Let me ask you a question: How come you never joined the military?

i've thought abt it a million times. mostly i think i just dont want to have to get in shape

should have asked him for a date
xpost

I'm never asked this question. I wonder why.

hahaha Ned

I felt a bit bad for laughing, and then I couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't start a pointless argument with a guy who was just the messenger (of death).

just in case we needed any more reason to believe hurting was just a big elitist dickhead at heart

you'd better be fucking glad blount quit posting

haha, coming from you

why would ANYBODY join the armed forces!!! what a DUMBASS move!!!

$20k bonus!!!!!!!!!!

and a free ipod!!!!!!

why would ANYBODY join the armed forces!!! what a DUMBASS move!!!

I have friends who joined the military, asshole.

i've considered it. medical school is expensive, dudes.

I went to public schools from elementary through college so it's not unheard of.

oh boy.

well then what the fuck is your problem, asshole?

I am really, seriously, not even ABOUT to crawl into this garbage on ILX because nobody besides me, blount or chuck eddy even knows what the fuck they're talking about or what you can do in/with a military career; I don't give a sticky tan SHIT what your dad did for a fucking living. So your options are thus: either email all three or at least one of the people I just mentioned or sit here and watch the horseshit to roll in.
Hooray.
-- TOMBOT, Wednesday, September 15, 2004 10:34 PM (2 years ago)

because nonetheless I couldn't help but laugh at the irony of asking the question in such a rhetorical way at this particular time in our history

if you know what it's like to feel a litte bit desperate to get out of your situation, why you going to laugh at a recruiter like an incredibly rude fuck and then start some smug thread about it? You're better off kicking a homophobe out of your hotel for the can of worms you just opened, son.

please at least say it was the LCD soundsystem City's A Sucker laugh and not just a regular hee-hee

Miss Manners needs a letter about how to handle this question.

She's good with these things.

Tombot too but he's a little less faux-Victorian.

btw long xxxxxxpost to cankles: that's why I joined the air force yo! of course that turned out to be kind of a mistake in the long run but hey it's not like I was going to make a career out of it in any of the branches

then again even the USAF makes you do group PT now, fuck that noise in the rumpus

Relax dude, I chatted with the guy for a minute, took his card. I don't think the recruiter walked away feeling his pride hurt by the elitist prick a full head shorter than him. I was just surprised that this line is being used.

haha, i know dudes that joined precisely because it would force them to get in shape

at this point, reasons for:

-- free medical school + i get paid while i'm there??
-- potentially interesting training (from an admittedly morbid, medical point of view: wartime = loads of opporunities to learn/do some actual life savin')

against:
-- i go to iraq and get killed
-- associated with military industrial complex
-- four years of being a $NEEDS_OF_THE_MILITARY on a base somewhere AFTER going through residency = not a real doctor until i'm basically 40

xp wait that is the actual line he used?

do you like godsmack?

also: Hurting, aren't you, like, old?

(old, in this case, equals over, say, 22)

Man, I bandied about the idea once or twice but I just figured I am way too yellow bellied and bad with shouting authority figures, but I kinda understand why some of my friends have gone off, in that wandering around the world away from everyone you know kind of way. I don't know how I would respond to recruiter solicitations, I would probably lie and say I'm Quaker or something.

cos i'm a girl

like that's an obstacle these days? (xxp)

also: don't want to die for country

Would it be acceptable to say in a friendly way, "I'd prefer not to discuss it?" That's how I deal with anyone who asks me questions.

also: Hurting, aren't you, like, old?

Well I'm about to be 28, which is probably another reason I laughed a little - I was kind of surprised he asked me. I did happen to be less than a block from the local high school, which is probably why the guy was in the neighborhood, and unfortunately there are plenty of kids at that school who probably feel desperate to get out of their situations.

I just started this as a 1am goof thread, really. Sorry if it came off as smug.

I was going to say I should probably refrain from full flame warrior mode bcz I think you had a bit of a phrasing accident up there went you asked the question. OTOH a lot of folks are joining up now because this is the first time in a while, if you just read the MSM, that it doesn't seem like an instant ticket to the Big Dusty Tunnel Of Maiming, regardless of accuracy in reporting.

$20K is a lot of change to cover debt to people. I really resent the attitude (can you tell?) of people with half-decent jobs and/or prospects to act like enlistment is some kind of low caste option for fry cooks and quik-mart stockers from west virginia. It's a ticket out for a lot of people, underprivileged or otherwise. It's the best form of "affirmative action" in the entire country. Depressing!

The composition of our armed services and veterans represents the best and worst of this country, that we have some insanely great citizens and yet we can't figure out a better way to utilize them than to stuff them in a uniform for a half dozen years or so. The caliber of the human beings just sitting in our VA hospital waiting rooms should be a huge blaring wake-up call to US private industry and how they manage people, but hey, nobody in charge of anything has a fucking clue about the military anymore.

I suspect Michael Bay probably has a better idea of what Americans are capable of than most politicians and executives do at this point.

river wolf if you go into any service other than the Navy you'll most likely be doing clinical work. You get loads of time off to go hike and camp and climb up rocks, free medical school is HUGE bonus, and uh what do you mean you won't be a doctor? you'll be a doctor the whole time, just wearing some issue scrubs instead of whatever you want.

e-mail me anybody who actually wants to talk about this question. I'm a lot more honest than 99% of recruiters.

and speaking of "old" the army is taking 40-year-old HS dropouts at this point, I think. Seriously.

One serious question - would there be a good reason at this point not to try for a civilian contractor job over a military job at this point (if you didn't feel a particular military calling)? I mean I'd imagine it's at least slightly less dangerous and probably pays a lot better, and it sounds like what would be low-wage jobs stateside might pay about as well as the army does there. I mean I don't have the exact numbers here, but I'm wondering.

I know the Australian army also pushes the Med deal. I assume there's some kind of obligation to stay in the army after completing the degree?

xps

$20K is a lot of change to cover debt to people. I really resent the attitude (can you tell?) of people with half-decent jobs and/or prospects to act like enlistment is some kind of low caste option for fry cooks and quik-mart stockers from west virginia. It's a ticket out for a lot of people, underprivileged or otherwise. It's the best form of "affirmative action" in the entire country. Depressing!

yeah but the bonus is actually half up-front, then the rest over the life (er...) of the service contract. prolly not tax-free either, i'm guessing. so not exactly the most straightforward advertisement.

