Opinions needed on enlisting after college

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Why would you enlist? Why not go officer?

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You have a degree. Try go get an OCS contract. In fact, demand one. I'm a company commander and have sent half a dozen Soldiers of mine with degrees to OCS. There is not a better time in the the Army's history to get commissioned.

Plus officer pay is much, much better.

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If you want to be lazy and never do any real work, then yea, get commissioned. The pay differences between enlisted and officers is the biggest internal problem the military has.

[TTChamp]

I am an officer in the Navy, but I have seen several people in a similar situation as yours and they have regreted their decision. Here are my thoughts. I highly recomend you PM me to discuss this further.

1. There is a lot of romance associated with highly trained and bad ass groups like the rangers, but when you get down to it there is also a ton of work and crappy assignments. I'm not trying to put down these groups in any way (I would never mess with them), I am just saying that it is not a romantic as you think it is right now.

2. Based on your education you are obviously a smart guy. When you enlist you will be treated like an irresponsible dumb ass a lot of the time. Worse you will be surrounded by some people who really are irresponsible dumb asses.

3. There are a lot of ways to serve the country where your skill set will be better utilized. In the long run, this will be better for you and for the US.

[guller]

From my personal experiences, fresh college engineering graduates do not know anything about real "hands on" engineering anyway so...

Engineering degree + military training, in just discipline alone = easy hire over fresh college grad.

[RacersEdge]

I don't really like your plan. I think a newly minted grad student has a certain flare in the market. If nothing else, you won't be totally up to date in a technical field after 4 years. I think that would be a bigger negative than the army leadership would be a plus - which it would be.

Why do you even want to join the army at all?

Plus, defense contractors are very dicey with their revenue depending on governemnt actions. Why tie your future completely to them?

[MrTrik]

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From my personal experiences, fresh college engineering graduates do not know anything about real "hands on" engineering anyway so...

Engineering degree + military training, in just discipline alone = easy hire over fresh college grad.

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I agree with this. You will be in the same general job description and pay level as a fresh college grad but you'll probably be at the higher end of both.

The 4-6 years without experience is not a problem because you can explain it with documentation. But don't expect to be looked at as much more than a new college grad. Some companies will pay a slight premium in this case because of the non-field related things the military taught you. Disclipine, organazation, that kind of stuff.

[Bigdaddydvo]

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Why would you enlist? Why not go officer?

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You have a degree. Try go get an OCS contract. In fact, demand one. I'm a company commander and have sent half a dozen Soldiers of mine with degrees to OCS. There is not a better time in the the Army's history to get commissioned.

Plus officer pay is much, much better.

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If you want to be lazy and never do any real work, then yea, get commissioned. The pay differences between enlisted and officers is the biggest internal problem the military has.

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The ignorance of your post astounds me. Feel free to argue at length about who works hardest in the military (I know me AND my NCOs are prone to put in long hours)

However, the difference in pay is because of the different levels of RESPONSIBILITY between officers and enlisted. Read AR 600-20...as a commander I'm responsible for everything that happens or fails to happen in my unit. You probably won't understand this until you've led a platoon in combat or commanded a company. Accordingly, I'll give your ill informed statement a pass.

[ToGreyStreet]

this may seem naive, but wouldn't it make more sense for the military to assign someone who wants to enlist in the army into the field that would best use his skills. If someone comes out of medical school for example and wants to be a front line soldier, that would be a extreme misuse of their training and skills. If someone came out of college with a masters degree in engineering and really wanted to serve their country, they should do what would best utilize their skills...being an engineer for the military

-Joe

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Feel free to argue at length about who works hardest in the military (I know me AND my NCOs are prone to put in long hours)


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This is ignorant. Everyone in the military puts in long hours, but there's a huge difference between sitting in your office and working in a motorpool for 15 hours with one 30 minute break.

Of course I understand that officers have more responsibility and they should get payed more, but when a shithead 2nd lt. takes home as much as 1sg, something's jacked up.

I'm sure I'm wasting my time, most officers I met in the Army were condescending pricks that were NEVER wrong either. I could tell a 1000 stories about stupid things my commanders and platoon leaders did. O3 sleeping with E4, 1lt destroying 4 $20,000 circuit cards, O3 in Korea drinking and driving almost killing 3 people, O2 in Iraq shooting himself in the leg........on and on...... [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

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but wouldn't it make more sense for the military

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STOP! Almost nothing the military does makes sense.

[MonkeeMan]

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All it would take is one wrong landing in Airborne school to mess everything up.

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No worries then. I saw a guy jump well after me in the stick and land way before me due to a couple of streamers, and he walked away from it after he came to. (He did walk right out of jump school too though [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img])

But as a draftee the only way I kept my sanity was knowing I didn't join that sorry [censored].

So I vote no.