Peter Ross says he owes everything he is today to his decision to sign on the dotted line. But before you enlist, he wants you to think through these 9 important things.
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The military is such an absolutely unique experience that it is impossible to describe all the emotions you’ll feel and what you’ll go through in a four- or six-year stint. Even more difficult is when someone asks you for advice on joining and expects you to cram all that information into a 30-second elevator pitch. Rather than going through the usual stuff, I got to thinking about what I’d say if someone wanted to sit down and really pick my brain on what it’s like. I’d tell them to really think about the following things:
Relationships
The military and your romantic relationships in the civilian world tend to be like oil and water, they don’t mix very well. The first couple of years after signing up you’re going to get moved around a lot due to training, and because you’re considered to be less than human until you’re fully qualified, no one gives a shit that you miss your significant other. Hell, short of them getting cancer or someone having a heart attack, they won’t give you any time off except for scheduled breaks. Added to the tyranny of distance is the fact that you’ll be undergoing one of the most stressful and isolating periods of your life, where you’re ripped from the warm, comfy life you have and need to adjust abruptly to the harshness of military life. Everything about your relationship will be tested, so if you’ve been dating someone a few months but want to join the military, do them and you a favour and end it. If you’re in a serious relationship but really, really want to join, know that your relationship will be pushed to breaking point multiple times. You don’t get to control your life, the military does, and your partner has to put up with this. Only the very strongest of relationships will survive.
Your life at this point in time
Why do you want to enlist? You’d better have a really good reason for it, otherwise you could find out you’ve made a terrible mistake.
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Are you in a successful career and pretty happy? Why do you want to enlist? You’d better have a really good reason for it, otherwise you could find out you’ve made a terrible mistake. You’ll be going from a career where you are respected, you have autonomy and you’re earning good money to a place where you are considered an insect for the better part of your enlistment (unless you go officer). No one gives a shit how successful you were on the outside, whether you won the Nobel Prize for physics or if you ran a Fortune 500 company, you’ll be seen as the rank on your slide and nothing more. Be really sure you want to give that up to be screamed at and treated like you’re more stupid than a doornail while probably taking a pay cut from your civilian job.
You might die
It seems so obvious, but we forget that most of the people that join the military (indeed their target demographic) are young guys. With all that testosterone coursing through their body they feel 10 feet tall and bulletproof. Death happens to other people, not them. Until they see their first comrade get shot through the neck and being dead before they hit the ground. Or maybe they get shot and if they’re lucky, make it back to full health. I know a guy who was hit in the back of the neck by a faulty piece of equipment and is now a quadriplegic. He’s the quietest, nicest guy you’d ever meet. Tragedy is prolific in a combat zone, and just like in real life it doesn’t discriminate between the wicked and the righteous. War is serious stuff, not all the cool one-liners and chambering of rounds you see in the movies. Ask yourself, what are you willing to be killed or permanently disabled for. If your reasons aren’t utterly compelling to you, you might want to rethink it.
You will encounter a whole new level of asshole
There are plenty of asshole bosses in the civilian world. Nowadays they are generally forced out by HR, fired, or their staff quit and find a better job. In the military, assholism is institutionalised, because no one gives a fuck if your superior is victimising you unless you want to take it all the way to the top, start a shitstorm and ruin your career. Not only that, you can’t just up and quit if you don’t like it – you signed on that dotted line so the government owns your ass. The military is full of people that have been picked on at school, so now they deal out retribution to anyone underneath them. There are people that just get off on the power. And then there are people that are (to quote The Simpsons) just…jerks. They’ll bully you, they’ll make life hard for you, they’ll fuck you over just because they can, and there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it. I saw it a number of times in my career, and the only thing you can do is be the grey man, not draw attention to yourself and hope that they pick someone else. On that note…
You will have superiors that make a drunk donkey seem intelligent
I have met some of the smartest people I know in the military. I have also met people that were so stupid it astonishes me that they can even go to the supermarket on their own. The biggest problem with this is that these people will be your superiors and if you’re in a combat zone, they’ll be giving the orders. You can trust in your training and in the fact that you’ll do things right, but how much do you trust in their training? Even the best training can’t overcome some of the idiocy I witnessed, and the last thing I’d do is put my life in their hands in a place like Afghanistan or Iraq.
There is a lot of alcohol involved
Drugs are out of the question, as is violence, so what do you do? You go out, get wasted and have lots of sex.