Hurting: the vast majority of civilian contractor jobs are given to veterans. I've met a few rare dorks who managed to get into the business without putting on battle dress, but they represent a tiny fraction of the workforce. Additionally, if you're talking about jobs overseas, the level of danger is pretty much the same, and you don't have the health benefits of military service to back you (and your family) up. I would argue, in fact, that the contractors signing up to go get a fat paycheck in the green zone are dumber than the soldiers, in many respects. Not just because I have a natural instinct to hate them or anything.

w4lter: anytime the military pays for some degree of your education, even military training, there is an implicit amount of time you are required to serve unless forcibly discharged for medical or judiciary reasons in order to give the service their money's worth. Usually it's a one-for-one balance; in my case I spent just over two years learning to be a cryptologic linguist (korean) and nobody remembered to update my paperwork, so I got out after exactly four years of service (hey hey!) when I probably should have been active duty for another two months. In the case of med school, uh, yeah, that's going to be a while, but you're doing exactly what you wanted to do in the first place, just in uniform and for less money (strongly offset by lack of loan payments).

okay j0r3l but $7K upfront with another $7k over six years is still a nice chunk of change for people who don't live in NYC.

frankly I dunno why the money is even under discussion though because really after about four weeks in you realize money is exactly the least important thing. I think what I miss most about the military is having a gang of bros all in the same situation being able to smoke and bitch and hang together every day at work and every weekend.

Why would anyone want to be a pawn of bloodthirsty war profiteers. Good for you Hurting.

okay j0r3l but $7K upfront with another $7k over six years is still a nice chunk of change for people who don't live in NYC.

lol hey dude i'm unemployed, and even so, that's a nice chunka change anywheres. even dc which can be almost as expensive as nyc with 10000000x less interesting stuff going on (if we're gonna go east coast location chauvinist in this thread, which is like 99% of all ilx threads these days anyway - CIO ITS FUCKING BORING) (that's a general CIO, not to you in particular)

no, sir, my point was more this: if you get yourself killed i don't think you get paid. there ain't money enough in the world for me to want to join the military, even if i could use that strings-attached not-really-$20k right now.

and hey comraderie is nice and all, some of us got enough from being in the boy scouts. I KEED.

anyway, certainly i don't begrudge anyone their choice to do whatever they want. i just figure if i'm gonna get blown-the-fuck-up, my family should get a cool million or something. i dunno. time to sleep.

hey it's like up to a quarter million now. they do have some of the best life insurance in the game.

dude i can already get usaa right now thanks to dad and stepdad, don't need to sign up for no iraq war.

Would you really kill for bush if he gave you a million?

Tom, another question out of curiosity - what are the chances that the average low-prospect recruit would avoid a dangerous tour in a war zone right now? I mean I assume they're pretty desperate to get bodies over there, and I imagine there's more than a little truth-bending in the recruiting process.

i'd kill for ned raggett if he gave me a million! that wasn't what i said, lame troll dude.

how can you put a price a smoking with your bros?

My uncle joined the Air Force for free medical school. Did four years on a base post-residency and he was out, debt free. There was no other way he could have done it.

Everyone I know who joined the military did it for one of the following reasons:

1) Give themselves some sort of discipline, knowing that they needed to get their shit together but not being able to do it themselves

2) They wanted to be a bad-ass killing machine. Alas, Seal training is harder than they thought it would be.

3) Went to college, never quite got into it, didn't know what else to do, ended up joining the military. These ones were or ended up sort of...off.

a marine recruited me in a library a few months ago. i felt really badass!! also uncomfortable.

# Let me ask you a question: How come you never joined the military? [Started by Hurting 2, last updated 0 seconds ago] 51 new answers
# My faggotry knows no bounds [Started by Jesse, last updated 5 minutes ago] 63 new answers

"recruited"
recruised morelike

During my last year of high school, I had to deal with a very forward recruiter who called my house every day for months, arguing endlessly that it would be a terrific idea if I decided to become a Marine. No polite excuse would stop him. I'd beg off with a million reasons why it wasn't for me, and he'd keep calling to try and talk me around them. Finally, I started getting my acceptances and offers from different colleges, and I was busy enough thinking about those options that I didn't see any point in being evasive with the Marine recruiter. So at some point in one of our conversations, I said, "Look, I just got offered a full ride at Good State School." And he said "oh, okay then," and never called again. The fact that this was what put him off for good pretty well underscores the main issue here: either you're lucky enough to have good educational and career options already, or you're not, and if you're not, the military can offer you a well-paid job and the potential for education and the sense that you're at least doing something. (I get the feeling the "doing something" is more important than people acknowledge: I think a lot of people get something out of saying "I'm a soldier" and having a role, function, and big-picture task -- something important to them. That sense of purpose is nothing to look down on, and it's gotta be a lot of what's animating those people who do have decent opportunities without the military and still feel like it's more important to serve.)

That's all obvious and sounds kinda lame at the end, but still. The only recruitment ads I've ever liked were the ones after they finished their "it's like a video game" period, when it was all dudes going back to civilian jobs and they're like "are you good under pressure" and the guys think back on being in the Army and then give modest, knowing "yeah" answers. Those at least get at the things people want from the military that they can actually get, if everything works out: some skills or education, and some feeling that you know something and have done something, which is awfully important when you're a 19-year-old kid.

(The above is best-case stuff, and is not meant to ignore the large number of kids who get spit out of actual conflicts with kinda opposite effects, of being traumatized or aimless or behind or having a hard time reintegrating into civilian life.)

Oops, that first line should say "every few days." If he'd called every day I would have gotten sick of him a lot sooner.

He also once said "let's say you came down and signed up, just for shits and giggles -- here's what would happen..." I was kinda taken with the idea of becoming a Marine just for shits and giggles.

there are at least three hundred thousand jobs in the military that need doing that don't involve riding a humvee around in the shit. yr AVERAGE low-prospect recruit might very well end up in a combat unit. OTOH, when I get really down in the dumps, my only reservation about re-upping to go have some terrifying adventure in the place of some other poor kid is the fact that nobody with my ASVAB scores ever gets near a hotspot, and believe me I tried while I was in.

to answer Heave Ho, it's not about killing for bush. It's about working hard at something I know I'm good at in a situation a lot of people aren't cut out for, and believing I could at least make a tiny difference in a shitty situation. To me, it's not some jingoistic crusader bullshit like they like to paint it back home, it's basically a volunteer job nobody else wants to do. Signing up is in no way a sign of supporting of the war. It's implicit support of the other bastards beside you, stuck in the devil's asshole.

