There are any number of reasons a person may choose to join the US military. Did you/do you serve? What was your reason? Choose the one reason (in the poll) that is/was most important to you.
Yes.
A strong family tradition of military service instilled patriotism in me at a young age. I planned on serving four years, getting out, and moving on. 16 years later, I’m still in and wouldn’t change anything.
I joined the Air Force in 66 to avoid being drafted into the Army and give some credit to that decision for still being alive today. However, I suspect you may be looking for more recent decisions.
I enlisted in 1973. I was 19, a college freshman, still living at home. After a few month in college, I figured out I was sick of classrooms. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough skills or experience to get a $100/week job which is what I would have needed to afford an apartment and a car.
One afternoon, I was flipping thru Time magazine and came across a 2-page ad for the Navy, so I pulled out the phone book and figured out where the nearest recruiter was. I hopped on my bicycle and found the office. I took the test and the recruiter was pretty much drooling over my score, telling me I could get any guaranteed school I wanted. I was pretty much clueless, so he directed me to aviation electronics.
That was in late May. On Aug 3, I was on a plane headed for recruit training in Orlando, and I spent just over 11 years on active duty. Then I worked for the Navy as a civilian for 26 more years. What began as frustration and a bit of a whim turned into a very rewarding career.
I was in the Army from 2002-2006 on active duty, then from 2006-2008 in the National Guard.
I did ROTC in college as my means of entry into the Army, and the main reason was the $20,000/yr scholarship from ROTC, which allowed me to pay for Cornell without having to go massively into debt with student loans.
While there are many things I enjoyed from my time in the military, and some things I’m extremely grateful for, I’m not sure I’d do it again if I had it to do all over. It put me well behind my peers as far as salary structure goes in my current civilian job (I have yet to equal what I was making as a Captain in the Army (including allowances) in six years as an electrical engineer, though I’m getting close), but I did get to live and travel extensively in Europe, which was awesome.
Not particularly; I was just curious in a general way about why people join the military. Having said that, it might also be interesting to see age- or date-segregated results. My dad tells me that on December 8, 1941, there were lines outside of recruiting centers. OTOH, I would guess voluntary signups were probably way down during the Vietnam war, which had considerably less popular support than WW2.
Similarly, I wonder about signup activity in the wake of 9/11, and in the wake of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Thought I was doing it for patriotic reasons. Turned out I was just trying to impress my dad.
My dad had a similar experience. He was a Navy pilot from (I think) 1958-1962. When he got out, he had a rusty mechanical engineering degree that made very difficult for him to find a job at first.
A combination of the top 3 answers. I enlisted in 1972 right out of high school. I knew that I was too immature to go to college where I’d probably have just partied away a good education. I also had an interest in aircraft. So I joined the US Air Force as an aircraft mechanic and stayed for 24 years. I retired with a Masters degree so I did go to college on evenings and weekends for a lot of years.
I grew up in a depressed area. I had heard a lot about my dad who was Air Force, he died while I was very young. Just about every male in my extended family has been military in some shape form or fashion. I was always leaning towards the Air Force. Then I started talking to recruiters and the Marine Corps started swaying me;
Then there was this;
:D:cool: …I never looked back. Semper Fi.
Hm, other I guess.
Reason #1 was that I didn’t feel like I had done anything to prove myself.
Reason #2 was I hated college, and figured I could finish my last 2 years after the military if I needed to. Strangely, the GI Bill didn’t factor into this decision.
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I still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up.
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Couldn’t afford college.
When my dad retired from the Air Force we moved to a small town in the extreme Northwest of Washington State. I went to high school there, but there were really no job opportunities available and at the time college wasn’t an option. I was lucky enough to have known about a career field that my recruiter didn’t even know about, Radio and Television Broadcast Specialist.
Joined up, spun records and reported on the nightly news in Six countries on three different continents over ten years. Traveled like crazy, because I was single and just wanted to go where I’d never been before. Best thing I could have done for myself.
Also joining the Air Force rather than the Army, Navy or Marines probably colored my experience as well. The Air Force was much more like a job than being a Soldier or Sailor.
A combination of all the answers. I was a physics major who, unlike most physics majors (that I knew), did not want to become a professor/professional academic (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I wasn’t confident about other opportunities, and I didn’t want to go straight to grad school. I was always fascinated by ships and by the Navy, and I thought it would be an honorable and interesting job. As I learned more I became convinced that becoming a junior officer on a nuclear submarine would be greatly beneficial to whatever career I choose to go into afterwards (assuming I decided to leave the Navy, which I did after my contract ended).
It was the right choice for me to join, and the right choice for me to leave when I did. I’m glad I served and I’m glad I’m done serving. I didn’t hate the Navy, and there were times that were among the most exhilarating in my life- but one of the main benefits of my past service to me is that when I’m having a “bad day” at work now, I just compare it to bad days when I was in the Navy, and I smile. A “bad day” at work now is a little stress, staying an hour or two late, or possibly even coming in for a few hours on Saturday. A bad day/week when I was in the Navy, even when we were in port and went home (almost) every night, was a ton of stress, staying about 6 hours late, and coming in for full work days Saturday and Sunday. Even the ordinary days and weeks in the Navy were tougher than the bad days at work now.
Life is good.
A year after I graduated high school, I was working a factory-type job. I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a living so enlisting got me out of my parents’ house, let me travel and would set me up to go to college when I got out in four years. 23 years later, I retired from the Army and still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
I was not ready for college when I graduated high school and my dad and all my uncles were in the service during WWII.
1.Medical School: tuition, books, fees, tax-free money to live on.
- “Daddy, the Air Force won’t tell me at breakfast how much money I owe them.”
He had loaned me money for medical school (before I got the scholarship). I had to pay him the money he had paid for me to go to college. He sent me a receipt for every payment I made. He said: “If I die before you have paid all the money, it will come out of your inheritance”. This was one of the two times I ever talked back to my dad.
Joined the Navy to avoid being drafted into the Army in 1967. Stayed in for 23 years because of pressure from my spouse to stay where it was secure from the big bad world. Then she bitched for most of that time because I was gone so much. :rolleyes: I’m not sure there was ever a more reluctant careerist than I.
Because the economy was collapsed, I had a not-terribly practical degree, a ton of loans, and a desire to get slightly caught up on them before going to grad school.
Worst decision I have ever made. The financial benefits of military service are in absolutely no way worth it.