Nineteen Year Old Son Plans to Join Army

Thanks all. {{Margo}} Thanks Cav, for getting Safecracker here.

Safecracker -- it is true that he needs to seriously consider who is commander in chief.

Sugar -- you're so right -- he's ignoring that aspect of kill or be killed, I think, or else glorifying it ala Saving Private Ryan. He's entranced with these promises which sound like they are totally empty, just as I"ve suspected.

Roger -- my son as property? Awkkkkkkk.

What kind of government would promise young men and women something that wasn't true, just to get them into the military? There doesn't seem to be much honor involved.

It's not the government piff. It's the damn recruiters. The recruiters also do some things that the military would not like. They help people pass tests andsuch that the military wanted to use to filter recruits. My recruiter advised me to lie about certain things on my security clearance interview and offered to forge references for me.

!!! That's not right. Why would they do that? It's a system gone amok.

Well part of it is the overwhelming beaurocracy. For the level of security clearance I'd have been working with I'd have to report all contacts with foreigners etc. That type of regulation makes it difficult to comply and makes everyone willing to take shortcuts.

If they'd not operate with each recruit being a "sale" and with quotas and all there'd be a lot more honesty. As long as your son understands how it works he will be making an informed decision. Like many here said, there really is no such thing as signing up just for an education. It can happen but there's no piece of paper saying you won't be deployed to a combat zone. Regardless of what you sign up for.

Every military and ex-military type I know told me not to listen to the recruiters. I got a lot of advice from my brother (who knows the military well) and frankly the main problem fopr me was not the recruiters giving a sales pitch so much as simply not knowing what they are talking about.

e.g. I'd ask what a certain MOS involved and they'd give me a video that is pretty much just an ad. I found my experiences with recruiters to be very lacking in information and heavy on clichés like "Be a man." "have you seen Black Hawk Down? Wanna do that?" etc.

Please tell your son to research the MOS outside of teh recruiting office. Some MOSes that look interesting turn out to be hell I'm told.

You might also want to have him look into where he will be stationed as that can make a big difference. I was interested in strategic intelligence duties and my recruiters were saying I had the job. But they were trying to station me at a base from which only tactical deployments take place. In other words they were making it look like I'd be an intel analyst but in reality I'd be in the field right off the bat.

I didn't mind being in the field as long as I could study (I didn't want deployments to interfere). I was told of an online study program and it looked like I'd be able to study while deployed (they give you a laptop and such).

Turns out while that is true the place they would have deployed me (in Colombia) did not supply internet access.

Tell him to really research and go down to MEPS as many times as it takes till he gets the right MOS.

BTW, roger's advice is so damn true. It wasn't an option for me because I needed in right away but if he can go in as an officer it makes the world of a difference.

My brother couldn't stress this enough. He kept telling me to ignore bonuses and go for the MOS that gave me higher entry rank.

Thanks for the extra information, Craven. I'll pass this all on to him. You are lucky your brother was there to answer questions. I don't think my son was expecting to keep taking college classes, other than whatever was needed for his assignment. He said there was a GI-Bill type program that would cover tuition for a few years after he was out. They told him (but who can trust this?) that he'd be able to go in as an E-4 Corporal because he had 80 college credits and could speak credible Spanish.

I'm still GS-9 if he needs advice lol...I had a high SC but it took hard work...technicly i still do...as far as my comment about who you work under I was more reffering to Bush and his shoot 1st ask questions later attitude. But yes different ppl act differently some ppl will give u a hard time just cuz they can. Then again when I would see a new group of students come into my class for sniper training they were pretty cocky...some of em.

Safecracker -- Thanks for your thoughts. I would love to have him listen to you. Seventeen when you started? Yikes! I'm sure you have worked hard, esp. as you're teaching these guys. Sniper school - where they get to have their weapon of choice and learn how to wear all kinds of camoflage? (See, I've watched Mail Call on TV with him... arggghh ... maybe that should have been my first clue.) You've stayed in and must like it. I dunno what a GS-9 is exactly, but it sounds like you've been successful at what you do.