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I have a number of hypotheses about this. The bottom line is that you have a lot of young people who are in a stressful environment, and they need a way to blow off steam. Drugs are out of the question, as is violence, so what do you do? You go out, get wasted and have lots of sex. The amount of alcohol I saw consumed on a regular basis while I was in the military was obscene and it is extremely unhealthy that young people learn to medicate themselves from the stress of life with a drug that has the power to ruin relationships and lives in the civilian world. Worse yet is that drinking culture is entrenched in Australia as it is, so the last thing you will see is the military telling its people that they need to lay off the booze a bit.
Depending on your specialty, there may be nothing out there when you discharge
How many jobs do you think are out there for an infantryman? Society doesn’t really have a whole lot of careers for people whose job in the army is to “seek out and close with the enemy, to kill or capture him, to seize and hold ground, repel attack, by day or by night, regardless of season weather or terrain.” Unless you have a trade that is in demand in the civilian world, you may very well find yourself to be the proverbial John Rambo, ranting about how you were in charge of million dollar equipment and now you can’t even get a job parking cars. I had to work retail just after I got out of the army. I know others who ended up in supermarkets and even kitchen hands washing dishes. People who did jobs so important that they’d go to jail for years if they told people about it. If you want to enlist, choose your specialty wisely.
Honour is a relative term
I can’t think of a better example of the movie A Few Good Men (which, incidentally was based on a real incident) to demonstrate my point. Just as the civilian world has its Enron executives, the military has its colonels and generals who will completely fuck over subordinates for their own mistakes or misdeeds. I’ve had friends witness a team being thrown under the proverbial bus for doing their job by a general during a visit by the Minister of Defence. There are plenty of officers high up the chain of command that won’t hesitate for a second to further their own career by pushing a subordinate’s face down in the mud. People don’t just sign up and gain an aura of honour in the military – if they’re a sociopath they have even more room to ply their trade than in the civilian world thanks to the protection that rank affords.
You might be raped..and you’ll be told to just forget about it
I wonder how many men have been assaulted? If women are told to keep quiet, I can imagine most men wouldn’t even dare report it.
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We’ve had constant media attention and inquiries into the treatment of women in the military. The stories I’ve read about of female soldiers, airmen and sailors being raped by trusted team mates and even random other colleagues, especially while drinking, are absolutely horrifying. Worse still are the stories after they report the rape or assault, where they are told to forget about it if they want to have a career. Some women are so scarred that they can’t even continue another day and discharge immediately, but it never seems to end up in court. Others suffer in silence because they love their job. I wonder how many men have been assaulted? If women are told to keep quiet, I can imagine most men wouldn’t even dare report it. Whenever I’m asked (especially by a female) whether I’d recommend joining up, I have to temper my response, knowing what could befall them from my well meaning advice.
It may very well be the defining time of your life
Everything I have said so far is true, but the other truth is that the military can make the most incredible changes to who you are as a person. I look back at who I was before I served and am somewhat disgusted how directionless and weak willed I was, and how willing I was to do whatever authority told me. For most people the harshness of military life is a crucible in which their ultimate character is forged, and I have no hesitation in saying I am one of those people. I owe everything I am today to that silly, ill thought out decision I made on a fateful day to sign on the dotted line. I hated being in the army most of the time but I loved my job, the people I served with and what it turned me into. I wouldn’t take back my time served for anything.
I hope I’ve given you some food for thought and expanded your mind beyond what you’ve seen in the typical war movies or on TV.
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This post originally appeared on www.grassrootssuccess.net. Reprinted with permission.
Photo: Skeeze/Pixabay
I agreed with you Pete about what an officer can do you; however, an NCO can do just as much damage to you because too many officers tend to take the word of an NCO over your word and they never take the time to find out if what the NCO told them was the truth or not.
“There are plenty of officers high up the chain of command that won’t hesitate for a second to further their own career by pushing a subordinate’s face down in the mud. People don’t just sign up and gain an aura of honour in the military – if they’re a sociopath they have even more room to ply their trade than in the civilian world thanks to the protection that rank affords.” You need to remember that there will be plenty of NCOs who wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice you to further their own careers. I have met too many NCOs who… Read more »
Oh don’t worry G, I saw senior NCOs do it as well. The difference in power levels being what it is though, when a senior officer does it it is far more damaging to whomever their unfortunate target is.
Peter,
This article is well-written and spot on. As a fulltime military member and sometime GMP contributor, it’s nice to see someone else around the joint to speak on the experience of a serviceman. I look forward to reading more of your work.