Introduction
I’ve been formally part of the military for roughly four years (not including my NROTC years before Officer Candidate School). I’ve learned a multitude of things about the military I previously didn’t understand that I’d like to share with everyone both good and bad. When I was in high school I was selected for the NROTC Marine Option scholarship and since then it’s been a roller coaster of adventure to say the least.
No matter what branch you plan to join, almost all these pros and cons are universal. If you have more questions or comments after reading this, my contact info is located at the bottom. Lets begin.
The Pros of Joining The U.S Military
The military provides you immediate sense of purpose
Right out of high school, you can join an organization that will leave you with absolute certainty that what you’re doing is meant for something larger than yourself. Whether peacetime or in war, your contribution in service is a vital component to the department of defense as a whole, no matter how small or large your job specialty is. Some servicemen and women forget this when they get caught up in their day to day responsibilities, but it always ties to a big picture.
The personal growth you experience in the military is unprecedented
When I first stepped on the yellow footprints at Marine Officer Candidate School all the way through the grueling tactical training at The Basic School, I’ve never grown as a person so much. Throughout your initial training you become adept to dealing with stress, uncertainty, fatigue, and intelligent decision making.
There isn’t a job in the corporate world that exposes you to the most raw parts of your inner being and molds you to be better than the first year of military life. The definition of impossible was completely redefined for me by the training standards set forth by my instructors. You also learn a lot about who people are when they’re stressed and some surprise you for the better and for the worse.
You get to shoot guns, travel, camp, and fly in aviation platforms for free
Some jobs are more “in the field” than others. But for every service member, you can expect to receive deliberate training on rifle and pistol shooting every year. Army and Marine Corps careers will take you into the field where you learn how to patrol, bivouac in a tactical setting, and adapt to the elements of snow, rain, heat, and humidity with your best friends and a bunch of guns.
The military will always give you job security
No matter how many work days you miss because of a positive covid test or how crazy the economy gets, you’ll always get paid the same paycheck based on your rank every two weeks. Sometimes corporate businesses go bankrupt and can’t pay their employees or they only get paid when they’re clocked in. In the military you get paid the same paycheck every time no matter if you’re using vacation days or having to call in sick / injured. Granted, you’ll work long hard days compared to most corporate jobs, but the downtime in the military is definitely a nice plus when the workweek isn’t busy.
Service members are eligible to use s VA loan to buy a house
Affording to buy a house (as an officer) was an blessing for me and my wife at age 22 because of the VA Loan. All servicemembers are eligible and being approved is as simple as showing them you can make the monthly payments based on you and your spouse’s income. Using a VA loan requires zero down payments. Keep in mind most brand new recruits out of bootcamp probably can’t afford house payments but as you rank up your paycheck increases and you can still use the VA loan.
The military actually gives you several days off that the corporate world doesn’t
Almost all holidays throughout the year are observed with extra days off.
Below is an example:
If Labor day is on Monday September 5th, then the military would give you Friday September 2nd – September 5th off. Thursday September 1st would be a half day at work so people are given time to drive to vacation during daylight hours. In short: your Labor Day weekend would be Thursday 12pm – Monday night.
These holidays are called a “96” because you have 96 hours off work. You’ll get a 96 for Labor Day, Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Martin Luther King Day, President’s Day, Easter, Junteenth, and Independence day. That’s a lot of 4 day weekends- almost one every month!
You’ll make friends for life in the military
I have friends that live in every state in the country besides North and South Dakota. You’ll meet a bunch of peers in basic training, even more in your job specialty school, and then the fleet / operating forces. Your friends will introduce you to some of their military friends and the web of connections grows exponentially within the first couple years. These are men and women that I know have my back every day of the year whether I need them to watch my dog because I have to go to a family funeral, check on my house when I’m gone because the alarm went off (and the list goes on). These are friends that will be there when you’re experiencing your highest highs and lowest lows (and you’ll be there for them too).
A lot of guys at my unit that do the heavy lifting are all the same rank as me including my immediate boss / supervisor. It’s still a professional relationship at work but it’s nice when you don’t have rank being a factor in your day to day interactions.
The military has consistent promotion timelines and opportunity to assume new responsibility
Not doing anything dumb or unsafe (getting a DUI or violating an order) will result in you getting promoted for the most part. You get thrown into responsibilities you don’t initially understand when you first graduate basic training, but you’ll adapt to the job and receive guidance from the command and people in the same job field. As you learn you become viewed as a leader by new guys that were in your position not too long ago, and you’ll slowly but surely climb the rank ladder much faster than corporate jobs as a result.
