Military guys, am I crazy for wanting to go Enlisted as an E4 over Officer??

Yep. Sounds like we were in at roughly the same times as well.

I was active from 1988 to 1992. When I was in active duty, I worked weapons systems on F-15's. When I got, I went straight to college, with a semster/summer break in between my first year to go to AF Meteorology tech school (cross-trained into weather forecasting for the Air National Guard). Graduated college in 1996, then straight to law school. During law school, again considered going into the JAG corps, but my wife (then only recently married) wanted to go to grad school after I finished law school. The AF couldn't guarantee I would stay in the States to be with my wife while she was in grad school, so I had to drop that idea. Graduated from law school in 1999, and been practicing for almost 12 years now.

I enjoyed my time in the military, I learned a lot. But really happy I made the choice not to go back in.

And I have a 2 1/2 year old now.

 

Amen!

 

One friend in Afghanistan now had a rude awakening on call backs. He had been out of the Army entirely for over six years. Not doing drill, nothing. Then he gets a call one day. Army told him he had two months to get in shape and go to Bragg. He was shipping off to Iraq. Did a little over a year the first time. Came home, again no drill or anything, about 15 months later, boom, called back to Iraq again. Got home, this time little over a year and yup, you guessed it, to Afghanistan this time. That can really mess with your head a little. So even if you intend on going in for one tour as an officer, or get out, doesn't mean you're staying out. You're fair game for quite awhile.

 

Contact the local Marine recruiter. There's a lot of good advice and history being spoken on this thread, but you should know what each service has to offer. Personal experiences are exactly that! To each their own.

I've been a Marine for 23 years now and love it. Enlisted to Officer programs exist for all services. ECP, MCP, etc...

Good luck and thanks for chosing to serve your country!!

 

I think you need to talk to an officer selection officer in either the Army or Marines. Don't worry about the underage drinking. Everyone has one of those. Don't lie about it, but don't worry about it. As far as the non-citizen thing, what languages do you speak? That is a HUGE bennie to the military. I guarantee you they will be interested in you if you can speak a few different languages.

Lie. Lie like a fucking rug. The military is really funny about drug use. They don't really live in the real world. Somehow they expect smart, motivated athletic kids to abstain from things that smart motivated athletic kids like to try. So, lie.

That being said, you may eventually be eligible for a Top Secret clearance. DO NOT lie to those guys. If they ask why you lied tell them you were afraid your drug experimentation would disqualify you and you really wanted to serve your country.

 

I totally agree. Check them all out. There are great things about each branch and bad things about each.

And thanks for your service too. :up:

 

If you want to blow shit up become a 12B. Just got to my first duty station and love it.

Sappers First!

 

Just remember when they give you a guarantee there is always a statement to the effect of "or to meet the needs of the <insert branch>".

They way guarantee you Blow Shit Up School but if they are running short of Pump Shit out of the latrines technicians and they have too many Blow Shit Up guys guess who is getting cross-trained.

Similar to the first Gulf War when friends of mine on the submarine were transferred to shore duty to teach other nukes a the the Sub Training Facility. The security level got bumped up at the Naval station so they pulled the new instructor transfers, issued them camoflage fatigues, Barettas and M-16s(or whatever mod it was) and made them base commandos.

All of them were nuclear engineering guys but they were more available so they were changed over temporarily. You would have never convinced us that a nuke would get switched out to become a gun toter. When things calmed down months later the guys were put back into the nuclear instructor role.

Needs of the military always come first regardless.

 

The lone Officer that posted in this thread gave the best advice.
Going in enlisted is the completely ar-tarded thing to do.
Get paid well to blow shit up.

And forget about the weed. Seriously.

 

If experimenting with weed doesn't disqualify a nuke it's not likely to disqualify anyone else... unless something has changed and I doubt it.

If you used it more than 2 or 3 times then lie about it.

 

NO=New Opportunities

 

Go Enlisted first! At 23, the butter bars won't be that much younger than you and it won't matter in the end. Go in, do your best. VOLUNTEER for lots of stuff and then mustang to the Officer ranks. ...and this experience is from the USMC. Mustangs got respect there and the Corps made the option pretty easy for college grads. Maybe not so much in the Army...??

 

I would go Warrant officer route. That's what I plan on doing if I ever graduate college. Get a ton more respect and people call you chief. How cool is that.

 

It's not as cool in the Navy so we called them Mister.

 

Yea thats what Im worried about that if I do lie and then later down the road I need a secret clearance and the truth comes out and then Im royally fucked. I went to a tiny High School which was basically a big orgy and everyone knows each other business, so if they do talk to some old High School people they will most likely find out Ive smoked pot before.

Either way, thank you so much for all the pointers and advice in this thread. Obviously I still have lots of research and thinking to do.

 

My honest opinion is tell the truth. Depending on how long you're in and what area of work you end up, there is just too much of a chance it will come back to haunt you. That would NOT be a pleasant surprise.

 

I've been in the Navy for 13 years, I'm a LCDR/O-4. For the drug and alcohol use thing, what you need to realize is how the clearance process works. They are asking about a given period in your life. When I first joined in '98 I didn't want to lie either, but was told by friends I needed to so I could get in. I filled out my secret clearance paper work and simply omitted any illegal activity that I had not been arrested for. A secret clearance is simply a quick check to see who you know and if you have been associated with known criminals. No one I listed was ever called or contacted about me. During my TS investigation everyone I listed was called and they visited my friends, family and coworkers. The good thing about filling out my TS was timing. Each set of paper work request information back a given number of years. I think the TS is 7-10 years. Nothing I had done was within that time frame so I simply told the truth and there was no need to omit anything.

As far as I know you must be a citizen to be an officer so you need to go about getting that taken care of.

As for officer vs enlisted, I am not sure being enlisted will make you a better officer. If you are a douche you will still be a douche even after being enlisted. I have seen plenty of prior enlisted officers who are simply terrible. One does not make you better or worse. If you are a good leader then you will be a good leader at any level.

I think your best option if you want to join the service sooner than later is to enlist to get your citizenship then go officer. It won't be easy as an enlisted solider, sailor, marine or airman. Just so you know in any of those jobs someone still has to take out the trash and clean the toilets. It usually falls to the lowest ranking person. There are a lot of other duties like that where rank matters. The sooner you put on the rank the sooner you stop clean toilets. (Cleaning toilets is just an example, who knows what you may have to do.)

If I had it all to do over again, I would join the Air Force. Yes everyone will make fun of you, but they have the best quality of life. Bottom line, go officer and talk to the officer recruiter. All recruiters are lairs!

Mike

 

Like a few people have said, in order to be an officer you have to be a citizen. If you really want to be in the military you have no choice but to be enlisted otherwise you cab apply to be a US citizen. Also to hold a clearance I believe you have to be a citizen as well. Looks like the choice is clear now - enlisted. Weird though, I didn't think a recruiter could promise E-4 out of service school. I guess the Army is different. I know the
Marines have to have a certain amount of promotion points to get E-4.

 

Curious, roughly what's the percentage of non-citizens in the military?

 

I could have written literally this post a bajillion years ago when I went to enlist in the Marine Corps. I wanted to enlist and work my way into an officer commission for the exact reasons you state, and I wanted an infantry MOS for the exact reasons you state.

In retrospect, I'd tell you to keep the MOS idea you want if that's why you want to join. If you don't want to ride a desk you won't like it.

But in also retrospect I'd most definitely go OCS as soon as they let you. Go straight into OCS if they let you. In fact, before you enlist, secure a spot in OCS, if they Army lets you do such a thing.

My $.02.