In Which Branch Of Service Would You Choose To Enlist...

... if you had to serve. Or if you had the chance to serve again (or had the chance to 'do-over')...

-- Allen

I like the idea of being in a small unit fighting the enemy...not in a tank, or a sitting duck in a ship. The Marines have that going, but they are a bit too hoo-hah for me....the Chair Force? Great quarters, but its just a Seargant Bilko existence.....

because I understand it to be the most female-friendly. Plus, my Papa was in the italian merchant marine.

It was good enough for my dad for 30 years. I have this aversion to getting shot at. Of course, someone could bomb the air field, but allow me my cognitive dissonance, please.

I wouldn't let you! :cry: :(

I'm too old for the draft anyway. :-)

I'm not! Hopefully my history of poor health will help me get disqualified if the situation arises. :scared:

the Navy and Air Force are hard as hell to get into during a war -- rs

acquaintance of a lot of Navy and Coast Guard guys. Navy guys seemed really stressed out, and were gone most of the time for long stretches of their careers.

Coast Guard guys really seemed to love their jobs. I almost applied for a change of service, but never did. A very worthwhile branch of the service that has, unfortunately, been gobbled up in this Homeland Security revamp.

The army says it has awesome college benefits, which it would be great if I could collect, but the Navy actually gives technical training. I suppose if I was drafted I'd probably enlist in the Navy, but at the moment I'm leaning towards signing up for the Army because I'm out of work yet again and can't get a college education.

Hopefully, this mess in Iraq, and the spirit of sticking our nose into foreign 'adventures' will be coming to a close. The problem with the Army college benefits, if it was how it was in my day(1987), is that the college fund only went to 'combat arms' specialties. The technical training went to long term enlistees, with no college fund.

Everybody gets the GI bill.

If you want to sign up, and want to go for the specialty training. Do not admit (should you have done so, of course) to smoking dope etc. To anyone in the recruiting process. I honestly told that I had smoked pot 5 times to my recruiter. That automatically disqualified me for some military occupational specialties. "That's more than just experimentation" said the guy at the Mepps (?) station.

I went for Armor and the Army College fund anyway. So no biggee.

Lesson learned: lie.

I'd go for the Air Force today. 'good luck up there, Sir!' Let the officers do all the fighting.

Here's a guy I served with at Ft. Riley KS. 1-34 Ar. He was in "C" company, I was in "D" company. Charlie and Delta shared Barracks and tons of shit-talk between. Booker being one of the best at it.

RIP, Booker.

http://www.militarycity.com/valor/1759666.html

I used to be involved in housing and dormitory planning and programming for a "major command", and was TDY to the Pentagon alot as the the dorm policy was being set up and the the dorm upgrade and replacement program developed..

The Air Force reallly is comitted to really good quarters for their unaccompanied enlisted men. They have a pretty agressive program for dorm improvements and replacement, with a standard of one person per room. Im not sure what basic quarters are like...maybe more communal...but once youve got your first assignment you will have some fairly good quarters.

If I'm going to enlist, I want to travel. Even if it is for months on a boat.

I just wouldn't. SO sue me.

Personally, I'd rather go AWOL and find a TARDIS, do what I want, and get back in time... :D

the world for treasure, learn science, technology?"

IN THE NAVY!!!

http://lyrics.rare-lyrics.com/V/Village-People/In-The-Navy.html

The Village People were great recruiters!

It's the Navy for me, also!

Besides, in that "Simpsons" episode with N'Sync, they made the Navy look darn appealing! :-)

Terry

I'd enlist in Blackwater Corp. I'd make a grand a day AND serve my country so i can tell everybody back home I fought for my country - yet make out like a bandit, how cool is that?! Talk about the best of both worlds. I could wear cool khakis and top of the line body armor - and wield a nice modified mini-16 with laser-site and dot-scope and a really cool foregrip - maybe even a modified mp-5. Maybe i'd have the opportunity to even die for my country, the highest sacrifice a profiteer can make - and get stung from a bridge looking like a large overcooked rumproast!

I refuse to participate in an imperial army. I think that ALL of us
should be currently stating "NONE" given today's imperialist
ambitions.

I can't really conceive of any reason to belong to an organization that ideally is dedicated to preserving our freedoms when the members of the military are treated so poorly.

The treatment of those who served in World War II, post-military career was very good. But since Korea and Vietnam, the treatment of those who served has been bad and getting worse all the time.

Check out Myra McPherson's LONG TIME PASSING: A HISTORY OF THE VIETNAM GENERATION to find out how the young men returning from Vietnam were given secret code numbers on their honorable discharge papers which made it very difficult for them to get employment. And that is just one of the outrages of the treatment of those who have served.

Count me out. My private life is not going to be messed with by "superior" officers, and I will not give up my Constitutional Rights without a fight. Signing on to protecting our country from all enemies foreign and domestic should not mean that one gives up his or her rights to privacy or any of the other rights we have granted to us explicitly or implicitly by the Constitution.

...if I had to go again.

i.e. defense of homeland.

In which case, give me a rifle, a helmet, some rations and point out where the enemy is.

if I had to do it again, I'd do what my brother did;
join the Navy and go into submarines.

Whether you are on a fast attack or a missle boat, you go for a
(approx.) 6 week cruse, then you rotate with the other crew and
you're on shore duty for 6 weeks.

In "minor" wars you are in little danger, and in a major war,
you're safer than most.

they can make even an idiot the president!

...Reserves. I enlisted at 17 and if I had it to do over, I would've gone active duty.

The military can't take me. I'm in lousy shape and impossible to get out of bed in the morning.

...thinking I could do a tech job. My primary motivation is selfish, I'll admit, thinking I'd be physically farther removed from actual fighting, but I also think my mind is much more valuable than my body.

However, I would probably run as fast as my Beemer could carry me to the border and never look back.

that during Gulf WAR 1, an Air Force barracks in Saudi was hit by an errant scud misile, and several hundred Airmen were killed- I don`t think any branch of service is out of harms way in modern war.

Did four years in the 80s, can't imagine joining a lesser service.

And I ain't changing my tattoo!

since I can't think of any reason the other branches would be superior. My two years in the service weren't TOTALLY unrelieved misery.

ONLY because the Coast Guard was full. Definately the CG is the way to go.