Posted on 12/30/2005 8:15:40 AM PST by FlatLandBeer
I enlisted in the "Delayed Entry Program" for training as a Naval Aviator in March, 1963, at age 22. Reported to NAS Pensacola to begin Aviation Officer Candidate School in May, 1964, and was designated a Naval Aviator in Sep. 1965.
I spent almost 11 years on active duty and remained in the Naval Reserve until I retired in Oct. 1991.
Would I do it all over again? In a heartbeat! They paid me to fly and land on aircraft carriers. It don't get no better than that!
And I worked with and for the finest Americans I have ever known. That was an added benefit.
In fact, the only military related regret I have is that I did not enlist in the USMCR when I was 17. It would have served me well when I got to Pensacola had I been a Marine.
As a "Candyass Feathermerchant College Boy," I was grits for my Gunnery Sergeant's mill!
HST, whenever I encounter a sharp young college age man or woman, I encourage them to seriously investigate the US Navy or Marine Corps Aviation as a potential avocation.
I cannot think of any place I would rather be today, if I were 24 again, than strapped in the cockpit of a FA-18 on the port catapult of the USS Abraham Lincoln (or any other carrier, for that matter) to deliver a load of FReedom to an Islamofacist raghead!
boy, there's a lot of old farts here...(including me!)
i'd say try and join before the age of 21, just for physical purposes. my son is 19, and we just finished visiting our first recruiter.
Joined the Marine Corps at 20, because I wanted to go through bootcamp (SanDiego version), and air traffic control school outside of Memphis. Had a great time, met fun people, saw places, no regrets.
Do I regret it? Not in the slightest.
Would I recommend it? Only for those that are willing to risk their lives for their country, their friends, and their way of life. You'll always have brothers and sisters in the Army if you feel that way.
As far as specific recommendations, each service has it's own personality, and people generally drift towards the one they're most compatible with. Job selection varies quite a bit, but again, people gravitate towards what they're good at.
I would definitely not recommend the military for everyone. However, I would say that I've seen things my civilian peers never will, and am far richer for the experience. (If a little banged up in the process.) I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.
I did not serve and regret it to this day. I tried to serve in Gulf War 1 but I was too old by a year...
My son reports for boot camp on Monday next week. He has joined the Army and has been accepted for Airborne Ranger traning.
His goal is to join special forces. I am as proud as I can be about his decision.
Every young person should serve their country...they will get back 10 times what they put into it...
Thats my opinion.
Enlisted in the USAF at 18. I wanted to travel and I wanted job training. I got both and liked it enough to spend 22 years on active duty.
Well, I'll say this: I never served, and it is my greatest regret. If only I were 18 again...
Joined the Navy at 17, just in time for Viet Nam. Made two WESTPAC cruises in a tin can. Got schooling in electronics, the GI bill which put me through college, a lot of traveling to foreign lands and a much more mature attitude for my trouble. (Actually it was no trouble at all.) I almost re-enlisted.
I wish I'd gone in, and I think every teenager ought to serve for at least two years. Teach them some pride, respect and discipline, and a good work ethic.
Joined 2 days after my 17 th birthday and it was the best thing to happen to me.
11 th grade drop out, served my 3 years and had 2 years of college when I got my honorable discharge.
Joined at almost-18. No regrets, I have seen places and been out of the bubble unlike 99% of my co- workers. I understand the value of teamwork, also unlike 99% of my co- workers. I would rather die in my boots than in my bed, but I am also a mother. Cannot be fully mom and fully soldier, so I chose mom in the end.
Either you are a soldier in your heart and soul or you hate it. I am comfortable with this fact: If need be, I could defend the things I hold dear in this life with a great deal of skill and courage.
I was 21 and had been a college student. On a study tour of the Soviet Union (part of a semester abroad program) and witnessing the misery and lack of freedom in the Soviet Union and then peering over the Berlin Wall at the barbed wire and mine traps, I had a seachange in my view of the world; It dawned on me that most of my professors were idiots. I joined the army and was stationed in Turkey and South Korea. I still think the best people I ever met were in the service. I'm hoping my children consider the military academies in the future.
I was 18 years and four months old (in 1956). I was in college, but didn't think it was taking me anywhere I wanted to go. So I stopped out, and went off to "learn a trade" which I hoped would be in electronics or mechanical maintenance. One look at the mention of college, and the classification specialist put me in a foreign language school, definitely NOT a choice on my part. I washed out, but found the only option remaining to me was to be trained "OTJ", as a typewriter jockey. At the end of some four years, two months and twenty-four days (the four years I figured I owed to my country, the two months and twenty-four days were somebody else's time), I went home, with the attitude that they would have to call up the blind, the crippled, the crazy, the little old ladies, and the small children, before they dragged me back in again (I believe I invented the phrase FIGMO, and its reverse, OMGIF). In later years, the experience was, on balance, much to my benefit, as the mention of the honorable dischrge was well regarded in the early part of the 1960's, and later on, the "Cold War" GI Bill paid for my return to college and eventual masters's degree.
Do I recommend life in the military for anyone? As a personal discipline, honing life skills, few experiences can beat it. But you really learn the meaning of commitment, and eventually you get self-reliant, or suffer horrible consequences. Simply being in an organized unit with stiff demands on your abilities and emotional stability, and because by definition military services means you WILL be around a number of highly hazardous situations, which can develop with incredible speed into a confrontation with one's own mortality, is a stern test of will and fortitude.
Some crack under the strain, others get ground up by the machinery of war, and the majority come away with a much more profound admiration for everybody who has stepped into the breach in defense of their country.
Enlisted in the Corps 2 days after my 17th birthday. Shipped out 6 months later. Most enlightening experience of my life by far. Got to travel around the world twice, met people and saw things I couldn't have dreamed of if I hadn't been there in person. That four years changed me in ways I simply cannot express in words. Thank God for the Marine Corps.
Graduated HS in June 71, two weeks later I was going through Army BCT at Fort Dix. Spent over 7 years active Army, got out went to college, got a commision with the AF and spent another 14 years on active duty. It's really surprising how fast those 20 some years on active duty went. Would do it again in a hearbeat.
Was that school in Californicate...to study Russian?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.