Thinking of Joining the Military? V2 - General

I want to join the Marines this summer, but I'm scared they'll assign me some shitty moving or noncombat MOS. it is literally a dream of mine to walk around the desert with a gun and my squad

[QUOTE=ewitwins;37942280]So, I know that I've probably asked this before, but Can you guys run me through joining the Air Force Reserve? You know, from signing up to regular duty, what does it all entail? I don't really mind how simplified you make it.[/QUOTE] Desperation Bump [editline]8th October 2012[/editline] slash and/or next page

[QUOTE=Jmir 54;37963264]I want to join the Marines this summer, but I'm scared they'll assign me some shitty moving or noncombat MOS. it is literally a dream of mine to walk around the desert with a gun and my squad[/QUOTE] Tell em you wan't to be infantry and get it in your contract, they'll be more than happy to send you over there to get shot at.

Woo just got certed to made CDE calls/point drops for the BLU-119. Next...CBU-107 :dance:

[QUOTE=Apache249;37927690]Are you aircrew?[/QUOTE] Yeah, loadmaster. Just got sere and 6 months of IQT left before im all operational and shit. ...Fuck i hate how long this takes. But hey, least I aint a linguist

what ive always heard about getting a mos in the marines, especially infantry, is to go up to the recruiter around november

Really trying to figure out which MOS's I want. I know my 3rd MOS is to be infantry as a Machine Gunner or a Rifleman but for my 1 & 2 I'm trying to figure out what it is I want. If I wanted to work on ground vehicles such as Humvee's and trucks what would I pick? And if I wanted to work with computers, like fixing them on a technical level what would that be? I can't find a place with any real descriptions of jobs saying what exactly they do.

[QUOTE=Jmir 54;37963264]I want to join the Marines this summer, but I'm scared they'll assign me some shitty moving or noncombat MOS. it is literally a dream of mine to walk around the desert with a gun and my squad[/QUOTE] I swear I always say this, but seriously, Infantry really, really sucks. Let me 100% level with you here. You don't walk around the desert with a gun and your squad. You pull shitty guard duty. You sit around all day, waiting for QRF. You get stuck in towers. You go out on patrol occasionally on MRAPs. In garrison, you will go crazy. You go to the back 40 about every week, doing some training exercise which eats up free time and the conditions suck as well. You also do a lot of nothing. Infantry are made out to be some kind of kick ass glorious thing. The truth is Infantry is something that a lot of people seriously regret joining as. Those "shitty noncombat MOS's" have a whole hell of a lot more job opportunities after the military than Infantry, not to mention 80% of the jobs are non combat-arms jobs. If you still want to go Infantry, be my guest. Just know it isn't what you think it will be.

[QUOTE=SKEEA;37966093]I swear I always say this, but seriously, Infantry really, really sucks. Let me 100% level with you here. You don't walk around the desert with a gun and your squad. You pull shitty guard duty. You sit around all day, waiting for QRF. You get stuck in towers. You go out on patrol occasionally on MRAPs. In garrison, you will go crazy. You go to the back 40 about every week, doing some training exercise which eats up free time and the conditions suck as well. You also do a lot of nothing. Infantry are made out to be some kind of kick ass glorious thing. The truth is Infantry is something that a lot of people seriously regret joining as. Those "shitty noncombat MOS's" have a whole hell of a lot more job opportunities after the military than Infantry, not to mention 80% of the jobs are non combat-arms jobs. If you still want to go Infantry, be my guest. Just know it isn't what you think it will be.[/QUOTE] SKEEA speaks the truth, my testament is down below. I can't speak on my own behalf but from what my grandfather has told me ( and this was back in vietnam ) He said it sucked, it was always hot, you get stuck on shitty guard duty and you have to sit around for hours at a time just doing NOTHING. And if its anywhere near like it was back in Vietnam, you will NOT want to go and see combat if that's what you're thinking about doing. My grandfather said he used to carry candy with him to throw at the children if they started coming his way because kids used to be strapped with grenades and explosives, and over in Afghanistan I'm pretty sure children raised by the militia aren't afraid to shoot back at you. Again I'm just speaking from other people's experience but if you want an infantry job to go see combat, well you've got another thing coming.

