tgust: I would say your best bet, if you want to experience the enlisted side, is to join first, then go to school. On the Army side, you get an MOS, an occupational specialty, a specific career. You cash in your Basic Combat Training, Advanced Individual Training, through your post education center for college credit, and apply it toward one of 1600 Servicemember Opportunity Colleges (SOCs). You can forego 2 years of classroom time, just by doing that. Then, using Distance Learning System (DLS), Correspondence Courses, or online classes (AIU or Univ. of Phx.) and you can have a degree without ever setting foot in a classroom. Sure, you don't get the moving away to college feel. But you are getting paid, tuiton is covered up to $4,500 a year, and after 2 years of service, you can use your GI Bill for $37,344 towards any schooling you want to do. After your degree, you go OCS back into your field. The Army wouldn't take a prior enlisted Infantryman and make him a Finance LT. He'd break someone's calculator on their head. For me, if I take my OCS orders, I become an Armor officer, using my experience and leading in the same field I've been in for 6 years. 6 years, I have 2 degrees and am an E-6 Staff Sergeant. I'm only 26 years old. I have a BA and an Associates of Applied Sciences. Its possible, but you have to make it happen for yourself. I'm a combat arms MOS that spends 6+ months out of the year deployed in one way or the other. So, if I can do it, anyone else that doesn't do this stuff, can too.

Or, you can go ROTC from the Active duty component. Its an Army program called Green to Gold. You are still in the military, but we pay you to go to a university full-time and get your degree and take a commission. You get a monthly stipend, and it is a full-ride scholarship. Provided you keep your grades up.

You can go ROTC after high school. You go to a college or university that offers an ROTC program. Army, AF, Navy ROTC, doesn't matter. The first year is one class, Military Science. If it is something you want to pursue and commit to, you apply for the 2-3 year ROTC scholarship, they pay the rest of your school and you get commissioned after you graduate school and OCS. You then have a 6 year obligation to the Reserves or Active Component of your branch ROTC.
Last option is called SMP, or Simultaneous Membership Program. You join the Reserves, enlisted. Come back from training, go to college, drill on the weekends, and train in the summer for two weeks, and finish your degree. When its all done, and you graduate, you go OCS through the Reserves, or go Active Duty OCS, or just finish out your time in the Reserves. While you are a student, in the Reserves, you are also, Non-Deployable. You can't be mobilized to run off to Iraq, because you have a financial obligation to school, as well as a physical obligation to be there.

ROTC LTs, West Point LTs, it doesn't matter. LTs are LTs. Some are great officers, that soldiers will follow into the gates of Hell, some are idiots that can't lead their way out of a paper bag. Its a crapshoot every time you get a new Butter Bar. You train him, keep him out of trouble, and he should turn out okay. I have trained 6 LTs, only two were idiots. One was a Finance officer that wanted to do some Armor time, and the other was just a scumbag. All the others were some of the finest men I've served with. They are all Captains now. But this is my role as an NCO. I train the force, lead soldiers, lead LTs, train LTs, and set the standard. We aren't perfect, because we are human. But we're damn close.

rrpearso: EEOC still has no applicability to the United States Armed Forces. 1) As we are not the government, we can bar anyone for employment for a multitude of reasons. 2) An OTH discharge or anything less than Honorable has to be reviewed. If its for you being a scumbag, or a non-conformist, inability to adapt, substandard performance, AWOL, etc. they don't have to hire you! It makes you a liability! And it is called EQUAL OPPORTUNITY. Everyone gets a chance to apply. Employers can not hire you for a million other reasons than what they find in your background or military service record. Unqualified is unqualified for whatever reason they make.

so you joined after highschool?

thats what im thinking. im not really a desk and paper person. and i can just get my degree in the military. I was pretty sure i was going to college and taking ROTC. and becoming an officer after college. But then i wont have any experience. So im enlisting as a private and working my way up.

is all this the same for if i wanted to join the marines? And im also not sure if i want to join the marines or army.

i did some studing. this is exactly what im going to. im starting training right after highschool. then doing the program below.

Enlisted Commissioning Education Program
The Marine Corps Enlisted Commissioning Education Program provides to selected enlisted Marines (who have had no college experience) the opportunity to earn baccalaureate degrees by attending a college or university as full-time students. Marines in this program who obtain their baccalaureate degrees and subsequently complete officer candidate training are commissioned as Second Lieutenants.

It sounds like you dident read any of the sites or quote about EEOC. Of course for you to conceed to this fact would prove the military lies and that would not make the army look good so it makes sense that you are making a repeated blanketed statement.

Fact: the back ground check is done after the individual is already being considered for employment which means that these millions of reasons you state are behind you.

Fact: now the only thing keeping you from a job is the back ground check not "millions of subjective items" because you already proved through the interview and your resume that they want to hire you .

