Marine Officer?

[caitlyn4321]

As someone who's supervised all services, including marines, I can echo what Southron Boy said so far as that if you're going to join the marines you'll need to do it for the right reasons. That holds true for all services, but especially the services who are GOING to sleep in a tent and get shot at.

If you're doing it because you want to say you were a marine on a job application, you'd be surprised to find out that the person reading it likely doesn't understand what that really means beyond "you were in the military". Unless they were a marine themselves, military will likely be just military to them. By the time your 4 year tour is done you'll be out and be just another 23 yr old starting a new job with a degree, unless you mos translates to a civilian career.

If you want to do something to stand out, have a masters and a job or intern.

If you want to be in the military, look at all the jobs you can do and pick one from the services.

If you want to do something that will get you a job when you get out, get a cleared job in the military.

If you want to have an exciting job, look into the elite units of each force. Combat controllers have lots of glory and lots of fun but the freedom of a chairforce environment. PJs too. Best of both worlds. Rangers and special forces make good officers with a fulfilling job. There are some really interesting intelligence jobs, preferably one that keeps you moving like army humint.

If none of that is what you want and your mind is set on being a Marine, you'll probably like it and are likely doing it for the right reasons.

Personally looking back on things I know I couldn't hack it as a marine. I do what I do very well and chose it when joining. I couldn't handle joining up and not having it in my contract what my job would be. If I was staying in I'd likely go the humint route, but just joining and saying "do with me what you will" isn't my thing. Ultimately the job I wanted chose my service. If I was joining again and not going humint, I'd go air force A friend of mine is thinking of joining and I've firmly established that I get veto powers on all of his choices and he can't sign anything wthout my approvals Its too easy to join in a contract thats too open ended.

The economy isn't good, the military will help you ride it out for sure. Just make sure you're doing exactly what you want. You don't want a 4 year obligation you're unhappy with. Its an opportunity to get to do some crazy stuff. I have been a part of things and have a background most people who aren't in the military wouldn't believe, I love that I did it, and its set me up for the next few years nicely. It could have easily been 4 years of hell if I came in without a job in my contract and was just assigned a job out of uncle sams magic hat. I luckily knew what I wanted to do before I did it and the military let me do it. If you know what you want, the military may let you do it too.