Catch-22 of the 21st century: If you want to go to Iraq and aren't worried about getting shot at by people you're trying to help, you shouldn't go, because you're clearly too infatuated with some paladin ideal to do the job properly. If you're a sociopath who just wants to get paid to ignore people blowing up around you, you're totally qualified for three or four tours in Baghdad.

I was this close in going to the USAF academy. My Liasion Officer said I had a good chance in getting in, not so good at staying in. I got tired with the physical training for the fitness test(passed all the others), and wound up going to Ann Arbor instead of Colorado Springs for my engineering degree(s). I don't know how long i would have lasted at the academy, since my depression and anti-authoritarian issues would have probably flared up long before they did in civillian life.

All i wanted to do was get my aero degree and fly a fighter. That's it. Spent 6 years in Ann Arbor instead.

you'd better be fucking glad blount quit posting

This is one of the funniest things I've read on the interweb. Myopic, specific and weird. Great quote, though.

for me, 4 yrs of USAF taught me 1. never date in the workplace and 2. the difference between a little bit of effort and a LOT of effort is negligible from a mental standpoint; the trick is putting in any effort in the first place. Knowing other people are relying on me made me (and still makes me) into a first-class bad-ass; when nobody seems to care what I'm up to, I revert to college dropout.

you guys are going to make me so late for work tomorrow

This is one of the funniest things I've read on the interweb. Myopic, specific and weird. Great quote, though.

hush. Blount is still needed on many threads today.

go to bed tom!!!!! should someone play taps?!?!?!

JUST KEEEEEEDING

oh like we went to bed at taps, ever

see, just like the boy scouts.

(ironing heeds no bugle)

(nor does the stiff, ungiving mistress that is nicotine addiction)

There is no point in my life that I can recall when I ever wanted a cigarette more than when standing guard outside a 20-man tent at 2:30am in December, outside San Antonio, no gloves, holding a neutered M-16, on our first training exercise, having not inhaled anything remotely approaching tobacco smoke in five weeks (after having put away half a pack of NEWPORTS, ffs, between leaving the Nashville MEPS station and arriving at Lackland AFB)

Some dudes in the flight took some guinness book shits that week, too. MREs be rough on the colons

owen wilson needs to sign-up for military duty

http://www.rotaryaction.com/images/behindel1.jpg

I really resent the attitude (can you tell?) of people with half-decent jobs and/or prospects to act like enlistment is some kind of low caste option for fry cooks and quik-mart stockers from west virginia. It's a ticket out for a lot of people, underprivileged or otherwise. It's the best form of "affirmative action" in the entire country. Depressing!

IM SORRY BUT DID YOU WANT ME TO CALL BULLSHIT ON THIS ONE OR WAHT

I just watched by Behind Enemy Lines DVD again this evening actually!
I think he needs to play Sandy Nininger next.

you can call bullshit all you want? If you're referring to the bit with scare quotes I suspect my own experience might prove you to be hella incorrect

at least in this part of the country, where I live

its not the scare quotes. its the "underprivileged or otherwise" which seeks to disprove the first assertion and indulge in CULTURE-WAR!!!

Do the army take people with prosthetic hips?

i mean i come from a relatively or otherwise rich environment an no one at all joined the military. this doesnt mean that no one understood why someone would.

I had the opportunity to go to a training base that was about 50/50 well-to-do college dropouts like myself vs. smart kids from broke families. results varied. I got perhaps one of the most interesting, sociologically speaking, experiences that the military has to offer. Also DLI is the only base in the entirety of the business that has as many ladies as it does dudes. hence the google result:

http://www.google.com/search?q=defense+love+institute

its not that there arent privileged people in the military - its that the vast majority are motivated by things like the gi bill or careerism. aka we are paying them (and you, ty) to do our dirty work.

i dont see how anyone could argue that our country's attitude toward our current conflicts would be the same if a demographically representative slice of the population were in the military.

really where i grew up, i knew no one my age, even tangentially; that joined the military. and there wasnt even a war on then.

city boys are underrepresented

when i was 18 or 19 an army recruiter mustve got my name from a list of high school graduates not enrolled in college. it may have also been related to my father serving. not sure what sort of data mining they were indulging in in 1995.

anyway he caught me just home from a mediation retreat and in a particularly breezy mood and we shot the shit for at least an hour. i was talking vvv slow.

clearly i wasnt interested but guy just wanted to talk. he told me all about how i could just be in a band if i signed up. about how on the ceiling of the house of blues there were cloud shaped rock stars like jimi hendrix.

obv he was just going through the motions. but i did think abt his pitch delivered w/conviction.

I wouldn't want a job where they tell you when to go to sleep.

I wanted to join the USAF so I could fly a plane. I wouldn't have cared if it was just driving around an Airlift Wing C-17 all day or being a BUFF or F-15 jockey - I just wanted to fly a plane.

Only problem is that my vision is slightly worse than that of a mole - therefore, no flying for me.

anyway he caught me just home from a mediation retreat and in a particularly breezy mood

lol uh

Those at least get at the things people want from the military that they can actually get, if everything works out: some skills or education, and some feeling that you know something and have done something, which is awfully important when you're a 19-year-old kid.

ya this is otm, i have none of that stuff which is why it is appealing to me. tho i'm afraid i'll be too stupid to get one of the cool jobs instead of the ones that involve bein shot at, according to wikipedia u need a 65 ASVAB score to get into the USAF as a GED graduate, 50 for the other branches

oh man i am gonna go hit up a recruiting office 2day

l8r gaiz~

i'd kill for ned raggett if he gave me a million!

When did I become the standard for hiring hit men! (Don't get me wrong, I'm flattered.)

i never wanted to join the military because i grew up around it and i'm pretty sick of it. moving around every 3 years wasn't much fun, either.

also, the whole "being shot at" thing.

my best friend's boyfriend is a marine who went to iraq twice and now is a local recruiter. she brought him to meet my family and they asked a lot of questions on what he says to high school students about iraq. it sounds like a really tough job right now, especially for someone with mixed feelings about his experiences (which probably most have).

