Joining the Military and Regretting Decision

do your time. 4 years. you will not regret it. you should have joined the reserves if you are not sure. no getting out of it now. it is widely known the military branches are full of assholes. so what? they are everywhere. do your time, and you will look back on it with pride.

can you not read? he's not in the military... he's asking if anyone has ever changed their mind one in, not that he has changed his mind.

the u.s. picks on other countries then claims it kills masses of people in cold-blood in self-defense. keep your job. the mil is a waste of time. unless you want to promote wars as a politician there's no advantage to be a veteran. i wasted the 4 years i was in the crotch.

i joined the marines and was all gung ho about it until i got processed in jacksonville. after my background check they told me that due to an underage drinking arrest as 16 year old(something i had told them about before) they said i wasn't eligible to receive the benefits or go to the training school i was interested. they tolled me i could either be an infantry man or a cook and make about 700 dollars a month, no money for school or anything. the next day i submitted my letter of withdraw.

warwhatisit good for wrote:

I just wanted to know if anyone has ever joined the military out of strong patriotic duty and regretted his/her decision once they got in?

The reason I ask is that I currently have a great job, with a very stable company. I grew up relatively poor and have worked very hard to get to the position I am in. The problem is I can’t get over the feeling that I should at least give a few years of my life to protect the freedom that I enjoy. I assume there is loads of BS and bureaucratic red tape.

Anyone have any similar experiences?

Thanks for any input…

Well if you want Maynard James Keenan's opinion, you can listen to "Intolerance" from Tool's 2nd album, "Undertow".

MJK joined the military... and obviously regretted it.

I joined years ago because I had nowhere else to go.

It was a dumb reason, but I felt I had no choice.

So, I was in the Air Force from 74 to 78.

Then I got out, went to college and again could not find a job (83)....bad times.

I went this time into the Army 1983-1987.

Then stayed int he reserve after I got out and got my 20 year letter.

I was an "accidental soldier" I feel the whole time.

I did my best but wasn't the best.

Don't go intoi the military unless you really want to be in the military.

Don't do it out of any sense of anything other than wanting to be a professional soldier.

If you have a sense of wanting to do something influential and valuable besides that...be a volunteer coach.

I don't think I ever had a good day in the military and went in for the wrong reasons.

There are alternatives for service.

thanks for input. anyone else?

As someone who spent quite some time on active duty military I would say that you really need to have a stronger desire than serving my country. You could do a lot of other things than being in the military that serve your country. Also, if you do decide to go in, insure that you have a guaranteed contract for your job (MOS) after initial training. (This is sometimes hard to do, as in the USMC OCS programs). But if you want to serve only four years, look at something like learning a language at Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Ca. or ITS programs in the Air Force. Don't go in blind, or trusting-you will end up at the needs and requirements of the branch you are in. Do your due diligence.

grif wrote:

As someone who spent quite some time on active duty military I would say that you really need to have a stronger desire than serving my country. You could do a lot of other things than being in the military that serve your country. Also, if you do decide to go in, insure that you have a guaranteed contract for your job (MOS) after initial training. (This is sometimes hard to do, as in the USMC OCS programs). But if you want to serve only four years, look at something like learning a language at Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Ca. or ITS programs in the Air Force. Don't go in blind, or trusting-you will end up at the needs and requirements of the branch you are in. Do your due diligence.

great advice. i have a college degree and wasn't sure about OCS or enlisted.

There are also other ways that you can put yourself in the service of your country/community. They may not come with the automatic name recognition and status of being able to say you were in the military, but still valuable.

Just as a quick thought:

You grew up poor and worked hard to get to where you are. Think about the help you got along the way--or the help you wished you had, and offer those opportunities to other.

I've never been in the military so this is fwiw. If you really don't want to be in the military and have a good job, I would say stay with the job. You can "give back" in lots of ways as others have said, by volunteering in your community.

Question for Grif ...

What type of language should you watch for in your service contract? Are there qualifiers or anything else to insist on? In general, how what types of things should you be leery of signing off on? I hear people mention "get it in writing" a lot. I was curious if you could compare a good (specific) contract with one that could bite you in the ass down the road.

