I have never known anyone do it for the money.. They are so underpaid it hurts.. I have known some that did it to get away from home, and those that was told they could travel the world or get a good education. But never for the money..

My dad served two terms in the Army... He was the first in our family that joined after my grandfather came over from Prussia in 1906 at the age of 6. Why did he join... he said he felt that was the least he could do for a Country that gave his dad, uncle, aunts, grandfather and grandmother a chance for a new life and Freedom....

He was very proud of the American Flag for all that it stood for, and to be able to be born and raised in a Free Country...

His last wish was to be buried near a American Flag that was waving proudly in the sky.. He made sure that his plot was in the VA section where the flag pole is less then 50ft away...

Many join for different reason but I would say a majority that join is to protect our Freedom and their loved ones. So their families will have the opportunity to live in a Free Country.

Too many take that Freedom for granted.

In our family it was a lot of inner generational incentive to do your service to country.

Also it is a good way to get out of the Home right to college route but also pay for training, get a home loan, and have some perks to afford the first real car. Once in the pay and benefits are hard to walk away from if you have a young family and know it may take months to get employment. The money is not great but it is better than minimum wage, part time , temporary jobs that seem to outnumber the career ones.

May who go into the military are still with family issues and or no family. More than you know are seeking citizenship and are minorities that are not being offered college because they may be high school graduates but have big gaps in their skills.

The Military does offer a lot of training and it is a career path even if it is underpaid.

Most don't realize that the perks have dropped off in housing and many don't have a shot at retirement being laid off once they get past the lower ranks or skill levels or the most minor injuries.

While most on Mingle see it as honorable employment that does not hold true in the mainstream economy and even service members with good records and skills have to fight past stigma and angry tax payers that resent paying for what they did get.

What I know, is that as there has been a steady increase in politicians chanting "thank you for your service blah blah," that there has been a steady decline in the pay and benefits they have voted for those in uniform.

The top officers might be doing okay, but the people who do the real work are underpaid, charged for everything (food, uniforms, etc), short-changed on support resources, and are discouraged from trying to use what few benefits are left to them.

I would ask anyone who does actually want to thank our people who protect us, to write to their representatives, and tell them the next time they pretend to care about our people in Uniform, that they damn well better show it more directly than a posturing chant.

We had TWO huge scandals recently, over the poor care our veterans have been getting. I live in the DC area, and I know that these boobs in Congress only had to take thirty minutes and drive up North Capitol street for less than ten miles, to find out that the VA Hospital system was a mess...

nevertheless, not even ONE of those self-righteous jerks did so. How do I know? Because the scandals DID HAPPEN. If even ONE of those overpaid "thankyouforyourserviceblahblah" people had ACTUALLY cared, the news media wouldn't have had to dig the scandal up.

And note, they still haven't fixed the problems. They are having too much fun using them for political advantage over each other.

The ugly side of war and the military is that it cripples the mind (PTSD) and the body (loss of limbs). People come back traumatized, haunted and broken by their experiences. I would never want to have my spouse go through something like that. It destroys families and tears them apart. War is hell.

"Imagine there no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace..."

Are you sure? What I understand the pay is quite good, health insurance is better than what most have (although I still think it sux), education is paid for etc.

The only thing that sux is having to move every 2 years. Has implications, esp for partners I think, for my daughter... for her study and later on her career and work, having to leave colleagues and friends behind etc. So getting decent compensation makes sense I guess. But still not an easy life.

I think the best thing about joining the military is the training and education available, the military is better educated than most of the US population, but I think this happened after they joined not before. Americans in general are seriously undereducated.

The pay is NOT "quite good," and the health insurance is, shall we say, restrained. If you use it as you want to, you get held back, penalized, even released from service.

If you listen carefully to the modern ads for military service, you should notice that they don't say "education is paid for," they say "you can SAVE for an education."

I look at it as I look at marriage Estelle

some grow up with negative/positive IDEALS about both marriage and military

those who grow up with positive IDEALS may enter them out of loyalty, sense of duty or responsibility, respect for the institution, or love of their partner(spouse or 'America')


those with negative IDEALS probably wont join unless desperately in need of stability that isn't readily available through other venues

those on the fence can be convinced to join by recruiters,, through promises of benefits, perks, educational assistance, housing assistance, and pay (Which for a family is pretty good since there is additional pay for spouses to be supported), not to mention, those who can stay on a base have quite a few of their expenses paid as well...


