anyone considering enlisting in the military?

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No, I'd rather go to prison.

As People with AHAD mean more Rules of Engagement violation.

If you not sure, why not install America Army and allow him to play for awhile. See how much ROE can he score?

As for me I have no problem being in the military but the nervous twitch for no reason and might violate the ROE. On the other hand, I love to join but they won't take me because I have several disabilities.

Since I am not accepted to join the military, I might as well enlist myself as a spy like Jason Bourne from the movie "The Bourne Identity" or try to get internship in the FBI. It the best I can do to enjoy the hi tech and not to mentions kicking enemy's butt.

Well i was in the british army for 4 years and loved it. I did have a habit of talking to people senior to me in a way that landed me in trouble a few times. Fortunately i had a great boss who knew i was very good at my job and cut me a little slack.

I was very lucky in that i was in a pretty specialised roll and most of my time i was bouncing between different groups of soldiers as an adviser and we had our own quircky rules to try and get them to talk to us and listen (we were addressed by first names amongst other things). Later on i moved to a different job but again it was in a very small group organising operational training. My point is i wasnt a 'normal' soldier in a 'normal' unit, how i would have felt if i had been i dont know.

As for the few people who have said things along the lines of "its dumb to join in time of war" you have no concept of what your talking about. Wars can start in less than a day (falklands war 1982), build up over months (gulf 1 +2) and drag on for decades and in which more than one generation of a family can fight (Northern Ireland).

The bottom line is if you are not prepared to go to war, fight and kill people and face the very real possibility that you will suffer physical and mental injury YOU SHOULD NOT JOIN.

As to why your son cant explain why he should want to join, I'm afraid mothers are not designed to be able to understand why their little boys want to go and fight other mothers sons... you just get to help pick up the pieces when they come back

After being in the Army for two and a half years I can only speak for my own experiences.

First and foremost, the Army would be my last choice.

The Army is a large and cantankerous organization that we can not expect to accomidate the unique individual save they have some specialization that allows them to do their work with less oversight and where they can "think outside of the box" much like the individual who was in the British Army. The smaller the unit and the more specialized, the better the opportunity for one to retain some of their identity.

It has been a rough transition and is not over yet. To give you an idea; I found that Iraq was much better in terms of my time while in and proved to be the best out of anything else found state-side.

I cannot go into much detail here but feel free to ask more questions and I will be happy to answer all of them.

Cheers,

O

Yeah erm, I joined the Air Force, but AS is a disqualifying disorder for them specifically, not sure about Army, but probably so.

Wasn't til after my Entry Level Seperation that I found out I had AS.

Edit: forgot this part. DONT DO IT DAMNIT! If you survive basic training, you will never be the same. The way the trauma of BMT affects an AS brain is... yeah...

AS is a disqual for most American military now.

I made it through Swab Summer at the US Coast Guard Academy before being Disqual'd for a seizure (not AS, right) but those 9 weeks were hell.

ok. go into your son's room, and tip his bunk (bed). dump every single piece of anything out of his drawers and tell him to clean it up, in ten minutes. see what happens.

Have him memorize people's names, without ever being able to look at what their face looks like, while they are all wearing the exact same outfit. uh huh yeah. and when he can't do it, get two inches away from his face and scream at him for not being able to.

Take a metal trash can and the lid to said metal trash can and bang them together. Just to test it out in his hearing. Or better yet, throw it down the middle of a hall with concrete flooring.

Now, before i get bashed by the people who will go, but that's just boot camp. I am from a military family. I know that once through that, it gets better, but my nine weeks sent me back into seizures after 14 years of stability. Oh and I have shin splints cause I run on my toes when on hills and the running shoes they gave us disintegrated after 3 weeks.

I joined to serve my country and because I liked the structure/rules. I am now in college and plan to work for a government agency. So, I will still serve my country just in a different way.

Your comments are disgusting to me. They show your ignorance about the roles of our military and roles of our politicians. The military does not make the decisions of who to fight, and what countries to fight in; The politicians do. The politicians are also the ones who make and break commitments.

Your comments make you sound like sissies, and sissies never understand warriors. People join the military for purpose. They like what the country stands for, and are willing to physically prove it. They want to move their lives from ordinary, to being part of making the world better. They feel the need to employ their righteous anger in a positive way.
What is righteous anger? Have you ever seen a bully beat someone up for no reason? Were you too small to do something about it? Were you angry enough to do something anyways? That is righteous anger.
A warrior will jump in to allow the victim to get away. He might get beat up, but warriors choose to put others ahead of themselves. Righteous anger helps him win, because he has goodness in his heart. Being a warrior is not about being the bully. It is about being a good person who can whoop up on the bully.

People who join the military just for the “free education”, fitness programs, and sweet paychecks are the ones the military does not need. They also don’t need the sissies who are too afraid to stand up for what they believe in. Those people are almost useless in war.

Do you bring a fight to your house, so you can destroy your own things and disturb your own family? I don’t think so. The best defense is a good offense, so you take it to the bully.
Do you let the bully choose where to fight? That is a bad idea too.
We are not stupid enough to fight in the mountains of Afghanistan where the locals know all the good hiding places. We had a good excuse, so we moved the main battlefield to the flatlands of Iraq where the enemy can find us easier. I believe the 101st Airborne said it best, “I feel sorry for the poor bastards. They have us surrounded” Just before we annihilated the enemy with our airplanes.

