Military Advice

Always go Air Force.

You're away from shite, they have cool stuff on base, and you're away from shite.

Unless you fly planes, then stay out.

I would go airforce or navy.

You don't want to be a cook or an MP (cook with badge).



Truthfully I would always suggest being the edge of the sword and the fighter.

Let some other sap cook, run supply, fix shite....

If you live you can use the GI bill to go to school for that shite go learn something community college can't teach you.

Packing that mortar plate's not so bad after awhile.

Decide what job you want then go from there. Be honest with yourself and what you want and capable of doing when deciding.

Army Infantry or Marine Corp Infantry.

Go Air Force. Work for a maintenance squadron.

Just left the USAF this past summer, and wifey's getting out in a couple months.

Don't marry mil-to-mil.

Air Force for working on planes, Army for working on diesel engines.

I was in the Army (Abrams) & Air Force (C17); the Air Force facilities & treatment of enlisted is much better.

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Ex-Navy -- do not fricking go to the Navy.

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Cannot agree with this enough. Although you will have a decent time on the few port calls you get to experience. Copious amounts of alcohol, hookers, and tobacco do wonders to make you forget how much your life sucks in the Navy.

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What makes you say that? I have many family members both former and current Navy and they all love it

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Well, there are varying degrees of general shittiness in the Navy. Some people really do enjoy it. A saying that gets passed around is "Choose your rate, choose your fate." This means that your quality of life and general enjoyment of the Navy is extremely dependent on what your assigned job is.

I was designated as a nuclear machinist mate, which meant I was assigned to the engineering department, one of the most over-worked, filthy, hot, stressful, thankless jobs in the Navy. In addition, I was assigned to submarines. All those cool movies like Hunt for Red October? Total bullshite. Nothing exciting ever happens on a submarine.

You just spend approximately 8-9 months (average) of every year inside a steel tube with no internet or luxuries of any kind. You and two other guys have to share two beds (called racks). All your possessions have to fit in a pan approximately 4" high under the rack. There are three showers, four toilets, and 1 washer/dryer for around 120 men. A submarine day is 18 hours long, so you never establish an adequate sleep cycle. Of those 18 hours, you're lucky to sleep for 6 of them. If your equipment is broken, you don't sleep at all until it is fixed. You drill constantly. Water is limited, and sometimes you will go for weeks without being authorized to take a shower.

When you finally pull into a port, the rest of the boat gets to go on liberty while the engineering department is stuck on the boat all night shutting down the reactor/engineroom. When you are in port, you spend every third day on duty, which means you have to stand watch on the boat and can't leave. So basically, you have to sleep on the boat. On the other two days, it's not uncommon to work 12-15 hours a day. One year I had a total of six days off. An average of a half a day each month.

Because of the lack of off-time and constant deployments, you basically have no real social life or girlfriends. Wives cheating on their deployed husbands was extremely common. Your friends on the submarine become your family. Because of all these drawbacks, you would think that the command would be willing to let certain things slide. Nope. Our dick-headed chief of the boat found out that the Navy specifies a certain type of blanket for use on submarines because it is flame-retardant. So, he made us go through and throw away all our nice comfortable blankets (keep in mind that your few hours of sleep are your only real luxury). These were replaced with gray, scratchy, stiff prison-style blankets that didn't really keep you warm.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. There are some jobs that anybody can do, and some jobs that nobody wants to do. I fell into the latter category. As they say in the Navy, there are only two things in life that are certain for sailors. You will die some day, and you will be fricked by the Navy every day.

ETA: I realize that nothing I described is as stressful as getting shot at, and I acknowledge that. But I still hated it with a passion. FTN.

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Damn that was really informative thank you. I'm on college right now but I'm looking to go military after I graduate

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No problem, and don't let me discourage you. Just make sure you do your research and choose the right branch/field for you, as best you can. Good luck!