Had no desire to end up either homeless or a bouncer

To answer the question: Because I, like many others, don't really feel Belgian, so don't feel like defending my country. Sad fact, really, that I don't know what that entails nor feel much for my country. ESpecially now, seeing how divided we are as a country. Shames me a little bit tbh. :-(

I fucked my arm up in an accident as a kid so I'd ruled out Soldier, Policeman, Fireman or anything else Action Man dresses up as before I was 8.

turns out i dont qualify cuz i still take adderall, i have to be off it for at least a year. guess i'll get started on that~

oh you actually went?

cankles please dont join the army and get deaded

the world needs macros

Out of all the kids I knew who ended up in the military, the only one I shook my head at was the one who left a free ride at a good school for it, but he seems alright and he was smart enough to do fancy Air Force stuff so I guess it was good for him in the end. Just an FYI: they made everyone at my school take the ASVAB in junior year.

For me, it's because the military is asking you to lay your life on the line, and when you do that, they should back you up 100% if you get seriously injured. But they don't. I don't remember the term - but people were coming back from Iraq after the first Gulf War with an illness some people associated with exposure to depleted uranium, and the pentagon acted like it wasn't even possible. Then of course there's the recent VA stuff.

oh and also they might like start a war on some total bullshit

For me:

Got super ill with ulcerative colitis at age 14 and stayed that way til age 21.

This thread totally fascinating b/c, for the above reason, I never even thought about the question.

r/g color blind, also do not want

I have T-rex arms.

Have you ever seen the Irish Military? Not a chance.

Also they'd send me to the Lebanon. Fuck that shit etc.

I don't mind the war on some total bullshit thing.

jessie did you go to public hs? why did they make you take the asvab?

i mind that xp

I mind it, but not in terms of joining the military.

I have T-rex arms.

Oh is that an official disqualification now?

I tried, but they wouldn't have me (health issues). It was no doubt for the best, as I really wanted just to freak my parents/school counselors out. My sister joined up (cryptolinguist in chinese) and my brother (army rotor wing pilot).

jessie did you go to public hs? why did they make you take the asvab?

-- max, Tuesday, August 28, 2007 12:10 PM (Tuesday, August 28, 2007 12:10 PM) Bookmark Link

Yes, I did go to public high school, and I'm not sure why. We also had recruiters in the cafeteria every day. I always (rather unfairly and cynically) assumed it had to do with being a school with a lot of low-income students.

Is the Irish military anything like Ronin? Joeks.

I've been hearing a lot about the Amy lately due to dating someone who did 5 years. I think "mixed feelings" doesn't even begin to cover it.

Serious answer: I grew up in a military family and having observed its workings at close quarters I never felt inclined; I knew I would have been tempermentally unsuited for it. As there wasn't any sort of military tradition in my family -- my dad's uncle passed on in WWII, that's about it -- my dad never exerted any pressure to follow in his footsteps, for which I am always grateful (and would have been no matter what my dad did for a living).

I knew I would have been tempermentally unsuited for it.

Ding ding ding. I don't think I could deal with the authority.

Temperamentally unsuited, too. Plus I wrecked my knee when I was 16. Now I also have 11 pins in my left elbow from when I shattered that. I think the military would laugh at if I tried to get in.

Oh! I forgot to mention the strangest part of the ASVAB thing: they told us it was a "career test."

Is it wrong for me to assume that being a woman in the armed services probably still isn't, you know, enjoyable?

oh and my school had a set-up (magnet school) where we were allowed to take donations. that might have also had something to do with the ASVAB thing.

Jessie - heard something on a couple of years ago about rape in Iraq. It scared me a little. A lot.

i just tried to take a sample ASVAB on military.com - filled out like three pages of fake info using y✧✧✧@m✧✧.c✧✧ as my email then they were all youre already a member wahts yr passowrd

your at mom dot com

CREATIVE

Something on NPR that should read.

this sux i dont wanna wait a year just to enlist, plus it will be like another year before i am a real soldier

i think i'm gonna go work on an oil rig in alaska

i know a guy, ade

ps - working on the north slope is like getting on the fast track to alcoholism, drug addiction, depression, and venereal disease. the more you know! :D

http://www.navy.com/i/pic/charts/medicalchart.gif

"competitive"

they drive a hard bargain, tho, damn

tho if you are only making 140k as a civilian physician, then something must have gone wrong or you chose to be a pediatrician lol

Plus you might die xp

yah that graphic wicked suspect altogether

I wanted to join the USAF so I could fly a plane. I wouldn't have cared if it was just driving around an Airlift Wing C-17 all day or being a BUFF or F-15 jockey - I just wanted to fly a plane.

Only problem is that my vision is slightly worse than that of a mole - therefore, no flying for me.

-- Elvis Telecom, Tuesday, 28 August 2007 08:18 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Exactly the same here. That was my career plan(e) "join the RAF and be a pilot". Myopia killed that one in its tracks.

Plus you might not die in $FOREIGN COUNTRY, you might very well die in a freak training accident right on yr own base that no one could have predicted unless they knew that $TINY RANDOM THING would happen and POOF there goes yr marriage, that baby you just had, your debt-free future...sayonara.

I thought about the Air Force once but they told me b/c of my education/work experience, etc I would have to go into an officer academy (or something) and they currently had no openings. This was before the war. I'm sure if I tried again, they'd find a place for me. (Although under current circumstances there's no way I'd think about it.)

+ subliminal suggestion that civilian docs are homos

(fwiw, Loz, what yr describing generally does not happen to docs...nor does dying the muck, really)

river wolf who r u/how do u know me

yeah air force is my first choice, army my last. air force is a stretch since i have a GED tho

I'm pretty sure 95% of my DLI colleagues were temperamentally unsuited for it. Everybody thinks they can't handle the rigid hierarchy or whatever, but <i>imagine working in a place where they don't lie about being a meritocracy</i>. It's kind of nice, everybody understands that an E-4 can be the most qualified person for the job or the smartest person on the team, the socialist structure of the whole system is there so that said E-4 can be put to good use over time as opposed to just watching the Peter Principle gradually rot everything from the inside (like most other federal agencies).

god DAMMIT bbcode button

1. one of my stepdad's nephews got thru med school and residency and the whole bit to be a neurosurgeon, and then joined up. he is/was one of only a handful of brain surgeons in the military so he was at bagram for 6 mo putting people's heads back together -- mostly iraqi civilians. i'd only met him once or twice so i can't speak to his motivation, but i was able to read some of his letters and it was really incredible harrowing shit. he was one of the doctors who saved bob woodruff's life, too. i think they have him chilling in hawaii now.

if i understand it right, if you've got some kind of professional skill that you're bringing, they'll rank you up commensurate with that. probably won't work with an MA in media studies or whatever.