It’s not crazy to join the military, it is a personal choice about how you plan to live your life. I am retired military. I have kids in the Army, Air Force, and Marines. Honor is important to us. We did not start this war, but we will finish it.

Unless the politicians and people like you go get the victim and hand him back to the bully. That would be sickening.

i really wanted to do it, but they wouldnt accept me or my brother. we are losahs

Mudboy, some people love the smell of napalm and roast pork in the morning. Are you one of them?

It never affected the taste of my coffee...

I guess my post did turn into a bit of a rant. But, it seems people don't want to know about the evil that is lives down the street, much less to let them know they are being protected from it.

It is just not right to insult those who are watching your back. Even more so when they don't understand the situation.

It's not right when people can't speak against the war. In this case the Department of the Army itself has been mistreating our soldiers, as has the Veteran's Administration. The people who are injured and not receiving treatment are thankful for those of us who protest this condition. There are still veterans of Gulf War I who are sick from uranium exposure and not being treated. We're getting a lot more exposure of sicker and sicker people this time around.

Some of my concern is that we aren't going to be able to have any kind of effective military. We have a lot more people who are simply used up than people who have essential combat experience. They're going to get a lot crazier and meaner as it goes. I don't think we wanted to take our soldiers there. There wasn't enough of our freedom to defend in Iraq to pay that kind of price for. We could have left them completely alone. We needed those people and that money to defend freedom here at home.

This is what I mean about not understanding the situation. You can talk against the war, you need to choose your target better.

Why are you targeting the Army for mistreatment of soldiers instead of Congress? The Department of the Army has nothing to do with VA funding. Congress has been under funding the Veteran's Administration for years and years. By the way, I do have my rashes from Gulf War I.

Again, these things are caused by the president, congress and the senate, not the military. I was very upset the way the federal government did BRAC. They contracted out the support jobs at bases here in the US. That move got rid of the active duty replacements you are wanting. Now the Feds realize they went too far by shrinking the military too much. Last month they started talking about increasing the size of the military again. In the meantime, they are relocating troops out of Europe, Korea, and Japan, to come back to the US. The Feds say those countries make enough money to defend themselves. Our troops and money are coming home like you want, just from a different place.

I guess you still don’t understand the Iraq Afghanistan battle space thing. Read history. 20 years ago in Afghanistan, the Russians got their butts kicked in a big way. They kept trying to fight the Mujihadeen in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The same people and places they are today. We learned from the Russians mistakes and moved the main battle to Iraq. We are still fighting the same Mujihadeen , we are just not letting them have the home team advantage. Today in the mountains, the locals are tired of the Mujihadeen mooching off them. The local chiefs want the fighters to leave and go to Iraq where the war is. Another reason for Iraq is the map. Look where our allies are and where the troublemakers are. Having the main battle in Iraq is making resupply very difficult for our enemies.

War is ugly, but thankfully, our casualty rate is minuscule compared to previous wars. Our Middle East injury and fatality rate is even lower the same age range living in Detroit. The reason for the low rate is the military gets tons of safety briefings in between going outside the wire. They also stay out of trouble and undercover when they are inside the wire.

I told someone that my birthday was December 6 and that I hated celebrating it. They came back with "No wonder, with the worst day in American history happening the day after that." (Pearl Harbor) I had to speak up to that. I told them that us finally stepping up to that war could not ever be considered the worst day in US history. Especially when compared to Civil War battles, Civil Rights Riots, and 9-11.

I partially agree with the statement that we may not start wars but we will finish them. because i do beleive that we start wars, indirectly. I do wish we would finish this one, but my way of finishing it would be permanent, and we would lose allies, so it will never happen my way. (um nuke em, nuke em all.)

The military isn't here to defend freedom at home, that is why we have laws and a constitution. They are here to defend our borders from external threats. 9-11 was a serious external threat. We had to show that they wouldn't get away with it. My sister was over around baghdad 4 times gaining "essential combat experience." You can't do that in a non-combat situation. And the BRAC shrinkage scared me, because they consolidated a lot of bases, making them easier targets.

I don't agree with how the government has dealt with the matter. I don't trust this administration and if I had free access to the records of where/why money has been allocated for the military over the past 8 years I bet someone would be going to jail.

No one has ever said that you can't speak out against the war. But just as one person can speak out against a war, another person has the freedom to speak out against the person speaking out against the war. That is how freedom of speech works in America.

And the VA works with the funding that it gets from congress. want something done about it? write your congressman. want to do something yourself? go volunteer at one of the clinics or hospitals, they are always looking for more help. I'm in the VA's system, once you are in, it may take forever to get an appointment, but it is free, medications are free, they even have shuttles if you need to go out of town for treatment and pay for rooms if you need to stay overnight. so whoever you know that isn't getting help, just hasn't filled out the paperwork, or can't make their own appointments. Go see if they need help doing so.

I am curious, is it possible for me to go back into the Army? I was able to complete basic training, but didn't finish AIT (Advanced Individual Training) but got hospitalised with Depression and was Honerably discharged. I was later diagnosed by two seperate doctors as having Asperger's Syndrome and I am wondering if this will keep me from ever being reinlisted. I was hospitalised again for depression twice more, so i wonder if I can or cannot ever go back again.

I wanted to join the Navy but ADHD and meds make me not worth material for them.

That would depend in part on the separation code on your DD214.