[Thane]

Lately i've been thinking about joining the military. With all that's happening with the Korea's and in my life I think it is something to consider and I want honest opinions and advice. Doc Boom has helped a lot and I talked with one of my friends about it and it's a big decision. I want to join up to protect my country if Shite hits the fan in Asia but if that never happens I'm in it for four years in the Middle East, I don't think that war is really right anymore but thats a different topic. I also want to join to get a start on life, My life has been stalling for the past year or two and the military might be the kick in the ass I need to get going. And at the same time I don't want to leave my life here, all my friends and family. I know my mother would cry for days even weeks, I know I wouldn't see my friends for a really long time. I also don't want to change who I am, I've had friends go into the military and then come out different people.

Basically, I'm thinking about joining the Army, |Pros|: Get my life on track, Protect my country |Cons|: Get stuck in a war I don't believe in, leave my family and friends and possibly become a different person...

This is really important to me right now and I really need help with this decision.

[Zeckal]

Well there are a few things I allways thought about when ever I thought about joining the military.

1) Is there anything I would rather do beside this?
2) Am I really willing to get shot at week to week?
3) Am I willing to kill someone else?
4) Am I willing to put up with the 'chain o' Command' on every basis?

besides those 4 questions I would have to say don't join the army, We have the largest Aerial Force for a reason. Not much an RPG or IED can do against an airborne F-22

PS: I am definitely bias on this, both my parents were Air force.

[Ore wa Otoko Da]

There's no guarantee that we're going to get into anything with East Asia, and if the only other reason is that you're stuck in a rut, that's not grounds to do something so life changing.

If you feel like your life is stagnant, just get out. Go places you haven't gone, do things you haven't done, even if you don't think you'd like them. You can't change your life through inactivity. I should know, I'm stuck in the same rut; but just by driving around random places yesterday I suddenly landed an opportunity for a part-time job. You never know what'll happen.

Unless you really feel like the Army is something that matches with your goals and values, I would say no. It's a really huge decision, and there are other huge things you can do that are less potentially negative.

But of course that's just my opinion, as I'm very anti-war in general. =/

[DrExplosion]

When it comes to East Asia, it's entirely possible that anything which breaks out there would be over by the time you even finish training, assuming anything happens at all, so I'd say that shouldn't really be a consideration.

As much as I hate to side with the Air Force, I'd generally say that Zeckal is right. If you're joining for your own sake, the Air Force is definitely the way to go. I know you said that you wanted to be an electrician, and I'm sure the Air Force has those just like the Army does. Seriously, the Air Force doesn't screw its people over nearly as much as the Army does, not by any stretch of the imagination. The Army and Marines are for what I call "believers." These are the people who, like me, can actually enjoy what they're doing despite or even because of the fact that it sucks so hard. If you can't do that, you will absolutely hate every moment of it. We're talking about several years of your life, here, so that's not something you want.

If you join, you will get deployed. Don't listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. You'll spend long periods of time away from your family and any friends outside of your unit, and these will be very stressful times during which you have next to nothing in the way of personal freedom. If you enlist, you are no longer in charge of your own life. The Army owns you from when you sign up to when your contract expires. Things are usually pretty reasonable, but they can theoretically order you to go anywhere and do just about anything without any advance notice.

Before making the decision, you also need to seriously ask yourself if you could kill another human being and come to terms with the fact that you may be called upon to do so. Failure to do so ahead of time could ruin you for the rest of your life, to say nothing of the fact that your life (or worse, the lives of your comrades) may be dependent on your ability to pull the trigger. Honestly, it's extremely unlikely that an electrician would be put in such a position, but the possibility is always there, and you can't afford to assume that it won't happen. It's also worth noting the likelihood that you won't simply be killing "some guy who's shooting at you." Fighting insurgencies is NOT that simple. Without going into too much detail out here in public,

Spoiler

I've personally had to kill a man as a part of Escalation of Force, and this happened mere seconds after having a conversation with him. I looked him in the eyes, consciously fired two bursts into his chest, watched him slump over dead... everything. Being Civil Affairs, I also ended up having the rare "privilege" of encountering the man's widow later on. Escalation of Force, by the way, is where you gradually go from nonlethal to lethal force in order to, in this case, stop a truck from blowing past a roadblock.

My point here is that you can't count on a simple "kill the faceless goon who's obviously trying to kill you" situation. You can't count on being able to deny the humanity of your target. If you have to make the same type of call as I did without being mentally prepared, it can destroy you.

In addition, you need to make sure you're willing to accept the risk of death or serious injury before you should even consider joining up. This probably goes without saying, but it's worth mentioning.

Also, be prepared to deal with truly staggering amounts of bullshit. This goes for any branch of the military. Of course, the civilian world is also full of bullshit, so you can't really escape this one.

For all the negatives, however, I do have to say a few positives, especially in case you turn out to be like me. I thrive in high-stress situations. As hard as the job is to do, it's also incredibly rewarding, in part because it's so difficult. Overcoming these difficulties will instill quite the well-deserved measure of pride, and you'll have the ability to say "Meh, I've been through worse" for just about everything that can happen in the civilian world. Seriously, the knowledge that you've overcome worse in the past makes a lot of things in life much easier. Of course, the flip side of this is that you'll first have to go through tremendous hardship, but it's almost worth it just to be able to say that you can and have done so.

Overall, the Army is certainly not for everyone. If it is for you, though, nothing else in the world is half as good.

[Thane]

1) Is there anything I would rather do beside this? Become an electrician
2) Am I really willing to get shot at week to week? With what I want to go into, i would probably rarely get shot at
3) Am I willing to kill someone else? If I have to I have to...
4) Am I willing to put up with the 'chain o' Command' on every basis? I work better when being told what to do.

What I would try to go for would be Army Corps of Engineers. I would then go for becoming an Electrician. Serve and come back and be trained in what I love and want to do. I thank you for the opinions and the like because all the advice I got from my friends today when I asked them was, "If you die i'll cry", "Do it!" and a "Do it faggot!" great friends amirite... another friend was really cool about it and he talked to me about it and stuff. I want to fight to protect my country and I have no fear of dieing for my country. It's a big decision and I've been thinking about it for around a month on and off. I want to go ask a recruiter about it and get info but he would probably try and pressure me into joining ASAP and I want to take my time. I haven't told my mom about this, She doesn't want either of her boys dieing in some Foreign war for a cause she doesn't believe in. She's been against me or my older brother joining since we were small children... I'd hate to make her sad...

[DrExplosion]

I just thought of something else I forgot to mention in my previous post. If you join the military, you will make the best friends of your life there. Seriously, the only person closer to me than the guys I deployed with is my real brother. Words cannot describe the bonds forged in military service. I would seriously volunteer for a deployment to Hell itself if I heard that those guys were going, just because they were going, and I know that they would do the same. Even though you might not get along, and indeed you may come to hate some of the people you have to work with, you'll build bonds with them that last a lifetime, because they're the only people on the face of the Earth who really understand some of the things you've gone through.

Of course, just as with everything else involving the military, there's a downside to this. The closer you are to someone, the more it hurts to lose them. Your comrades become your life while you're deployed - mom, baseball, apple pie and the American Way don't matter a bit. You fight for the men next to you, and letting them down becomes your worst fear. Unfortunately, people die in war, and when it's someone you've become that close to who dies... it... really sucks.

[p4pe]

I'm just gonna say if you join the army you won't get killed by others because I'm gonna kill you D<

I don't want you to end up dead ;n;