Are there any officers on Facepunch? All I see is a wave of enlistedmen.

[QUOTE=SKEEA;37966093]I swear I always say this, but seriously, Infantry really, really sucks. Let me 100% level with you here. You don't walk around the desert with a gun and your squad. You pull shitty guard duty. You sit around all day, waiting for QRF. You get stuck in towers. You go out on patrol occasionally on MRAPs. In garrison, you will go crazy. You go to the back 40 about every week, doing some training exercise which eats up free time and the conditions suck as well. You also do a lot of nothing. Infantry are made out to be some kind of kick ass glorious thing. The truth is Infantry is something that a lot of people seriously regret joining as. Those "shitty noncombat MOS's" have a whole hell of a lot more job opportunities after the military than Infantry, not to mention 80% of the jobs are non combat-arms jobs. If you still want to go Infantry, be my guest. Just know it isn't what you think it will be.[/QUOTE] At least you'll have cadence singing of your bravery but yeah this is pretty much what one of my cadre was telling me when he reclassed to my MOS I don't things will be too different with Army v Marine Infantry, but yeah...

[QUOTE=Apache249;37966219]Are there any officers on Facepunch? All I see is a wave of enlistedmen.[/QUOTE] There's a Naval Officer somewhere in this thread.

[QUOTE=W0w00t;37964445]what ive always heard about getting a mos in the marines, especially infantry, is to go up to the recruiter around november[/QUOTE]October, actually. That's the start of their fiscal year a.k.a most open slots are during this time

[QUOTE=InvaderNouga;37966599]There's a Naval Officer somewhere in this thread.[/QUOTE] Well I wish he would post, unless he's otherwise occupied.