I did know what you meant about Bush. Mr.P, who was in VN, says scornfully that Bush is taking a fine tool (that's you guys) and using it as a hammer. Seems the entire government didn't see the ramifications of what they were getting into, possibly because hardly any of them ever served. (Why do I discount the National Guard so much?)

Would you say that joining the army really is a rite of passage for some? Is that a bad thing from your viewpoint? I can say right now, Moms don't like it.

Recruiters will lie like rugs to sign you up. When I was eighteen and floundering around for a brief moment, missing my boyfriend away at school, a recruiter went as far as to tell me that I could be stationed at a camp near his school. As if I'd have a choice!

Oooooh, Piffka.

When I first started reading this thread I was going to respond as Roger, that finishing college is smart, and it may be.

But guys who are looking to be part of a group may argue that being a commissioned officer separates you and that many under them don't respect them. (No, I don't have personal experience; it is an argument I can foresee being made.)

I think waiting is wise, even if it is not to actually finish college...but that waiting is worth doing in the time of vast maturation that happens between the teens and early twenties. Waiting for the next president, for example, and then go in with more human learning under your hat.

A real motivator that I understand him to have, and I might too if I were him, is the business of growing up to handle your own decisions, your own money; he feels he is ready for that. But there are other answers to that than the army. One can get a job and an apartment and work a year, and revisit the decision.

He probably feels the army would be a test of manhood, a forging of manhood, at the same time he would accrue benefits. I can't really argue with that. In that light, just getting a job and apartment could seem boring.

I have recently read Sebastian Faulk's Birdsong, which was about World War I. Any lingering romance I might have had about men fighting together is dispelled. Despite the good things about the loyalty that is forged, the bonds...the horror overwhelms. I know the things in that book don't happen to everybody in the army. But they do happen.

Other aspects here - the desire to fight for your country, whether to be a hero or just to contribute; the potential to find yourself killing other people in a position like your own but on the opposite side, and the multiple ways to feel about that...those feelings are dealt with better I would guess by people who believe strongly in whatever action is being taken, at least believing in the general good of the engagement in conflict.

I think many times it comes down to your loyalty, interest, being with your buddies, and never mind the larger picture, which gets fogged; the buddies may be killed and you survive and have to go on. It is terribly hard even if it is meaningful.

I sound antiwar, and I pretty much am - but not completely.
Well, it is his decision, and I wish him well whatever he chooses.

Piffka

A slightly different approach (sort of suggested by Osso). I've been mulling this since yesterday.

How about a "gap year" (or part of)?

You're taking him to UK next month - give him a taste of travel. Make travel a bit of a diversion, an interval. It's very common in UK, and becoming more common here, to take a year off between school and whatever, and travel, especially overseas on working holiday visas. There are a lot of kids travelling in Oz like this.

Perhaps he can spend some more time in the UK, maybe Europe, indulging his interest in history, and doing the regular backpacking thing.

You may need to fund him a bit - but there's a network of backpackers to help him find work - although you may have missed the best period in summer. But then, summer is coming in Oz/NZ. Although European type history is limited here, there's thousands of years of aboriginal civilisation.

He'll grow up a bit and see some of the world. If he comes back and still wants to join the army, well....support him.

My best advice is for him to take some time to become a man not be forced to be 1 such as I was. I was in the army and had a child but that is another story.

Joining may be the right path for some but they have to be ready for things they will not expect. ROTC is the best way to go as it will put you in a better rank faster.....unlike what I did at 17.

GS-9 is a ranking for civi's who are working for the government...there are quite a few requirements for ir but it helps your career. I am no longer serving...I discharged about 6 months ago but alot of the ppl at war right now were trained partly under me and I am proud. So yes taking the GS route after I discharged was a good idea.

