Any thoughts?
Hello, I'm currently half way through my college career and I've got a few questions about joining the military.

Let me start off from the beginning and come up to where I am. During the last two years of high school, I was in JROTC and it was the best time I ever had. During that time, we had a few recruiters come to our school and talk about the various branches of the military we could look into joining if we wanted to. The one that looked the most helpful and interesting to me was the National Guard, so I tried to get in. I took the ASVAB and got an 86 on it, so my only problem was my weight. I was perhaps a little too lazy, so I was never able to get in by the time I graduated.

I started college in the fall of 2006 as a Physics major, and things went slow for a while. There was no ROTC at the university I go to (we only got it last year), so after a year of college, I tried to get back into the guard. My weight was much closer to being what it was supposed to, thought I had to retake the ASVAB and got a 96 on it the follow up time. This is where things turned sour. The recruiter I was talking to seemed to fall off the face of the Earth when I started talking to him in December of 2007, and I was never able to get into the Guard. This was most likely a fault on my part.

Over that year, I also began to look at other things the military offered where I could actually apply my degree to. The only one that seemed like a perfect fit was the Navy's NUPOC program. After talking with a recruiter, it seems like a very hard and competitive thing to get in to, and I fall far away from it. My only hopes at this point in time would be to try and get in it my senior year if I'm lucky. So, here are some of my options. Which one would be the best for what I want to do?

Goals
-Start a career in the Navy (hopefully until retirement)
-Do something I enjoy
-Use the skills I'm learning in college
-Help toward Grad School

Possible Routes
1.) Should I wait it out, get my GPA up, and hope I can get into the NUPOC Program my senior year if I have the grades and stuff for it?
2.) Should I join enlisted Navy Reserve while in school and, upon graduating, try for OCS to get into the program I want? Is this possible? Are there any careers like a NUPOC in the enlisted MOS?
3.) Enroll in a college that has Navy ROTC (each one is over 100+ miles ago) and finish my schooling there?

Any and all information, advice, other thoughts, and what have you would be greatly appreciated. I humbly miss the experiences I had in JROTC and wish to serve my country. Oh, and I think I forgot to mention it, but I live in Shreveport, LA.

Drao, you say any thoughts are appreciated. But my experience is when I give my thoughts in this forum, I often get hateful responses. Why? Perhaps the truth is hard on some people. So here it is: If you decide & go military do it full bore, not wishiwashi. Get into ROTC, your weight down, fit and apply yourself. Graduate school and the rest is later. First, you need to get through ROTC and get commissioned. Second is all the other stuff (your personal desires, wishes & dreams & doing something you enjoy). The military is not a place for people who put the primary goal of their life on enjoyment. That comes when you make 20 years, then you can enjoy your very early retirement and fulfill your dreams. NG is a waste if you want to make the military a career,NG goes on forever between civilian and military obligations. Also keep in mind that if you succeed in getting commissioned, the needs of the military come first, you are subject to orders and superiors who tell you what to do and the people of the United States expect you to fight for their interests and if necessary die for them.

Thanks, Mastertanker. That actually makes a lot of sense. If I were to put anything first, it would be to serve my country. I've been given so much, I feel I should give something in return. Thank you for taking the time to read this email. My personal goals are always able to be side-lined.

I talked with another friend of mine yesterday, and he said ROTC is the way to go. I'll call around to the closest schools and see what it required to do that. If I did ROTC, I'd still complete my degree, then get experience in the military, and have more stadning to get into grad school later. Grad school is rather on the list of lower priorities.

Once again, thank you for your response. It means a lot to me.

Drao, your attitude is indeed very noble. Few people in this forum have had thoughts like ' I've received so much & I want to give something back'. That is a rare thought in the USA in these days of 'enjoying life'. You mustn't mess around with that ROTC search too long. Remember, usually it takes 4 years through a regular College stint (from freshman to Senior). Upon getting the BA/BS you get your commission by Congress, provided you passed ROTC. So, you've already lost time. Go to a ROTC office on Campus and talk to the guys. They will tell you the ropes.

At yet another forum, I was told ROTC would probably be the way to go. Due to the fact I've only been trying to take things slow and not overload myself with classes, I'm taking the bare minimum to be a full time student (12 credit hours a semester). That leaves me with roughly 3 - 4 more years, depending on how I stretch things. I could complete it in two if I took the maximum of 19 credit hours. But, I digress.

Right now, it's an issue with funding for me to attend another school, but I hear there are a lot of things I can apply for to help ease that. I'll see what it would take to do ROTC at another school that offers the one I need. The sooner I can do this, the better it seems.

Like I said before, I just want to serve the country I'm proud to live in. I might not always like who's president, but I would never allow that view to reflect on our troops. May God bless them where ever they are. I may be a little bias coming from a military family, but dangit, this is what I need to do.

I digress, though. It looks like trying for enlisted is just out of the question and a big no-no for what I'd like to do. As stated, I'll see what I can do to work out going to ROTC somewhere since I have a long summer ahead of me and try my luck. If all else fails, I can wait patiently and try for NUPOC when I qualify, and if that doesn't work, I'll just go in as enlisted and serve my time doing whatever sounds interesting, college degree or not.

Once again, thanks a bunch, Mastertanker.