2. I thought about it but didn't go, because I had a good college to go to. and i had a pretty invasive lung surgery as a kid, so who knows if that matters.

but honestly there was a certain of straight fear -- not of being able to hack the tasks or the training but just dealing with the culture. maybe i'd seen full metal jacket too many times, but all those stories about the nutcase zealotry at the AA academy and all that...

certain amount

has the military become effectively an evangelical institution y/n

INeffectively, probably.

USAF officers are all either desk jockeys who get no respect because they deserve no respect or pilots who think they deserve all the respect but secretly know they don't deserve as much respect as navy pilots do. Don't ever become a USAF officer. God.

El Tomboto completely on the money. And the Navy pilots know it.

i've never had a prob with authority, i kind of prefer it when someone else runs shit and tells me what to do tbh

gff, full metal jacket is abt the marines, most other pps are sane

My dad's not-so-secret plan if he could reorganize the entire military was to delete the Air Force out of existence.

i love reading military jokes about interservice beefs that i'll never understand

xp ha!

"phase one of an air force base build plan is where to put the golf course" << shit like that

probably won't work with an MA in media studies or whatever.

"we've got some openings for you guys in the Mobile Infantry"

has the military become effectively an evangelical institution y/n

N, if the Irish Catholics have anything to say about it.

Oh and yeah the USAF Academy in colorado is basically a haven for evangelical rapists with dreams of bombing poor people. Fuck that place.

We had three kids selected from DLI to go to the USAF academy and trade their enlisted cryptolinguist careers for officer careers. All three of them came back after nine months to stick it out in language school for less money and no free bachelor's degree. That is how much the USAFA can go fuck itself.

^^^ I know people at USAF and this is completely true & correct.

gff: http://www.dinfos.osd.mil/

I know people at USAF and this is completely untrue.

what is this a logic puzzle now? am I on the island with the two tribes again?

I mean it's a fun bold statement but not true in my experience.

a: because i'm not a sucka

1. one of my stepdad's nephews got thru med school and residency and the whole bit to be a neurosurgeon, and then joined up. he is/was one of only a handful of brain surgeons in the military so he was at bagram for 6 mo putting people's heads back together -- mostly iraqi civilians. i'd only met him once or twice so i can't speak to his motivation, but i was able to read some of his letters and it was really incredible harrowing shit. he was one of the doctors who saved bob woodruff's life, too. i think they have him chilling in hawaii now.

tbh, this is not unappealling. if i'm going to be forward deployed, i can think of nothing i'd rather do than put back together civilians and troops who shouldn't have been blown up in the first place

Oh and yeah the USAF Academy in colorado is basically a haven for evangelical rapists with dreams of bombing poor people. Fuck that place.

^ elmo to thread?

What I really want to know is why does "troop" mean a person, singular?

same reason head means latrine

http://www.ladyofthecake.com/mel/hood/images/latrine3.jpg

tom waht languages did u learn?

snafu-speak and hangook-mall

COBOL

ASPie

I learned how to write tomato in chinese

it makes me a really clever person

a: because I don't have much national pride

i was in (navy) rotc for a year and disliked it intensely.

rw, a very good friend of mine went the navy route for med school; he then spent a year in bethesda and has now been posted to jakarta for 3-4 years doing malaria research. this is very atypical, but he could probably answer your questions about the process.

...is this post-residency? i'm assuming he's an internist?

If I ever had a kid, I would only physically threaten them if they wanted to sign up for this stuff.

(Sorry, I'm so old that I obv spat on returning Viet vets when I was 7)

all one needs to know about the navy

When I was of prime joining age (18-20), I had basically zero respect for the military/soldiers, thought it was incompatible with being a pinko. Also figured that I was 'unsuited' to hierarchy and respect for authority and so on. (I was an asshole, for the record.)

Truth is I'm probably better suited to the military than the passive-aggressive dance of authority in the regular world. Best job I ever had was because the workers were completely separate from the bosses and we all banded together in our hatred of them. I suspect the rank structure of the army/navy/etc. would be well-suited to my crypto-Marxism in a lot of ways.

I had one friend head to USAFA to be on the fencing team, he quit after a few weeks of the summer program, came home and became a drunk w/ me and other townies. Then got busted for drugs in College Station and last I heard was seriously considering Catholic seminary a couple of years later.

i'm not sure of the terminology, but he graduated med school in 2006, spent a hardcore year in bethesda in what sounds to me like residency, then shipped out.

apparently there are lots of different ways to handle residency in or out of the navy--he was fortunate in that he was interested in and somewhat qualified for a relatively obscure and, for the navy, unpopular posting (tropical medicine). also, his ultimate goal is to work in the third world, so he's not sure he even really needs to be board certified/go through full residency.

interesting, that

one hardcore is an internship, not residency (residency typically lasting 3-infinite years (in the surgical specialties---my dad did 10)). i'm also interested in 3rd world stuff---specifically public health and epidemiology---but to work with most aid organizations you need to board certified, i think. then again, 3-4 years of tropical medicine research will probably suffice, esp since the avg US doc will have zero knowledge of that sort of thing.

wait, actually, i think that in the Navy you are required to spend yr first year out of school as an on-base GP, which would make sense w/r/t yr friend's experience. after that, you're on to residency. some residencies are military, some are civilian. sounds like 3-4 years in jakarta is a military internal medicine residency, with a special focus in tropical medicine. neat!

milo z the military is TOTALLY the place for crypto-marxism, it's totally the socialist party from word one. I would say in fact that the air force is what drubbed the last of the marxist college boy ideas out of my head forever, because I learned that no matter how hard you try, ass kissing douchebags will enforce their idea of a meritocracy on everything, everywhere.

dang morbz ur a cranky dude. i want to know about your inner vulnerability, the torment that is masked by ur blustery exterior!!!

