thinking about joining the military

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Since you train for war, woulnd't you have to learn how to manage yourself in all kinds of unpredictable situations?

I need help with time management when everything is unpredictable. You can't rely on the bus or a ride from a friend or your laundry to come out right or safety of your bank account and you have to find a way to have a whole series of backup plans and reserves and stuff.

What do you think? I'm in really good shape and could probably pass the fitness tests. plus i'd get to shoot guns.

basic training is part one of the filter- you can expect thousands of punitive pushups, exposure to the most scabrous invective from smokey-bear-hat-wearing drill sergeants, lack of sleep, lack of time to eat, extreme fatigue, no privacy, no free time, much psychological "head games" from both the military brass as well as from one's fellow recruits. there will be war games and preparation for war games, where everything will be broken down into small parts which will be drilled into your head with more pushups and scabrous invective from the drill sergeants. you and your ancestors will be compared to hillbillies who fornicated with barnyard animals. you will sweat off between 10 and 20 pounds, on average, i know i did. you will be screamed at [face-to-face] for the most picayune things ["attention to detail"] like having a loose button on your uniform or having cuts on your face from being made to blade-shave with dull blades [one-a-week trips to the shopette for new razors is a recipe for dull-blades]. you will feel like a prisoner at hard labor, for the brass won't let you [independently] leave the basic training company area for the whole time your basic lasts. you will have to stand at silent attention with your arms painfully locked behind your back ["parade rest"], sometimes for up to an hour either in the hot sun or the freezing wind. you will be made to march at a fast clip every place you go, and dropped for pushups very often. if a drill sergeant spits in your face, you better not break the position of parade rest to wipe the spittle off your face, if you know what's good for you.

if you pass the first filter, then there is the 2nd filter, advanced individual training, which in some cases is divided between didactic [classroom] and OJT [aka "phase two"] where you finish your learning on the job either at a phase II site or at your first permanent party station. depending on the military occupational specialty [MOS] you may find a good fit or you might flunk out at this stage, which can mean either a quick trip to infantry training or a "failure to adapt to military life" chapter discharge. there is even more politics in this stage, but not nearly as much as in permanent party which is the 3rd filter. i've seen people squeak by the first two only to fall flat when they reached their permanent party base, due mostly to politics. if you can't play the political games your military career will be cut short. if you find yourself the subject of bullying, YOU will be judged to be at fault ["failure to adapt to military life"] and discharged, sooner or later. the only reason i was not discharged for that reason was because i was the only one who kept his nose clean in my unit, and they were chronically short of ORTs. most of the rest went AWOL or punched their sergeants or officers and got CCF and/or discharge. you will likely notice a high turnover of personnel.

if it were just having to do my job, i coulda lasted longer in the military but i just could not deal with my fellow [backstabbers and bullies to a person] recruits who acted like scorpions in a bottle, or with my superiors [alpha bullies] who were even worse. in any case, i wish you the best of luck if this is what you wanna do.

Last edited by auntblabby on 15 Mar 2013, 10:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Navy Basic and Advanced training were just as AuntBlabby described, and it was indeed the backstabbing, alpha posturing, and generally political bullsnot that drove me to taking an honorable discharge instead of becoming a lifer.

But if you can deal with all of that, then you really can learn how to manage yourself in all kinds of unpredictable situations.

I could never be in the military because I would question an illogical order. I like equal systems, and the military is hierarchical.

i read that the isreali and german defence forces are relatively egalitarian. "relatively." meaning a private therein can speak up about something not right, in much the same manner as an assembly line worker in some progressive factories can "stop the line" if s/he finds a critical fault.

Last edited by auntblabby on 16 Mar 2013, 12:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

Israel is like that because it is very militarized as a culture - all people being drafted and all that. That as well as not too long ago Jews being a bunch of terrorist militias who were not exactly "formal" militaries. I am sure their logic is 'fighting the traditional way sucks. Let's do something different'

If you want to defend people or shoot guns, join a militia. You live in Oklahoma - cant be too hard to find

All good advice so far. I'm 13 yrs in the us Af and I could add one point. Once you reach the senior NCO ranks, you will most likely not be doing the job you signed up for, but managing people, sometimes a lot of people. Currently I manage nearly 50 troops and it is tough for me. I like the AF enough currently to stick it out, but its getting harder and harder. 50 people with each having their own needs/problems...whew!

yeah maybe just a real gym with a trainer. I have a ginormous brain with 150 IQ and I have an inner temper and am super competitive. Maybe join the circus. That would be cool.

master sergeant Triple_B, do you have to be the parent both at work as well as at home?

Not sure I fully understand the question, but yes I am a parent at home, and a "parent like" figure for the military. Many of the troops are only teenagers, or low 20's.

you understood the question well enough to answer my question thank you. the reason i asked is that [when i was in, in the 80s] i couldn't help but notice that NCOs and COs often had to be "in loco parentis" to their charges whether or not they wanted to be- and i was wondering if anything changed over the decades since then. i also was wondering if your [home] parental duties helped inform your on-the-job parenting you mentioned.

I have a friend who has Aspergers diagnosis who joined the military. Prior to joining he ran miles everyday to prepare. He did get sent to Iraq and did a small stint overseas. He had some of breakdown and got a discharged from the military however he still has VA benefits.
He couldn't hack. You have to be able and prepared to kill if you have to. No second quessing. At least for certain branches.

How are your visual-spatial skills? Mine are horrific. It caused all sorts of problems in the military. It was fine after I made it to 2nd LT status; I was branched engineer but mostly did the work of the Adjutant General Branch in the S4 because I couldn't handle field stuff (especially the navigation and multitasking). Then, I promoted to 1LT and had to be a platoon leader in order to advance further. I lasted approximately two weeks until I pointed a tank in the wrong direction. Then, I also got in trouble for some personal stuff (drugs and being seen going with some buddies to a brothel), and I basically had to put in my paperwork to leave after the minimum commitment or face getting chaptered out for "substandard performance of duty."

I got an honorable discharge with a spotty record of service. To be honest, I couldn't really do most of the work due to my NLD. I'm surprised they even let me in to begin with.

I wouldn't recommend it if you are a sensitive person or have sensory issues. You may think it doesn't require social skills, but it definitely does; mine improved somewhat, and I had people who taught me how to get laid. Now, i'm going to a top law school for free while most of my classmates are going $200,000 into debt.

I can't say do it or don't, but my experience was pretty miserable but also beneficial, perhaps.