[QUOTE=Zerokateo;37965851]Really trying to figure out which MOS's I want. I know my 3rd MOS is to be infantry as a Machine Gunner or a Rifleman but for my 1 & 2 I'm trying to figure out what it is I want. If I wanted to work on ground vehicles such as Humvee's and trucks what would I pick? And if I wanted to work with computers, like fixing them on a technical level what would that be? I can't find a place with any real descriptions of jobs saying what exactly they do.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]Infantry is awesome. At the end of the day, you work harder and are more disciplined, combat-competent, filthy, sweaty, exhausted, freezing, broiling, hungry than any other regular job in the military. You get to become proficient with a plethora of weapons, mind-boggling communication systems, tactical vehicles, and drilled-into-you tactics that you get to doing instinctively without even thinking about it. Infantry sucks ass. You are treated like shit by high-level leadership. You enlisted to kick doors and shoot people in the face, but there you are picking moss out of the cracks in the garrison sidewalk because General Fucknut is coming to give a 3 hour speech about whogivesafuck. You embark on an 18-mile roadmarch; 26 miles later, your feet are hamburger and your 16-pound machine gun feels like it weighs 56 pounds. You stand guard at a weapons range in the sub-freezing temps for hours on-end, hours after the range went "cold" (no more firing), on a secure garrison, because you "train like you fight." You show up for formation in the freezing rain; one guy forgot his gloves; everybody has to take their gloves off. You get your long-awaited weekend snatched away for CQ (charge of quarters = barracks desk duty) or battalion/brigade staff duty or courtesy patrol (even though there are such things as MPs) or a work detail or because your leadership fucked up scheduling and the ONLY day open for the weapons range is on the weekend. You deploy and live in dust-caked tents while a hundred meters away, personnel clerks and finance desk-jockeys who will never leave the FOB are living in air-conditioned housing units. You go on patrol for 6, 8, 10, 12, 24, 48 or more hours at a time, come back to the FOB and get in line for a hot meal; too bad, says the dining hall guard: your uniform is too dirty to come inside. You are moved out to a combat outpost with no running water and no electricity (other than the radios at the command post) and live there for a few weeks at a time; when you're not on-mission, you're in a guard tower, or fixing vehicles, or burning shit in oil-drums, or digging ditches, or stringing razorwire, or filling sandbags, or rolling out on QRF (quick reaction force) to help a patrol who got hit, or you're cleaning your weapon. If you have time to eat, masturbate, sleep, and wipe your asscrack off with babywipes, you do it. You train for 14 weeks to earn those blue disks, crossed rifles and blue cord (if you're a Marine, you train for 26 weeks, and I don't know what infantry-specific accoutrements USMC infantrymen get, forgive my ignorance, fellow grunts) and train for months or even a year further at your line unit to deploy to combat. You learn how to use almost every gun we have, you learn how to drive (and maybe gun) Humvees, Bradleys, Strykers, MRAPs (unit-dependent) and practice shooting with night-vision and infrared lasers, or night-vision or thermal scopes. You and your buddies give each other IVs with night-vision in the back of a moving Bradley for combat-lifesaver training. You itch for the day you deploy, while the veterans around you roll their eyes, having already seen what you yearn for. You get there and the enemy hides in civilian clothes; he uses women and children for human shields and spotters for mortar attacks. He kidnaps people from opposite tribes/sects and rapes women and murders children and tortures people with power drills to their kneecaps and cheeks and he cuts the tongue out of a 13 year old boy because the kid chatted with you during a halt on-mission. He kills your friends with sniper rifles and IEDs and you rarely, if ever, even see him face-to-face. You probably won't get the opportunity to kill him; rarely will you get the opportunity to even shoot at him. When you finally get that chance, you won't feel a thing. You won't be happy that he's laying there in front of you, bleeding and moaning on the pavement. You'll see dead people... civilians killed by them, killed accidentally by us, indigenous security forces (cops, military, local hired militia), bad guys... you may see people die right in front of you, within mere meters. At the end of it, you'll be dull. Numb. Desensitized. You'll wish you fired your weapon more. You'll come home and be unable to relate to the friends and family who clapped you on the back and wished you well when you left those few short years ago. You'll know that you were the very top of the food chain; only special operations direct action teams trained more, did more, saw more, and were in more danger than you were. And your future college classmates will find out you were in the military and say things like, "Oh, my cousin is in the Navy, I think he does something with computers. He went to Iraq; it must've been SCARY." Or, "My buddy Joe joined the Army. Did you know him?" Or, "Did you KILL ANYBODY?" Or, "I support you guys, but I oppose the war. You didn't really believe in what we're doing over there, RIGHT?" The highs are higher; relationships are more passionate (and more quickly burned out), weekends and block-leave periods are cherished, and days you somehow don't get put on the tower guard roster are things to behold. The lows are lower; I think I already summed them up. Caveat: tankers, scouts, combat engineers, and arty guys (the other combat-arms MOS) are cool too. And medics/corpsmen, EOD, dog handlers, psyops, civil affairs, JTACs, and pilots. I don't mean to seem like I'm marginalizing every other military MOS aside from Army/USMC infantry. The beer I'm drinking right now is one of the best beers I've ever had. Because it's Labatt-Infantry-Blue, bitches. [/QUOTE] from some vet on r/military [editline]8th October 2012[/editline] just giving you more insight on infantry and if its really what you want to do

queen of battle;follow me

Man, nobody wants to answer my questions. :C

nobody's airforce?

[QUOTE=Disotrtion;37967236]nobody's airforce?[/QUOTE] Isn't there a C-130 loadmaster who posted on this page?