I don't.

haha, ok, i take everything back: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=324400

that just made me trust civilian doctors a lot less.
there's a reason we don't pay cops and firefighters in the six figures.

...because they don't take on $200k in debt to become cops and firefighters?

i mean, i don't necessarily agree with everything said on that thread, but it certainly takes a lot of the luster off of the deal. then again, some of the complaints are *yawn* whatever.

(cryptic post sorry)

the guy's complaining about the lifestyle which I could really give a shit less about. he should go sign up for LNS if he's so put off by having to spend ten whole days in field training slogging around in the woods instead of his nice king size bed with his normal sex life or whatever, clearly he thought the navy was something other than the fucking, uh, navy. complaining about the opportunity cost of not being an orthopedic surgeon for four years versus loan payments seems to miss the point.

i tend to distrust one-sided accounts of military service, whether it be some douche like Michael Yon who murdered a person and got off scot free to have one of the most fortunate military careers I've ever heard of, or this guy, who apparently didn't read anything about anything or talk to anyone besides the recruiter before he signed up.

i tend to distrust one-sided accounts of military service, Oh and yeah the USAF Academy in colorado is basically a haven for evangelical rapists with dreams of bombing poor people.

the line about cops and firefighters was basically to point out that when you start doling out money hand over fist to people to do an essential, difficult service, you end up with a lot of personnel who aren't so interested in the work itself

that guy didnt seem to realize that he was gonna be like in the military

lambasting one tenth of the air force based on a combination of anecdotal evidence and public record sure makes me a hypocrite

the guy's complaining about the lifestyle which I could really give a shit less about. he should go sign up for LNS if he's so put off by having to spend ten whole days in field training slogging around in the woods instead of his nice king size bed with his normal sex life or whatever, clearly he thought the navy was something other than the fucking, uh, navy. complaining about the opportunity cost of not being an orthopedic surgeon for four years versus loan payments seems to miss the point.

yeah, that stuff doesn't resonate much with me, i guess.

it's more the lack of freedom to choose residencies. i was under the impression that you could get any sort of civilian residency you wanted, but this makes it seem like that's pretty difficult.

xp that i can see. i am more interested in the work than the money, esp since the kind of doctoring i want to do has v little to do with establishing a private practice in the suburbs somewhere

yeah word

and, to be fair, dude does seem a little too preoccupied with doctorial "privelege."

oh he totally sounds like a prick and a half

have you ever thought about doing doctors without borders, rw? just wondering.

Yes it does!

that's absolutely what i'm into, jessie! they don't offer debt-relief, however.

dude, fuck the academy, end of story! tell yr pal he should have been a midshipman or a 'pointer. USAFA: the only military college where people go on to play in the NFL instead of taking a commission.

that's absolutely what i'm into, jessie! they don't offer debt-relief, however.

-- river wolf, Tuesday, August 28, 2007 3:17 PM (Tuesday, August 28, 2007 3:17 PM) Bookmark Link

Jesus Christ, does everything good and helpful in this world require independent wealth to participate? :/

Now it does kind of. I feel really bad for doctors and dentists. Dentists come out of dental school with a quarter million in debt these days, I heard. That's a heavy load, and you'd better be damn sure you want to be a dentist for the next 20 years.

A: Because I foolishly went to art school instead and wasted five years of my life putting off adulthood and doing stupid things like going to see The Shipping News at Tramps and burning furniture for fun.

If I could graduate high school all over again, I'd join the military and do two terms or so, just to have the skills and discipline I admire in that particular breed of person. It'd be nice to have some sort of skill aside from 'LP record cataloguing'

Now I'm married and there's no way I'm leaving my family, even for basic training (which I doubt I'd survive, beer belly, chronic headaches and all), so that dream is over.

But I have total respect for anyone in the military, from the lowliest private to the most decorated green beret.

I have also considered the state guard, but looked into it and found out that they make you buy your own uniforms and shit, which to me is a red flag - seems like a great place for them to track and stifle wannabe paramilitary types, all the while pretending to indulge / encourage Rambo fantasies. No thanks.

i love reading military jokes about interservice beefs that i'll never understand

An oldie but goodie...

One reason the Military Services have trouble operating jointly is that they don't speak the same language. For example, if you told Navy personnel to "secure a building," they would turn off the lights and lock the doors. The Army would occupy the building so no one could enter. Marines would assault the building, capture it, and defend it with suppressive fire and close combat. The Air Force, on the other hand, would take out a three-year lease with an option to buy.

haha like reader's digest 'humor in uniform' wtf section

years ago i had a boyfriend in the cdn reserves (airborn div) who had gone on peacekeeping missions - he had a lot of cool knowledge - had dropped out of highschool b/c of discipline issues but was a smart guy, just had never been given a lot of responsibility for self or others - kinda took to the military b/c of that certain combination of responsibility, conforming to clear hierarchy for clear reasons (which is where i wld trip up immediately i'm sure, ugh, institutions), and learning/doing a lot of interesting (sometimes badass) stuff (which is what i would love abt it the most). full-time military is obv something else though as discussed upthread.

i wld also like to be a doctor of the helping those who can't afford it kind etc and wld rule at it but the freakin cost ugh i am already in debt and 32 but what is age hey
lol upthread re: MA media studies comment - hi dere :/ haha but i can do stuff

well i have one too, innit :/ x2

ok half a one

I almost, almost did, back in 1990, when I was already 3 years out of high school and taking time off from college. I came thisclose to joining the USMC after talking to a couple of recruiters. At the last minute I didn't, because I just didn't think I'd be very good at military heirarchy. (A common refrain, apparently.)

I know it disappointed my dad that I never did at least 4 years. He joined the Army in 1962 as a jerkass high school dropout with no future, retired 25 years later as a CW3, and now holds a great high-up position at the American Red Cross. I think he really wanted me to experience it. The other thing was, I did the "moving all over the world" thing as an Army brat, and really didn't want to do it again.

Everyone in my school had to take the ASVAB as well; I seem to recall the explanation of what it actually was being a bit ambiguous. I guess I just assumed that everyone had to take it in 11th grade.

I did really well on it, like 99th percentile or something, based on my pretty-good-but-not great school and book smarts and equally pretty good practical knowledge - my two book-smart-only Indian friends were super pissed that they did so bad on the practical side of things.

