A friend of ours, a classmate of my older son also branched FA. He got spooled up, did a tour in AFG, got back and absolutely HATED the managerial job of the FA officer. He changed to warrant and got flight school (rotary wing). A happy man. I was surprised how easily all that processed through. YMMV.Originally Posted by Duke2424
“Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais
Most HSLD assignments are out of reach of someone who does a 4 year commitment and gets out. Not sure how acquisition works for the Reserve SF and LRS units, or if there are reserve AFSOC units, I'll let someone else address those.
But it sounds like you are open to a career, I want to address something Sean alluded to in the first post I quoted, which is retirement.
NOTE: Everything here is subject to enemy, I mean, Congressional and Presidential action, and may change.
First off, forget any RUMINT about "free health care for life", unless you wind up 100% disabled. You're gonna pay for it.
Second, here's how retirement pay works, more-or-less: You get 2.5% of the average of your "high three" years pay, for every year you served. That's 50% at 20 years, although there was a brief period when it was 2%, and you had to serve 25 to get 50%. (I was actually one of the last guys to enlist and get 2.5% of the highest base pay.)
If you retire from the reserves, you don't get paid until age 62.
Most enlisted personnel who retie are pay grade E6, Staff Sergeant on the Army and Marines, Petty Officer First Class in the Navy, and I never did master the Air Forces enlisted rank structure, and I need to get ready to go to work.
50% "high three" base pay for an E-6 is not significantly higher than poverty level. For a guy who probably has a wife and kids to support. The good news is that he's young enough to start a new career. The bad news is, you're awful old to be starting over. Especially since the people you're asking for a job may be saying "Than k you for your service" but what they're thinking is "Only losers spend 20+ years in the military."
I retired in 2000, I wound up working as an office temp for a year and a half.
Most officers who retire are Pay Grade O-5, Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, Marines, and Air Force, Commanders in the Navy.
Their retirement pay is going to be at least as high as the retired E6 was making on active duty.
Whenever Congress (which, is I remind you, the opposite of Pro-Gress) gets together to address "military retirement reform" they get a bunch of Colonels and (Navy) Captains and Generals and Admirals who talk about the average level of retired compensation--which is skewed high by the amount the Colonels and (Navy) Captains and Generals and Admirals can expect to receive.
(I understand that Uniformed Services personnel are now allowed to participate in the .gov's IRA-like program. No idea how that impacts this.)
Also a lot easier for a retired O to get a sweet con tractor gig than a retired E, even a Sr. NCO. I was going to say "Ask me how I know, but I think I made that clear...
Don't know if this helps, or is even relevant to your decision making process.
Recovering Gun Store Commando. My Blog: The Clue Meter
“It doesn’t matter what the problem is, the solution is always for us to give the government more money and power, while we eat less meat.”
Glenn Reynolds
Couple things...as for the body, you don't have to age like most people. I'm pushing 40 and crushing people 1/2 my age. Go in strong and healthy. Get strong, and take care of your joints. Don't rely on youth or any unit's PT plan to get in good enough shape. Make it a life goal to be physically superior (while taking care of your joints)...it makes all military tasks much easier, and reduces the chances of injury. Most infantry guys I see break down because they run out of youth, but never took the time to get strong. (Or they get strong at the expense of all else, and don't learn to run without killing their knees). I understand that some injuries can happen regardless of how fit your are. But for most people I see, most of their problems could have been avoided by getting in really good shape.
Again, caveat, take care of your joints.
As far as career goes, I think enlisted SF in the guard might be the ticket for you. There are some very impressive guys out there. I can think of a couple engineers (electrical and structural) as well. Don't know how what its like getting in right now though.
Another awesome way to go would be the PJs, particularly the Alaskan ones.
That's a good point. I know of at least one really good guard SF unit in Colorado. I'm sure there are others.
“If you know the way broadly you will see it in everything." - Miyamoto Musashi
My active duty recruiter was great too. He tried desperately to get me to go nuclear engineer. I wanted to go EOD because it was cool. I ended up switching to "aviation" in boot camp and spent my tour in an aircraft carrier as part if a catapult crew. Should have listened to that recruiter lol.
“If you know the way broadly you will see it in everything." - Miyamoto Musashi
I know Proctor a bit now, and two of his ODA team mates from deployments very well (they were AD SF before the 20th). In the 20th Group they had access to fantastic training opportunities and vast amounts of ammo for their weekend drills as of a few years ago at least. (It's a small world and a smaller Army.)
Based on info from friends and families on AD now, the SF pipeline is still very high priority in the Army; so much so that almost anyone on AD, anywhere can submit a packet for Selection and it does not require approval locally - they have to run it up to Bragg.