As a sniper you don't exactly pick your weapon lol IMO it is 1 of the harder MOS's reading wind speed is hard as hell. I also taught some ballistics War is not fun and you are under other ppls control.

It's been interesting coming back and looking at this thread. I've just been at another forum where the mothers are figuratively waving flags and making proud pronouncements of their children enlisting, training and going to Iraq. One woman, whose son came back from Iraq two weeks ago, has spent the last few months telling us all about the wonders of service, and all the exciting celebrities her son has met. Odd. Or at least, odd to me. Then again, what would the U.S. do without families like that.

I doubt her son feels the same way she does if he was actually involved in combat, when those bullets start flying everyone is scared no matter how many times you have been in that situation.

He was in combat. He's about your age. I suspect/hope that part of his reporting was a front for his mom, so she wouldn't freak out. However, the result has been that she has become an avid personal recruiter - telling everyone to send their kids, as it's so great over there. I wanna reach through my screen and throttle her sometimes.

Piffka, There are no simple answers, but many questions. Under the current administration, I'd try to discourage my children from volunteering into the military too! As proven in Afghanistan and Iraq, this administration shoots from the hips without thinking about the future consequence. Cowboy madness. What the recruiter says doesn't hold water once they're swon in; speciality class can be changed on the whim of some administrator sitting in a office who thinks they know best. There are absolutely no freedoms in the military; the day I left the US Air Force is still one of the happiest day of my life. Freedom, god almightly, freedom at last!

BTW, our son is a major in the US Air Force Reserve. He recently received a verification notice stating that he may be recalled to active duty. He's a Weapon's Officer, so the potential for harm coming to him is very small. I still worry.

If I hear someone saying how great the military is I mention all the ppl dying both our forces and the civi's in iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the debt the country is in and the pain it puts our familys through.

eoe -- Recruiters who lie like a rug? Yep -- that's what worries me! Glad you didn't get suckered in.



Osso -- I'm antiwar, too, though I see that we need some kind of military. I'm amazed though -- you must have been reading his mind. We talked about this commissioned officer thing this weekend. He thinks that officers who start as non-coms and then go through officer candidate school get more respect, at least from the troops. Who'd have thought? One of his grandpas did that & became a major, the other went through ROTC at Stanford and was a colonel, so it doesn't improve your rank, but I can't believe he'd stay in that long anyway. Thanks for your good wishes. Just as you say (and this is what is so frustrating to me), it is his darn decision. I seem to have made no headway in changing his mind in any way. At least his plan doesn't have him joining until the end of next summer. My new tack, which I haven't started yet -- I just can't bear to -- it to seem excited and then, being contrary, maybe he'll reconsider.

Margo -- I'm sorry you're worrying about this with me, but thanks! I wish I'd had a gap year - it sounds like a great idea. At least he'll be in London until the first week of December. I tried to get him to go earlier and travel with his sister & bf, but he didn't want to be with them for so long. None of his friends are interested in traveling and he's shy about traveling on his own. Maybe that'll change over the next few months. I'd like him to spend some time in Spain.

SC -- I'll tell him what you've said. If I can get him to sit down, maybe I'll have him read this thread. Shocked that snipers don't get to select their own weapons... that's such an urban legend! Don't tell me that they don't use those camoflage suits with all the twigs and stuff or I'll be totally disappointed! Your comeback to someone who thinks the military is great is a good one. There are a lot of people who have died on both sides and I know the families are put through so much fear and sadness.

Beth -- How weird that these other moms are glorifying their children being in combat. <shaking head> I can't see myself ever being like that. Ever. What kind of forum is that?

CI -- The administration of this country seems to be running amok, as far as I'm concerned. I don't even know where I'd begin with my list of complaints, but the misuse of the military is high up there. I'm really sorry to hear that your son may be called up as a reservist. That is so hard. I hope it doesn't happen.