This caused recruiters to call me weekly over the next 18 months, despite repeatedly telling them that I had no interest (my pilot dreams vanished when I got glasses in the 4th grade). Finally I started to fuck with them, telling them that I only had one foot, things like that. I finally told one guy that I was gay and that pretty much ended the calls for good.

PS. I'm not gay. And I have both feet.

US SOLDIER KILLS PUPPY (VIDEO, NOT GRAPHIC BUT DISTURBING)

http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/43462/9fb16ab3/us_soldaat_gooit_puppy.html

and his online profile:

http://www.bebo.com/DavidMotari

nabisco RIP

that was an insurgent puppy

a US soldier is a cop who travels for work and it’s a betrayal of your obligation to the victims of imperialism for you to treat them otherwise without seeing genuine remorse that leaves no room to honor anyone’s goddamn service

— Kumars Salehi (@KumarsSalehi) August 21, 2018

fair

mind you even cops don't expect to be cheered for killing people outside of their own jurisdiction

Thread title question answered:

First when I was of an age to enlist it was the Vietnam War era. That was not a war you wanted to get involved in. Even assigned to NATO it was the freaking Cold War and you drilled for a Soviet invasion with tactical nukes. Bad cess, either way.

Even if it had been during a time of relative peace, if you are in the military you are either at the lowest end of the chain of command, or you get to go through officer training and pop out at one level above a non-com and you get saddled with the same crap all middle managers get saddled with.

Either way, even in a peacetime military, I would have been miserable, just counting the days until my enlistment was up. No way on earth I was going to volunteer for that. College was miserable enough in its own way, until I figured out how to end run the whole major/minor, requirements/electives system, so I could learn what I wanted to learn. That feat took me four years, spent both in and out of school, at four schools, with three transfers of credits before I got it sorted.

I wouldn't want a job where they tell you when to go to sleep.

― S-, Tuesday, August 28, 2007 7:56 AM (ten years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My biggest concern now is being woken up too early.

Hmm Tombot was pretty tetchy 11 yrs ago

it was a glorious time

I had one friend head to USAFA to be on the fencing team, he quit after a few weeks of the summer program, came home and became a drunk w/ me and other townies. Then got busted for drugs in College Station and last I heard was seriously considering Catholic seminary a couple of years later.

Turns out he became a urologist and a never-Trump conservative Catholic who voted for the dipshit CIA Mormon.

I got drafted and really considered it, but then I got posted to northern Jutland and no fucking way was I doing that. So I was a conscientious objector.

what's the military presence in N Jutland about, Fred?

I have never considered joining the military, as to put it mildly military life would not align with my skills or temperament at all - the routine and discipline might be good for me, though I bristle at such things, but my general catastrophic malcoordination at basic physical or organisational tasks would not be v popular

however

in my mid-20s I'd been out of work for several months and went to a "job fair". the first stand in the hall and by far the biggest and glossiest was an army recruiter.

they had several massive posters on one theme: the military - it's not like you think! it's not just for fit young squaddie types! we need engineers and linguists and medics and cooks and desk staff! we're looking for all kinds of people, for all kinds of jobs!

mostly out of idle curiosity but also a little desperation, I went up to look at these posters, and as soon as I got within squinting range and without me saying a word the recruiter told me in no uncertain terms that I was definitely not any of the kinds of person they were looking for

I'm a complete peacenik/space cadet/military-hater/borderline autism spectrum case with serious issues about being told what to do. I wouldn't even last a day at basic training!

x-posts: Dunno, probably local special interest or something? The whole conscription thing is completely pointless, everyone knows we can't defend ourselves against whoever could conceivably invade, and most likely we'd just be nuked since we're mostly just in the way. A populist in the seventies proposed that we'd get rid of the entire military and instead get an answering machine that said 'we surrender' in Russian

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I recall it was of strategic importance to the Nazis, but can't imagine anyone invading it r/n!

Hmm Tombot was pretty tetchy 11 yrs ago

― faculty w1fe (silby), Wednesday, August 22, 2018 7:41 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Came back from the military like that

He's still kinda tetchy 11 years later tbf.

what capn jolly-bot a bit tetchy? I'm shocked!

I guess if you combine Northern Jutland and Norway it's good to guard against threats from the west but we haven't controlled Norway since 1814 and haven't been scared of threats from the west since, well, 1814. I don't think it's really of any strategic importance to us.

You sitting right on top of a lot of Germans there though.

No, that's Southern Jutland. I'm getting my Danish geography confused again.

The clue is in the name...

Not necessarily, part of Jutland is in Germany after all.

it was only the other year I became aware of that odd little (formerly Prussian) chunk of Russia between Poland + Lithuania. I know it's WW2/Cold War legacy thing, but come on Russian Federation, you already live in 10 time zones, don't take the piss!

was only reading about that last week. hard to say who came out best rly.

oh yeah, Barbarossa is just completely apocalyptic and monumentally bad for both sides alright.

mini aspects of that front are v compelling. the changing shape of finland and the final result of the land lost, the verdict that they had to pay reparations etc is a very interesting study vs their maintaining a semblance of self-direction and the relatively v few losses they suffered (also ofc the camps they themselves ran holding ethnic russians)

war, its fantastic

"(also ofc the camps they themselves ran holding ethnic russians)"

lucky bastards that didn't end up in a stalag! While the West were having ticker tape parades all the captured Red Army conscripts were getting sent out on cattle trains to the gulag archipelago, to learn the concept of fighting to the death for the motherland and probably die of starvation. Red Army blues!

I've just realized Fred wasn't banned after all, hurrah!

I grew up a pretty staunch pacifist, raised by Christian pacifists. As a teenager I turned into a hippie pothead. I would get regular recruitment calls from Sgt. Smith. I only spoke to him a couple times as he tried to wheedle me down. "I don't want to join the army - I just want to play guitar." "Oh, you can play music in the army, son..." My guitar teacher also tried to convince me to sign up. My lack of discipline was all too apparent to him. 1996 would have been a great time to join up!

Later, as a college dropout in San Diego with very few prospects, I really considered joining the Navy or Coast Guard. I had met many enough military people around town to cast off the notion that military people were all belligerent warmongering blockheads (some of them were definitely morons don't get me wrong). The ships and helicopters and planes were highly visible out there and were really neat! I mentioned my thoughts to a friend who I really trusted and she struck me down immediately saying like "Why in the hell would you think of doing that? That really doesn't seem like you." And she was right in that it didn't seem like me. But it may have been a better growth opportunity than forcing my way though the rest of the English Literature degree that I had been transferring through 4 separate colleges I kept dropping out of.