If the NG SF Groups are an option I think one should contact them directly to get the skinny on the process. http://www.nationalguardspecialforce...-by-state.html
“Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais
SF guys are absolutely in high demand. I've received mass emails looking for guys interested in applying for slots. Their op tempo is still very high.
“If you know the way broadly you will see it in everything." - Miyamoto Musashi
I'm not saying that my recruiter is bad but judging by some of the things he says and/or leaves out, I analyze what he says very closely. Whether he is trying to sell me or its simply a lack of knowledge, I do not know. Either way, at the end of the day, its my life, my name on the dotted line so its my job to do my due diligence as Drang said. That's all I was trying to say.
Who wouldn't love flying a helicopter? (Preferably Apache) The 6 year service obligation with appox. 2 years of training hurts though. To bad the NG doesn't have a "street-to-seat" program. Glad your friend found his calling though.
I'm bitter because I spend a weekend a month putting on a uniform and being somewhere at 0600 to sit in a folding chair for hours on end watching videos that beg me and my fellow SM's to stop raping each other, stop killing ourselves, and stop drinking so much - while ANA flag officers that are supposedly our allies rob us blind and rape pre-pubescent boys for fun, and rape their subordinates when they'd like to get a point across.
I'm bitter because entirely too many people I know have come back missing limbs, eyes, or their very lives to defend Iraqi cities that we let ISIS simply sweep through and retake with nary a shot fired - while countless SM's in Kuwait sat on their duffelbags cleaning their weapons on a 1hr alert rotation, praying to any god that would listen to PLEASE let them mobilize to stomp those subhuman assholes back into the mudpuddles they crawled out of.
I'm bitter because our waffling leadership is so dead set on losing these wars that anytime we're too effective, it seems like we're chastised and slapped with a stricter ROE to make us ineffective yet again.
I'm bitter because after all these years in Iraq and Afghanistan, higher leadership deliberately refuses to admit that all these enemies truly understand or respect is brutal, unrestrained force. We've sacrificed thousands of our own lives and untold billions of our dollars trying to pretend that entire 'culture' of perpetual genocide, misogyny, child-rape, human trafficking, and unrestrained brutality can somehow be turned around with enough hearts-and-minds bullshit to make them want to stop being subhuman monsters, when they feel empowered to be all of those things by the very faith they espouse.
I'm bitter because our leadership refuses to accept that we really have two choices: Leave that 'culture' to their own devices, and exfil every last pair of boots and every last HMMWV out of that AO, and resign ourselves to reactively countering threats as they present themselves to civilized humanity; Or we can finally let slip the dogs of war and properly lay waste to their cities, society, and infrastructure until they are willing to accept a 100% unconditional surrender, upon which we move in and occupy those regions permanently and see them rebuilt as we did Japan and Germany.
I'm bitter because instead of accepting that those are the two choices we have, they'll gnash teeth and move goalposts until they can claim some sort of politically-defensible 'victory' and little else, because virtually everyone above the rank of O-6 seems to worry only about their careers and don't give a tenth-inch of shit about what this threat will look like to the first world if permitted to fester for the next 25 years, let alone another 100.
I'm bitter because entirely too many good young people like Duke2424 join the military anyway and see their lives ruined by inept leadership that sends them on missions to win the battles in wars designed to be lost, and by doing so, those SM's will suffer through failed relationships, financial ruin from failed relationships, and the stresses of finally making it in country to make a difference, only to realize all too late that the best thing you can do for large swaths of that region is drop MOABs and 155's until every square mile looked like a less-wet Ypres at the end of WWI.
I'm bitter because those good young men come back to broken homes, financial ruin, and too many maimed and dead brothers-in-arms.... for the sake of a rat-fucked ineffective do-nothing mission ruined by politically correct bullshit that will continue to pretend that an enemy force of true-believers will be stopped by anything but total ruinous war that starts with lots of arty, lots of bombs, and lots of decisive no-ROE ground fighting, and is only over when the very last one of them gets a bullet to the head or a hangman's noose.
I'm bitter because it seems like I can't go a two months without hearing that a veteran or SM I know has hanged themselves in their garage or ate a Beretta.
A bit bitter, you say?
Until there's a war that the US will actually fight to win -as decisively and as fast as possible- the only reason to put on a uniform is if it's your best choice from a poor list of options.
As a 23 year old degreed engineer with a 10+year sweetheart, he has every single reason NOT to enlist or commission.
But if he's not going to believe it tastes like shit until he takes a bite himself - I wish him well and I hope this drawdown-era military doesn't drive him insane with the PC-centric command environment and no-real-mission inactivity and busywork.
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