(Army) 33yo non prior service. Help decide on a combat MOS

[Coal Dragger]

Recovery is huge as you age, and doing lot’s of hard physical activity with little quality sleep is a good way to pick up an injury.

[JDH1]

FLETC in the summer is fun. Length and intensity depends on which agency you are hired by.

[Belmont31R]

I would finish your degree and apply to the CIA. You’ll have people your age going through the pipeline and you wont have some 21 year old E4 chewing your ass over silly bs. You’ll get similar training to the SF community. The only thing is you’ll spend your career overseas most of the time.

lol no

Majority of agency jobs are in cubicle farms. The guys who do actually dangerous shit mostly are SF or SOF vets to begin with, and that's ramped way down with the GWOT a shell of itself.

[LowSpeed_HighDrag]

I was 19 in boot camp, 23 when I got out of the Marine Corps. At 31 now, with three kids, a mortgage, a career, good god I can't imagine ever going through that again at this stage in my life. Being bossed around by 19-20 year old Cpl's with no life experience? No thanks.

Officer route? Yup, if I had to I would do that. Junior enlisted? Please don't subject yourself to that at 33 years old.

[1168]

lol no

Majority of agency jobs are in cubicle farms. The guys who do actually dangerous shit mostly are SF or SOF vets to begin with, and that's ramped way down with the GWOT a shell of itself.

Fact.

[nick84]

You're 33 and still ****ing around, half ass trying to get a degree. You're about to quit on that with a year left to go enlist with the hopes of doing cool guy shit. I don't know why anyone is filling your head with ideas of going SF or Ranger. Quitters don't get very far in either of those career fields no matter how physically fit they are. Get your shit together and finish your degree. If you're feeling a little depressed with where you are currently in life, being a 33 year old private living in the barracks in some leg infantry unit isn't going to make you happy.

Basically this. I'm sympathetic to people who take some time to find their way in life. But OP, your record does not indicate that you are a 'finisher'. Not saying you're aren't, but there's a lot more to it than the physical. At your age, you're going to have to be driven, because this will work against you mentally as people a decade younger than you explain the facts of life to you.

That said, I'm not one to stop anyone from chasing their dreams. Age in the military and age in civilian life aren't quite the same....carrying a ruck puts years on you. If you've been in the combat arms for a decade, carrying a giant ruck humping up and down mountains, living on energy drinks, dip, and alcohol, you feel the years. Guys who've been in for a long time aren't wrong that they feel old, but a fine point that gets glossed over is that a 30 year old in the military is like a 45 year old fit person anywhere else, lol. Of course, you can't outrun father time....in the peak of fitness you're still going to recover more slowly than guys a decade younger than you. But people older than you have done it, so if you really can't live with not going for it, then by all means. Full send.

A team leader in the reserves I served with (Marine) passed the scout sniper basic course in Camp Pendleton at 40. SSBC is sort of all the difficult things about infantry school made worse. Heavier ruck, less sleep, less food, far more difficult mental tasks, and much more physical every-day taskings. It has a very high attrition rate for many reasons, but if he can do that, you're not out of the game. For your situation though, I would go ARNG and then try out with an SF unit. The worst that happens is you see how miserable the day to day drag of most military activity really is, and you're stuck with a minimum commitment. The best is that you succeed and you get the chance to prove what you can do. In today's day and age, there isn't much mystery to the way these units select and train. The standards are public, and the internet is full of useful planning.

Be advised; it's almost never as cool as the cool stories you've seen and heard. But you may get to do some interesting shit. I would start with an honest evaluation of self. Good luck.

[sniperfrog]

lol no

Majority of agency jobs are in cubicle farms. The guys who do actually dangerous shit mostly are SF or SOF vets to begin with, and that's ramped way down with the GWOT a shell of itself.

You can apply to be a case officer. Not many are former SOF. Most of the former SOF guys are contractors or protective officers.
I’ve known case officers that didn’t have any military experience at all.

[sundance435]

My 2 cents: you’re too old for a Ranger scroll, maybe not a tab. If you really want to do it you better do it quickly. If I were you I’d look into NG SF, 19th or 20th Group.

Didn't read the whole thread, but this was going to be my $0.02 based on the folks I know that have done it.

[Pappabear]

I dont know shit about any of this stuff, but I woukd do as much online courses towards your degree while you wait to get in. That you too would regret not getting. You can always get later, but like most things the younger the better and it only gets harder later in life. Good luck.

PB

[CPM]

I’m blown away at the amount of genuine responses on here. This guy was of fighting age at 2005, the height of the war. If you really had the fighting spirit you would have enlisted, I don’t know, when there were real effing wars being fought. You’d also be in a recruiters office instead of an AR forum.

If you’re serious, stop reading these posts(which I doubt you are) and drive to a recruiters office and tell them you want to fight. That’s how you get started, not online. 90% of the people who served on here, including myself, did it this way. No internet. No forums. No “Surviving the Cut”. We read some books, got fired up, and walked into the recruiting station. That’s where it begins. Worry about the hypothetical schools you will almost certainly never attend later.