[QUOTE=W0w00t;37967126]queen of battle;follow me[/QUOTE] cause nothin in this world is free

[QUOTE=WastedJamacan;37967456]cause nothin in this world is free[/QUOTE] an airborne ranger's life for me

After reading the last few posts infantry still seems fine to me. Maybe Ill be smart and end up doing something else. [editline]9th October 2012[/editline] I'm just so tired of my cushy life. All I do is wake up, play a sport thats means very little to me now, go to classes, and drain money from my dads bank account for tuition at this college. My grades are fine and everything. I guess I just wanna do something hard with my life I guess so I dont feel like nothing.

[QUOTE=ewitwins;37967227]Man, nobody wants to answer my questions. :C[/QUOTE] Sorry bro, I'm active and things are different. I can be kinda vague to what i know, but i dont know the specifics. Training wise, everythings the same. You go to BMT like everybody else with a flight of probably more active duty folks, you'll go to tech school with everyone else. Difference mostly is that you already know where you're going: home. Its great for aircrew reservists, they straight up get shoved through the system, while us active get the shit and of the stick and can be stuck waiting months to start class. They always have orders set in stone, they know when they leave. We just wait till they drop. If there does happen to be a delay in their training, ya know what happens? They go home. We get stuck doing busy work details and typically get treated like garbage by MTLs. And, at least in the aircrew world, when its all said and done, they still make more money then us. ...sorry, i think i ranted a bit. Best thing i can say is talk to a reservist recruiter. Also, reason im slow on replies is because im typing on my phone. Because my room is literally 7 STEPS out of range of the dorm wifi.

Scariest thing I've seen to date: an O-1 Brony

LOL fuck that is scary

[QUOTE=W0w00t;37967603]an airborne ranger's life for me[/QUOTE] We have some sf guys here and this one captain has a ranger tab, special forces tab and a airborne tab. I think he has earned the right to shake Chuck Norris hand.

[QUOTE=capgun;37967986]Sorry bro, I'm active and things are different. I can be kinda vague to what i know, but i dont know the specifics. Training wise, everythings the same. You go to BMT like everybody else with a flight of probably more active duty folks, you'll go to tech school with everyone else. Difference mostly is that you already know where you're going: home. Its great for aircrew reservists, they straight up get shoved through the system, while us active get the shit and of the stick and can be stuck waiting months to start class. They always have orders set in stone, they know when they leave. We just wait till they drop. If there does happen to be a delay in their training, ya know what happens? They go home. We get stuck doing busy work details and typically get treated like garbage by MTLs. And, at least in the aircrew world, when its all said and done, they still make more money then us. ...sorry, i think i ranted a bit. Best thing i can say is talk to a reservist recruiter. Also, reason im slow on replies is because im typing on my phone. Because my room is literally 7 STEPS out of range of the dorm wifi.[/QUOTE] Thank you sir!

[QUOTE=Disotrtion;37967236]nobody's airforce?[/QUOTE] What's up? I know there's a few of us that post from time to time.

[QUOTE=DarkZero135;37966824]from some vet on r/military [editline]8th October 2012[/editline] just giving you more insight on infantry and if its really what you want to do[/QUOTE] I'm going to try and be a mechanic or work on computers first, if I can't do that then I'll do infantry. I had heard that when you go to talk to your recruiter you pick 3 jobs and you pick them in the order you want to do them in if one is not available. My number 1 will be something with computers, 2 will be something on ground vehicles and 3rd is infantry.

[QUOTE=Zerokateo;37970623]I'm going to try and be a mechanic or work on computers first, if I can't do that then I'll do infantry. I had heard that when you go to talk to your recruiter you pick 3 jobs and you pick them in the order you want to do them in if one is not available. My number 1 will be something with computers, 2 will be something on ground vehicles and 3rd is infantry.[/QUOTE] Ground vehicles are a pain to maintain. Aviation maintenance is where it's at. Sure, it can be difficult and precise at times, but it is very rewarding and has a massive payoff in the civilian world.