Fact: when the back ground check comes back and you are denied for employment they are required by law to tell you why you failed the back ground check. Note: and this is critical, its not millions of subjective items that the employer might be looking for it is a specific item in your back ground.

Fact: It is against EEOC to not hire you based off of an OTH etc. It has to be a court martial dishonorable discharge which equates to a fellony in the civilian world.

Not a fact: And this makes sense now that I found out you are combat arms. You think im a POS so that means that EEOC applys differently.

What this boils down to is:

Actual: if im a highschool drop out and got kicked out of the military for pissing hot and going AWOL, I probably wont get a job.

Military views: He is a POS nonconformist

However in my case
Actual: Honors graduate, engineering degree from a top college, EIT, responsible citizen. I refused to tolerate hazing, hate and abuse. The military decided to selectivly define hazing to meet there needs, how convienet is that.

Military views: He is a POS nonconformist

The military likes to sensationalize things with terms like disertion, AWOL and dishonor. The military also likes to do what you are doing now, and argue a few points in isolation without there supporting subpoints, that way you can make it appear as if I dont know what im talking about. If it truely were a volunteer military you wouldent have people trying to get out of going to iraq because it would be on a volunteer basis, but its not truly volunteer.

Oh yea and if you go ROTC you dont go to OCS, the commissioning is the day of or day after graduation, the summer camp in the middle of college is it. Then you go to OBC.

I have to give you this though, the military has the lieing down to an art, so I dont want you complaining about politicians when you get budget cuts in the next administration.

And you manage to get people to join by sensationalizing military training when really its just a bunch of BS so my hat is off to that, hey if they keep joining you gotta do what works and being two faced is a great asset, being able to say "hey come join the army its cool you get an MOS and everything" and on the other face after they join "I swear private if you dont fall in line im going to make you wish you wernt born, etc, etc in a stern or yelling voice".

I wonder if you have a cheat sheet with blanket explanations to help you deal with complex arguments.

EEOC still has no applicability to the United States Armed Forces. 1) As we are not the government, we can bar anyone for employment for a multitude of reasons.

This statement is almost true, you can bar anyone you want from reenlistment.

2) An OTH discharge or anything less than Honorable has to be reviewed. If its for you being a scumbag, or a non-conformist, inability to adapt, substandard performance, AWOL, etc. they don't have to hire you! It makes you a liability! And it is called EQUAL OPPORTUNITY.

This is only half true, the only way they can deny you employment is if the substandard peformance is directly tied to what you would be doing for your job. For instance, if my substandard performance was failing a PT test that is not applicable to engineering. And for AWOL it depends why you went AWOL, if it was because you wanted to smoke a dubby thats one thing, if its because you were tired of the abuse that is entirely different.

Everyone gets a chance to apply. Employers can not hire you for a million other reasons than what they find in your background or military service record. Unqualified is unqualified for whatever reason they make.

I already covered this above.

Did you know that you can have your military flight experence count towards civilian even if you were OTH as long as the OTH was not directly related to a flying infraction. So if I told a general I was getting tired of his abuse for yelling etc and filed a report and he got me discharged I could still apply all the flight time. I bet that burns you up doesnt it, in your opinion the military should be above the people and the government.

I now bestow on pearso the nickname of Jack.

Everyone, say HiJack!

Stick to the thread man! Every thread you enter seems to end up with you bitching about the alleged maltreatment you received at the hands of the evil, lying military.

Its very relavant to the thread because it forshadows what the military is really like. I want to make sure that someone thinking about joining has a no BS view or a none sensationalized view of military glory, etc. I state relavant facts and you say things like Hi Jack.

Cavscout says things that are true, but in most cases only half of the story, I give the rest of the story. and a potential recruit can take it or leave it. But unless you are a gung ho hardliner from the time you join, you are going to remember the things I wrote when you are siting in reception battalion and drills are spewing out hate against you. You can never imagine how deep the BS is in basic until you are there. They also make you feel like a prisoner, a prison sentence with no crime.

The one positive, it built my faith in christ and I was able to witness to a friend I met there. I had a serious injury that should have recycled me but christ brought me out of it. It forced me to rely on god because there was almost nothing but hate, rage and abuse around me at almost all times.

And in my case when I got back I got to look forward to doing it again in OCS, NOT, I guess thats why there were like 6 OC's in the whole state for 2006, and there is a good chance that 1 or 2 will fail OCS so that explains why my state has a severe junior grade officer shortage, oh well not my problem anymore.

I also heard that they plan on being out of iraq in 2008, how convient isent that roughly close to the end of the bush administration, wow I must be phsycic.

Back to the post.....
IF you're really set on enlisting, look at the USMCR (USMC Reserves). It will allow you time to attend college, and you still get to wallow in the mud as an enlisted man. I was a full time college student for two years while in the USMCR. Then, I made the decision to enlist full time into the USMC at that point (though part of that decision was an empty bank account as well).