,,,I don't think I left out any 'potential' reasons

E-5 and under, with dependents, make so little money,
that most are eligible for food stamps.

Our government, treats our service members and
veteran, like chit.

I certainly didn't join for the paycheck.
There were much more lucrative opportunities.
It was just something I wanted to do since I was about 12 years old.
Adventure, national pride, curiousity..many reasons.
When I was boarding my flight for my U.N. tour of duty,
my friend who had gone two weeks earlier, was returning.
There was no big welcome for him. His gray metal coffin was unloaded
like all the other baggage, and carted away.
It was, for the most part, a thankless job.
But the self satisfaction and pride, was worth it.

my dad joined up in WW2 to get the GI Bill, and to get away from home.

Edited for making it personal.

soufie
Site Moderator

I'm sure it wasn't intentional, but there is a pretty broad category of reasons to enlist that wasn't included - specifically, psychological ones.

Having grown up during a time when involvement in one conflict had recently ended and the flare up of our involvement in Vietnam was just beginning, competitive instinct, the glorification of war/combat, male innate aggression (real or imagined), 'rites of passage', the concept of a 'real man' and zillions of other subjective but no less powerful motivations caused some folks to join.

Loosely coupled with that is peer pressure. Perhaps everyone in my generation had friends and relatives on active duty somewhere.

Media representations - the Vietnam War was televised daily - contributed by awakening a desire for recognition in some guys.

Not all reasons for enlistment are noble or altruistic. We had our share of pathological misfits, too.

There were those who saw it as a stepping stone, getting your ticket punched as a military veteran, especially during wartime, is valuable currency in some fields - politics, for instance.

What tanks most military families is the absence of adequate affordable housing when you go where you are sent. You can only tolerate living in a one room hotel with pets and children and you take whatever you can find and it can leave you strapped upside down in debt for a house you can't give away.

Same is true for owning a vehicle. You don't get to tell chain of command your bus was late or the car broke down.

What is ridiculous is when service members; especially reservist make the sacrifice to do the time often time pay delays to outright glitches, or political wrangling can mean they are without funds they have earned for weeks, or months to support themselves and dependent families that are far from friends and family for any kind of assistance.

The up or out policy is ridiculous.

Selective Reductions in Force that pick soldiers struggling with Exceptional Families Members that would be illegal in any other employment system are quietly swept under the rug.

Education benefits are so meager that when a soldier is able to use them they have depreciated so much that they have to incur a mountain of student debt to fill around them.

Good chance of that these days. We have entered a never ending state of war. Orwell was right.

In 1942 we were attacked.. at 9-11 we were attacked again.

Sorry, brother, there is times when words do no good. And frankly, there is nothing to talk about. At those times, you pick up that rifle.. and you shoot. And you keep on shooting until the threat to you, yours and what you believe in has ceased.

Because at those times that is the only language that those who attacked us understand.

So you answer the call

Who do you think is protecting us. Doing their best to keep it from our shores. Keeping it from our families and the ones we love. Lets take that security blanket away and see just how long we last, unprotected.

The little things, like what we are doing now.. talking freely on the internet about our countries pros and cons... would be no more

... for the great benefits..

.. and the possibilities of seeing the world...

.. because they are running from the law..

.. they like working in a group environment...

.. they like to be told what to do every second of the day...lol...jk..

. I salute you.. men and women of the armed forces..... keep up the good work....

Well, I suppose it depends on what you do in the army. And maybe things have recently changed. I know my son in law is doing quite well and will be doing better once he's finished his study. As far as I know the study is being paid for, fully, and I've understood they have better health insurance because he is in the army.
And in few years from now he'll be making a hell of a lot more than both my exes make together with a full time job.

I don't think we could even come close to naming all the reasons why people join the service. The question should be why do people reinlist? I reinlisted twice and did 15yrs and 3 mo. My mos wasn't eligible for bonuses. I think I did it for all my brothers in arms.

For me, as far as dating military people, They have been bad experiences.