I lived with veterans in San Diego as well. Good people. But the way that one guy used to yell at night made me quite happy I never enlisted.

it may have been a better growth opportunity than forcing my way though the rest of the English Literature degree that I had been transferring through 4 separate colleges I kept dropping out of.

it was

x-posts: Dunno, probably local special interest or something? The whole conscription thing is completely pointless, everyone knows we can't defend ourselves against whoever could conceivably invade, and most likely we'd just be nuked since we're mostly just in the way. A populist in the seventies proposed that we'd get rid of the entire military and instead get an answering machine that said 'we surrender' in Russian

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

― Frederik B, Wednesday, August 22, 2018 11:15 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Populist otm and I'm stealing the hell out of that one for o'er here.

Short answer: I thought it was the military that made my dad that way. Although in hindsight I think my dad might've just been that way. Also my perpetual problems with authority would have likely gone over like a lead balloon in that setting.

My timing couldn’t have been better, too. I enlisted in 1999, avoiding the dot com bust, and by 9/11 I’d already been trained for a job that had no applicability to the GWOT. And I tried to get over there, towards the end of my term, but was told to stay at my desk and wait for my orders to Korea instead. Those never came, so I CLEP’d the last credits needed for my undergraduate degree and got my honorable discharge in late 2003, when we were entering another bubble, and then left contracting work for federal employment just in time for the financial sector to seize up.

the assumption that nobody who joins the military has perpetual problems with authority always brings out the lols. You do all realize most of the military is composed of the boys who spent more time in the principal’s office than the rest of the class combined, yes?

I don't assume that at all. I just assume that, say, my tendency of telling managers that I'm not going to do a thing that I think is stupid would cause me no shortage of headaches in a military context.

In a military context they train you how to properly report on your decisions to not do stupid things and the managers are trained that they have to listen first before telling you to stfu and get busy with the stupid. It’s all done kinda loudly though.

It's never crossed my mind that I would be a good fit for the military. I was a sensitive kid growing up and I've had trouble keeping weight on since I was 14. I don't think I would last a week of basic training. That having been said, the militaristic ideals of routine, structure, discipline, teamwork, etc. all appeal to me. This thread underlines for me the fact that it would be nice if our society had something like a pacifist version of the military, devoted to waging the moral equivalent of war (though not the way that James characterized it).

i was upset about the lack of a space force

I mean pointing out that many successful military folks who have greatly enjoyed their careers also had significant issues with discipline and structure prior to boot camp can be a post hoc fallacy, sure, but it’s still funny to read all the people saying “oh, my issues with authority and institutions would make me a bad fit” when you’ve actually spent time around military people

(NB for the sake of clarification, I have spent a lot of time around military people, ensconced in military housing, etc. Just not so much as an adult.)

because I hate confrontation, hate yelling, hate people being upset with me let alone trying to literally kill me, dislike war in general and specifically the wars the US is currently engaged in, and also have no athletic ability to speak of

Those are all completely valid reasons!

Yeah, in many ways the question is similar to 'why did you never become a stockbroker?' inasmuch as my answer is 'I am probably ill-suited to that particular career path in almost every imaginable way' with the added bonus of compulsory proximity to that ill-fitting world for the bulk of my childhood.

el t getting mad defensive about why everyone isnt ex military is good thread fodder imo

im gonna start a thread asking the same thing for for civil service, and i hope to emulate his tone

I served as a medic in the Army Reserve from 1991-1993. It thought my problem in college was a lack of discipline (it wasn't), and it payed my bills. If WW3 had gone down in the 90s I would have called back as a mobile hospital ambulance/triage medic, probably.

Incidentally, its actually advantageous to have never fired a gun (yet have calm nerves and good eyesight) for Army firearms training. There were people in my company from rural backgrounds who'd hunted since childhood, but I was always in the top 2-3 on the range, downing targets at 150-300 yds.

i was a red diaper baby and far-left politically as a teenager so joining the british army was never in the cards for me. my brother, while going through a sort of conservative spell in his early 20s, tried to become an officer, much to my parents chagrin, but didn't pass the entrance test - did well on all the paper tests and physical bits but he's a bit reserved and doesn't project leadership at all so this was unsurprising.

oh yeah i guess also being from a catholic background in the west of scotland and abhorring the british army's role in northern ireland was definitely a factor

couldve joined....the other army

One of the few things I give the Great British Public credit for is that, despite the concerted efforts of the right wing press over many many years, they do not regard the British Army with any great reverence, certainly not comparable to the US Army in the USA.

to be fair the military worship in the u.s. is a kind of state religion. the "our brave boys" patter and apologia for war crimes is pretty mainstream in the uk

oh also I hate guns, add that to the list

I'm unconvinced many of the GBP are, er, convinced by the Our Boys stuff. Always seems to me like public school educated tabloid hacks second guessing the plebs.(xp)

all that endless minute's silences for our brave lads crap at football matches seems to be popular with a broad section of fans i.e. the middle class family types as well as the EDL/FLA alliance type vermin! Although some of that might be just classic mob psychology at work.

A lot is down to the differences in patriotism between the US and the UK - patriotism in the USA seems at least plausible, what exactly are we supposed to patriotic about in the UK? The House of Windsor? Protestantism?

Not being French.

Not even that, that's purely an English obsession.

im gonna start a thread asking the same thing for for civil service, and i hope to emulate his tone

― flaneur brayin (darraghmac), Wednesday, August 22, 2018 8:41 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He'd stand by your side there probably

If I could take a standardized test and be slotted into a federal job guaranteed I would do it in a second

Too busy exploring the world and meeting different people

The whole identity/patriotism of one’s country has to be the most ass backwards thing the government has brainwashed people with

Mostly agree with dedalus/my boy james joyce on this

Controp: being a missionary is more eye opening than joining the military

My brother (3 years younger than me) just retired last year after 23 years in the Army. His oldest son joined the Air Force this year right after high school (just like dad) and just shipped off for training.

cubicle-less toilets (sorry for reddit link)

https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/10aq2b/i_see_your_shitters_and_raise_you_with_a_military/