The Onion article "Bottom 10 Percent of Last Year's High School Graduates Ready for Military Duty" says it best. Only be a soldier if there's literally nothing else you can do for money. Besides, soldiers don't really fight for our freedom anymore, nor is our freedom under any particular threat. (Though the GOP desperately wanted us to believe otherwise.)

Inspired by Bill Murray's performance in the 1981 comedy film Stripes, Keenan joined the United States Army, with the intention of having the G.I. Bill fund his dream of attending art school.[2] By this point, he had lived in Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas.[3] He initially served in the Army as a forward observer before studying at the United States Military Academy Preparatory School (West Point Prep School) from 1983 to 1984. In addition to completing a rigorous math and English curriculum, he ran on the cross country running team and sang in the glee club.[3] It was during his time in the military that he adopted the sobriquet "Maynard" on a whim.[4] He was distinguished in basic and advanced training,[5] but declined an appointment to West Point and instead chose to pursue a music career because of his disillusionment with his colleagues' values[6] and because he knew West Point would not tolerate his dissidence.[5]

I enlisted as an interrogator and linguist after college. To the OP, of course there are times when you regret the decision, but like anything else, you own up to it, and you move on with your situation. I vividly remember getting off the bus in Basic, with maybe 100 lbs. of equipment in 2 duffle bags and a rucksack, and being screamed at to run around the barracks twice, and then dump all my gear into one sidewalk square for inventory. If anyone did something the drill sergeants didn't like, everyone did push ups, sit ups, etc. By the end of that few hours, there wasn't one muscle fiber that hadn't been maxed out. I'd say about that moment, I regretted the decision, but what are you going to do?

To the Q? post, the specific language you obtain will be based on your ASVAB and DLAB tests. The higher the scores, the more difficult the language. I'm sure you can look those up online for info. I found after the fact from a recruiter I served with that the language identifier in your MOS is assigned on your initial orders, so the contract, in its own way, designates your language. I was a 97EPAD . . . Basically, 97E is MOS designator for Interrogator, P is designator for paratrooper, AD is designator for Arabic. The recruiters don't explain that, and may not really even know what it means to be "AD," as many of them are grunts, etc., but they can look it up, or you can take that assigned MOS code they are offering and figure it out before you sign anything. And, like buying a car, be prepared to walk until you get what you want. You are dealing with the military's version of salesman, mutt and jeff, good cop / bad cop, however they pull it off, they will pressure you to execute the contract. You just have to be specific, withstand the pressure, and demand what you want on the contract.

nostimes wrote:

The Onion article...

I stopped reading after that! Consider the source.

Oh brother.... Someone joined the military inspired by Stripes?! What an imbecile!

To the O.P., don't worry about "giving back." You have a good job, so you have and will "give back" more in taxes than you were ever given. The people who are public assistance lifers are the ones who should be giving back, yet they're the only one never asked to do so.

I know you are young, but in the future if you want to run for public office and you want to promote war or act like you are a super patriot, you might consider joining the non-combat services, i.e. CG, NV, AF. Fewer than 1% of the NV and AF are combatants, are nearly 0% of the CG. The NV and AF just have small boutique combat units designed by Generals and Admirals for career fast-trackers.

Otherwise if you don't join, you'll be ridiculed as a phony patriot. A Chicken Hawk. A Coward. A Pussy. Many public figures have been blasted to death for acting like they are American patriots, but with no U.S. military service. Toby Kieth, Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Lee Greenwood, Michael Savage, John Wayne, Rush Limbaugh, Bruce Willis, Joe Lieberman, to name a few.

Like anything else, it's what you make of it. I went into it gung ho and volunteered for just about everything that came up that sounded interesting. I left with lots of experience, lots of respect from others, and valuable skills for the civilian world. I have very positive memories overall.

Those who did the minimum and counted the days until they were out got very little out of the experience and probably regret it.

So think of what kind of person you are. Will you make the most of it or try to survive it? If it is the latter, you probably should not sign up.