You know, I nearly joined the army national guard in my junior year of HS. I took the ASVAB and did really well on it and did all of the interviews, even got a written promise that I’d get the MOS I asked for.
Then my recruiter called me for an interview where he just flat out dropped the act and told me about all the worst parts of being in the army. I wanted to do small arms repair so I could get a foot in the door to get into military R&D, he told me it’d take a career of 30+ years to get there, but that could in no way be promised, because small arms repairmen don’t get promotions easily. He told me that I’d have to live on base, and because my chosen MOS was one that was in constant need, I’d likely not get much time off. Meaning all of my free time would’ve been for the army to decide what I did with it. If I wanted to take a week to visit some friends, it likely wouldn’t’ve been easy to get the leave, for instance.
Recruiters are parasites, who’ll lie straight to your face to get you to sign on, and only a very small amount of them have the heart to tell hope-filled impressionable teenagers exactly what military life is like.
All those points are true. You’re lucky to have gotten a promised MOS, but that’s probably cause it was a low demand job (not a lot of people want to do that). If you really want to get into military R&D, you need to school, probably get an advanced degree, and work for a contractor like Lockheed and Martin, Raytheon, etc. They’re the ones who really do the R&D, and they don’t pay like shit like the military does.
I’d have to go to officer school after completing AIT, then hope that I get noticed by the right higher-ups to get upgraded to the Combat Capabilities Development Command. I also had job offers from LM and Colt, and an offer from the Joint Munitions Command (as a civilian), so it was totally possible to get the promotions. But waiting until I’m like 50 and all of my ideas are outdated to finally be able to present prototypes and work on the development of new munitions wasn’t an attractive offer at all.
You know, I nearly joined the army national guard in my junior year of HS. I took the ASVAB and did really well on it and did all of the interviews, even got a written promise that I’d get the MOS I asked for.
Then my recruiter called me for an interview where he just flat out dropped the act and told me about all the worst parts of being in the army. I wanted to do small arms repair so I could get a foot in the door to get into military R&D, he told me it’d take a career of 30+ years to get there, but that could in no way be promised, because small arms repairmen don’t get promotions easily. He told me that I’d have to live on base, and because my chosen MOS was one that was in constant need, I’d likely not get much time off. Meaning all of my free time would’ve been for the army to decide what I did with it. If I wanted to take a week to visit some friends, it likely wouldn’t’ve been easy to get the leave, for instance.
Recruiters are parasites, who’ll lie straight to your face to get you to sign on, and only a very small amount of them have the heart to tell hope-filled impressionable teenagers exactly what military life is like.
All those points are true. You’re lucky to have gotten a promised MOS, but that’s probably cause it was a low demand job (not a lot of people want to do that). If you really want to get into military R&D, you need to school, probably get an advanced degree, and work for a contractor like Lockheed and Martin, Raytheon, etc. They’re the ones who really do the R&D, and they don’t pay like shit like the military does.
I’d have to go to officer school after completing AIT, then hope that I get noticed by the right higher-ups to get upgraded to the Combat Capabilities Development Command. I also had job offers from LM and Colt, and an offer from the Joint Munitions Command (as a civilian), so it was totally possible to get the promotions. But waiting until I’m like 50 and all of my ideas are outdated to finally be able to present prototypes and work on the development of new munitions wasn’t an attractive offer at all.