.

I’ll be taking a different route to the same result as others in this thread. Military service is generally an honorable thing to do. The military has much to offer those that can make the grade.

I see no reason to suspect this kid will be able to make it out of boot camp. Aside from health issues–and the asthma is possibly a show stopper, if the kid quits/gets disgusted at McJobs, he really ain’t gonna like having a Drill Instructor screaming in his face. Boot camp is tough on anybody. From the way this kid is described in the OP, I just don’t see him being military material.

That sounds a lot like my brother who joined up about 25 years ago in about the same shape. He’s done well, but he did have to serve in both Iraq wars and also did time in Korea and Bosnia. He’s in the quartermaster corps, though, and saw some bad stuff, but never had to engage in actual combat.

I’ll go with my standard line: The Army doesn’t take soldiers, it makes soldiers. If the kid wants a kick in the pants or a future, he’ll do well. If he can clean up and get a GED, I think he’ll have proven he can make it. If he can’t, then he wouldn’t make it in the Army even if we did take him. If he can get in, he can serve. It’d do him some good.

FWIW, I’m sick of people saying “ticket to Iraq” like it’s a bad thing. I think Veteran’s Day should be about punching those people in the face. How dare you suggest that the kid should run from a war. What are the chances of dying/being injured in Iraq today? Next to nothing? Nothing+1?

He’s 23 and still doesn’t have a GED? WTF? He needs to go into JobCorps and get that before he does anything else.

The Army has a program called Education Plus Program that will help him obtain a GED if he:

  1. has been withdrawn from high school for at least six months (considering he’s TWENTY-THREE freakin’ years old, I guess that applies to him).
  2. meets his state’s minimum age requirements for GED testing.
  3. achieves a qualifying score on the Armed Forces Qualification test.

I still say he needs to go to JobCorps while he’s still young enough to qualify and get that GED and some marketable skills before he ever steps foot inside a recruiter’s office.

Otherwise, Americorps *NCCC might take him, if he gets his GED before or during the program. He needs to get cleaned up long before he goes in, because if they catch him with drugs in his system he’s going to be in a lot of trouble. He will also be required to do stuff like show up for work everyday and respect other people. To be perfectly blunt, if he can’t handle Americorps, there’s no way in hell he’ll be able to handle the Army. He will end up shooting himself in the foot to get sent home so he can live on mom’s couch for the rest of his life.

I have never been in the military, so take what I take with a grain of salt.

I had a friend in almost the exact same situation. Life in the army is systematized without a whole lot of room for uncertainty. It’s pretty mechanical: if I do X, I’ll get Y in return. Work hard, lead your teammates, get promoted. Repeat. It’s an environment that has a lot of opportunity for personal pride and accomplishment. I think it’s a good idea.

What an absolutely stupid idea!

So everyone who doesn’t enlist is running from a war? Another screamingly dumbass thing to say.

I think you need to do a bit more research before claiming that as “honesty.”

This. Regardless of whether or not this guy should join the Army, I have serious doubts that they’ll even take him. Everything else about him can be worked on, but the asthma is a huge red flag, for all the military services. I know two asthmatics (mild) in the Navy – they got in because they hid it and lied about their medical histories. I wouldn’t recommend this – when/if the time comes for a medical emergency, they’re going to be in dire straits since the doctors don’t have an accurate history.

Sounds like a candidate for Army Public Affairs. Or maybe graphic artist for the Air Force.

I did time in the Army. Scariest and best decision I’ve ever made. Not counting the last couple months, it’s the only time in my life that I’ve ever felt sane/valuable. Sounds like the kid could do well. Only way to really tell would be to get him in to take his ASVAB to see what kind of a mind he’s got and then see what opportunities are available to him.

I think it would be useful to the OP if it were clear which of these responses are guesses and which are coming from veterans.

I think it’s very possible this kid would absolutely bloom in the Army if only because of the structure, variety of tasks, and relative certainty of how your work-product will be received and rewarded.

I’m a vet. Air Force, not Army. Still don’t see any reason to believe this kid has got what it takes to make it out of boot camp.

Sounds like a perfect candidate to me. They will straighten him up and return a productive citizen in return for his service.