The military offers the Skillsbridge program to guarantee employment after service
Here’s how it works: you find any company you want to work for in the civilian sector and the military lets you leave service 6 months early (still giving you active pay) while you learn the civilian job from than company .
You might think why would a company want to participate in this program? Because for them, you’re working for free for 6 months. They don’t have to spend any money training you because the military is giving you active duty pay during that time.
Most businesses don’t get an ROI from an employee until 6 months later once they’re training to do the job anyway. It’s an outstanding program and I want to shake the hand of whoever came up with this idea because it’s genius.
If you already know what degree you want to get after high school, ROTC will cover tuition
This would be for the officer comissioning pipeline. There’s tons of articles on this blog relating to ROTC. For all the details regarding what ROTC is like and if it’s worth it, check out my article here.
Also, check out this article to see what a day in the life experience would be like doing ROTC.
Marines with collateral duties often have certifications that carry over into the civilian world
Because of how small the Marine Corps is, they often have us doing collateral duties. At my Marine unit, we have Marines that also have training to be safety managers, notary certifiers, legal officers, financial advisors and more. Because I’m also the unit’s safety officer, I have OSHA certified papers that corporate companies recognize. I tend to these responsibilities in addition to my tactical job.
Good unit leadership will make you enjoy your time in service even more
I’ve had the privilege of working with some really strong leaders who solved problems with common sense, communicated their intent clearly, and worked to better the individuals under their command. I’ve also been under leaders who only cared about the status quo and looking good on paper with no ability to demonstrate people skills. Every command has both types of leaders some at the very top and some may be your immediate supervisors.
I’m bias, but I believe most commands in the Marine Corps do a better job getting their leaders right because of the training officers receive. No matter how good or bad your first command is, remember this: everyone will move bases in a couple years or be transferred somewhere else so it won’t last forever.
There’s a saying in the military that if you hate your life because of something you can’t control, wait 6 months because it’ll change.
Military Officers get some say in the job they want
Enlisted recruiters (not officer recruiters) will usually tell you about how you can pick your job and that they’ll guarantee one thing or the next. By the end of boot camp, most recruits don’t get anything close to what their recruiter promised them. On the officer side, you submit a preference list and then get selected for your job speciality based on how well you rank amongst your class. The system is elaborate and takes a lot of things into consideration, but I think it’s pretty fair how they do it and 95% of officers get their top 4 career fields (that’s what my class statistic was).
The military tends to have strong family support programs
When you first check in to your unit after basic training, you’ll be given tons of pamphlets on various resources for family life that your base provides. There’s everything from religious counseling services, couples therapy, and family fun / kids days hosted on base for free. Most of my friends are married, so my spouse is friends with their spouses and they usually hangout while my buddies and I are at work.
Military OneSource is also a great line you can call 24/7 and they will always get you in contact with a family support system or resource if you need it for free. It’s great even if you just have general questions.
There’s significant job satisfaction from assuming military leadership roles
No matter if you’re enlisted or officer, you’ll have the chance to lead your peers and people under you at some point in time. As you gain experience in your job field, you’ll find ways to improve it or make your unit better. Initiative in the military is rewarded no matter the activity. If there’s guys at your unit that aren’t good at running, design a workout for them and run them through it. If your junior soldiers, sailors, airmen, or Marines aren’t good at programming radios, kick a class during lunch hours to make them better at it.
If you’re good at something, share that knowledge and make those around you better. Even if you don’t love your unit’s operational tempo / day to day life, there’s always a chance to help better those around you and there’s satisfaction in that.
The Cons of Joining the Military and What to Do About It
Operational tempo is slow right now
If you join now, you’ll go through the best military training in the world for each respective branch and then arrive at your fleet unit / army unit and realize most of the time you’re doing gear maintenance and routine annual training exercises in 29 Palms, Fort Bragg, Yuma or being part of a rotating ship schedule.
I’m extremely grateful there is no major conflict going on in the world right now and I don’t want there to ever be. However, a lot of my friends across every branch get quite antsy and even depressed that they served four years and never put any of their capabilities to real world use. It’s a reality of peacetime and not a bad one, but I do agree with the feelings they have.
