Originally Posted by Joe Williams  The military was very good to me. It delivered everything it promised, but that's largely because even at 17 I was smart enough to heed the advice (just about the only advice I was smart enough to listen to) not to let them promise me much!!! READ THE CONTRACT!!! Read how long the term of enlistment actually is for Remember the folks who were suddenly not allowed out? They signed their name to that.
Tell her to pick her job, don't let the recruiter talk her into going open general. Use the recruiter to find out what jobs are available, find out what they are, and get a "guaranteed" job. Remember the read the contract part? "Guaranteed" really isn't, they still get to change it if they want or need to, but I don't know many folks that happened to. Actually I can't remember any off the top of my head, but it has been a while.
Tell her the benefits can indeed be very good. The training is topnotch, the opportunity for responsibility and authority can be unequaled in the civilian world for an 18 year old with a high school education (the Air Force is particularly good in this regard for enlisted folks), the opportunities for college are very real. You really can "see the world," and experience things that most folks can only dream of.
Perhaps the biggest perk is the people. For whatever reason, the caliber of people you will deal with simply aren't matched in the civilian world. They are just kids. When I got out at 28, I was an "old man." But, they are mission driven, on the ball, high quality people for the most part. They are only people, and they are only kids, so there are mistakes made, but she'll never work and live with better people in all her life. I've been out for almost 14 years, and still miss the people and the life.
There is a drawback, though. She CAN be sent to war, be captured, be raped, and/or be killed. She may have to kill someone personally. If she doesn't, she'll be helping to do so. She may load a bomb that kills kids, and have to do it again the next day. The military is about force, power, and killing, and she cannot go into the committment blind to that. It's not a welfare ride to see the world and go to college, those are simply the fringe benefits to a job that is hard, sometimes lonely, sometimes fatal.
If she joins, though, no matter what else she does for the rest of her life, she'll have mattered. She'll have counted. She'll have helped make history of one sort or another. I loved the military and I love that I went to war and played a tiny part in helping free Kuwait. In that, I did a good thing. I saw the evil the Iraqis did in Kuwait, and I helped stop that. I helped destroy Communism, an evil that enslaved and killed. A microscopic part, you'll never read about me or my friends in history books, but when the Berlin Wall came down, I helped that happen. If she joins, she'll face different enemies and challenges, but she'll count. |