You can’t pick where you get stationed
You’ll put in a preference for where you want to go but I’m pretty sure the military commands don’t even look at it. For Marines: you’ll either be stationed in Okinawa, San Diego, North Carolina Or 29 Palms California. . These destinations are pretty much the same for the Navy. For the Army and the Air Force, you can expect to be at a base in any state in the country and overseas in the United Kingdom or even Germany.
Sometimes this comes as a pleasant surprise, and sometimes this can be a massive disappointment depending on where your family is from. The key is to save up your leave days and prioritize visiting family during holidays and time off so you never feel like you’re that far from home. If you really don’t want to go overseas, make sure to voice this to your recruiter because there is a little more understanding when it comes to overseas stations.
Large-scale training exercises often happen in a different state from where you are stationed
Every year, thousands of Marines train in Twentynine Palms and their units fly in from across the country. My wife gets annoyed at this because we are stationed hours away, but I still have to travel to go to training exercises a couple times each year.
You have to stand 24-hour Duty once a month
“Duty” is where you show up to the office you work at, and man the front desk. The most important thing about standing duty is to be able to answer the phone if a Red Cross message comes in or if there is an emergency that requires immediate response. You also have to constantly check the security of classified vaults throughout your building.
Government issued laptops and work spaces are not productive
There’s a lot of paperwork involved in being in the military, and our computers are super slow, there’s special security required to access them, and printers consistently drop connection. This makes even the simplest tasks of submitting a paper to your commanding officer take hours for approval.
There’s a lot of late nights and early mornings
I’ve never been an early morning person, so I never appreciated our 6 a.m. workouts. Sometimes our unit falls behind on the maintenance schedule so we have to stay long hours, and technically we still get paid the same amount with no overtime. Financial gripe aside, it’s hard to tell my wife when I’ll be home every day.
You’ll have to accomplish responsibilities other than your tactical job
This one is Marine Corps specific and I already talked about it once. But even if you are a pilot, you’ll be expected to participate in ground training exercises where you live just like an infantryman. Especially on the officer side, you’ll spend more time in a management and leadership position than your specific job specialty. This isn’t always a drawback, but I know for pilots especially all they want to do is fly instead of a million other tasks unrelated to aviation.
You’re not guaranteed the job your recruiter promises you
Almost every person I know that enlisted was told that they would be given a job at the recruiter told them they would do. By the time they get their orders at the end of boot camp, it’s almost the exact opposite from what the recruiter guaranteed and there’s nothing you can do about it.
The best mindset to have going into joining the military is that you will grow as a person no matter what job field you get, and that once you are in service, you can then lateral transfer into the job you actually wanted in the first place.
You have to pay for good gear
You’ll be issued ” everything you need” in a tactical setting. But if you want high-quality boots that won’t destroy your knees after 4 years and gloves that weren’t made during WWII, it’s in your best interest to invest in your own stuff.
There’s always a lengthy administrative process to any live-fire training
You see a lot of cool videos about people shooting machine guns and firing rounds out of a tank. What you don’t see are the hours of safety briefs, paperwork that has to be signed by 5 command echelons, and the amount of practice runs that take place before someone shoots live ammunition. All of the stuff is important, but to the brand new 18 year old Soldier or Marine, one could argue that this takes the fun out of all of it.
You spend a lot of time away from family in the military
Even if you don’t deploy, your unit will likely go to the field or rotate on a ship if you are in the Navy or Marine Corps. Some of these field training is can last as long as six weeks and as short as 10 days. Either way, this time away from family adds up and it’s essential that you take as many vacation days as you can when there is nothing going on at your unit.
Marines can’t transfer their GI Bill unless they serve two contracts.
This might change since the time you are reading this article, but right now you have to serve two contracts to transfer your g.I. bill to your spouse or your kid. Your family is eligible to enroll in Military University classes that provide discounted tuition, but it will not completely cover the cost of that.
You have to live in the barracks until you are married or have around six years in service
The barracks life is like living in a college dorm but issued to you by the government. The Air Force and Army usually have better food halls available for Barracks service members, but spending too much time in your small living quarters will make you depressed unless you put effort into getting out on the weekends and doing activities in your local area.
Conclusion
As you can see, there’s a lot of experiences you can expect to have if you join the military. In short, it is a fantastic option especially for someone coming out of high school who wants an immediate sense of purpose in their life will serve you in the civilian world once you decide to get out.
Thanks for reading, if you have any additional questions or comments, feel free to reach out to me at theyouculture@gmail.com and I’ll do my best to respond. Be sure to check back regularly for the next article.