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

  1. #71
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    Quote Originally Posted by CPM View Post
    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.
    About sums it up to a T.

  2. #72
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    Quote Originally Posted by Belmont31R View Post
    Combat arms in your 30's as lower enlisted is a stupid decision unless you have some sort of ageless freak physical gift. Beside the physical side of it your age is going to not let you fit into a platoon or squad of dudes who are mostly 18-22 year olds. Barracks life in combat arms units can be like living in a mental institution at night. You will not fit in.

    You'll be much happier doing something that would give you a skill, clearance, and is combat arms or SOF adjacent. PSYOPS, cyber, medic, intel, certain signal MOS's, EOD etc where its much less 18 year old heavy and your maturity can be a benefit to you and your unit.

    And here's the deal with 18X contracts. Most of those dudes decline or self drop before they even get to selection. If you decide SF is something you want to pursue a couple of years in the military first is a great benefit. 18X is an awesome way to get people to join up with the lure of SF to fill out 11B slots in line units. 11B is great for an 18 year old who doesn't know what they want to do in life, and has the drive to go do military shit and where they literally don't know any better. At that age you're still dumb enough to go through the BS and come out the other side reasonably ok.

    I was commo, and supported line units. We had 6 man teams that attached to the combat arms units in our brigade. My team was unique being a 'remote' unit so we got tasked to the brigade recon team. It was kind of a mix of elements from the brigade but 11B's, fisters, mortars, scouts, some Air Force dudes, a command group, and us lol. We got to experience a lot of the other aspects of the military and deploy with them. Still hard enough of a job that since I've been out I'm basically in back pain every single day, the back of my head and neck was numb for months at one point while still AD, I feel about 20 years older than I am. We got invited to do a deployed area Spur Ride with the Scouts and I can still remember a lot of that stuff like it was a week ago haha

    If you had your degree I would actually suggest going to AF or Navy in some sort of cyber intel or linguistics intel job. They have better enlisted to officer programs, better QOL, and those jobs in those branches work adjacent to SOF. Seals have a pretty extensive support element next to them that SOF in other branches don't.
    I've read this entire chain and this pretty much nailed it. I'm 47 and former enlisted Marine and have stayed near my Marine weight and exercise hard. I've asked myself could I do it now and yes I could pass all of the tests easy and do well on PFT ... BUT I honestly would be very likely to be constantly getting injured. Also the mentality of being in barracks with 18 - 21 year old kids would totally suck. I'd honestly very strongly recommend a technical job and preferably as an officer. I think the barracks like with people 15 years younger than you will be total Hell. Good luck in your choice and curious what you do.

  3. #73
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    Quote Originally Posted by Devildawg2531 View Post
    I've read this entire chain and this pretty much nailed it. I'm 47 and former enlisted Marine and have stayed near my Marine weight and exercise hard. I've asked myself could I do it now and yes I could pass all of the tests easy and do well on PFT ... BUT I honestly would be very likely to be constantly getting injured. Also the mentality of being in barracks with 18 - 21 year old kids would totally suck. I'd honestly very strongly recommend a technical job and preferably as an officer. I think the barracks like with people 15 years younger than you will be total Hell. Good luck in your choice and curious what you do.

    Theres a reason dudes put a ring on the 1st piece of ass they come across

    Barracks can really suck. I got lucky at one point and had a roommate with a German girlfriend so after COB on Friday's he'd shower, pack a bag, and not be back until Sunday afternoon when we had to GI the common areas and get uniforms ready for Monday. Some guys got stuck with non-showering slobs who lived nasty...at least until the other guy had to complain to that persons 1st line about how disgusting they were lmao

    On top of the potential for shitty buildings you'll get to listen to drunk idiots fighting and yelling late into the night. Barracks thieves suck, too. Living off post gives you that mental separation on days off and privacy that becomes important the older you get.

    Thats one reason I suggested the AF. They take care of their people a lot better than the Army in that regard. Something a person in their 30's would appreciate. We had AF guys on the top floor of one of our buildings in Germany, and they got 1 person per room...then also got paid a stipend for living in sub-standard housing. Their rooms were also spruced up with ceiling fans, carpeted floors, and nice furniture. Never had to do CQ or clean common areas, either. Our chow hall was also deemed sub-standard so they didn't get meal card money taken out. Rank for rank they ended up with about $500 extra per month while living better than we did.

    When I PCS'ed from Germany back to the states, and got to my unit I never even signed for a barracks room. Took a look at the barracks while I was still doing post in-processing and was like nope. Got into a place off post before I even reported and told the supply NCO who was in charge of assigning rooms that I was already living off post. Worked out perfectly because that 1SG had never deployed and was coming off a DS tour. Dude was still in DS mode mixed with 90's garrison mentality and had those poor barracks ****ers on their hands and knees scrubbing floors on Fridays after COB. That didn't stop until he started trying to drag married guys into the fun, and wive's were in the parking lot with the post commanders office on speed dial if their husbands weren't released by 5PM sharp. Turns out if the post CG has a standing order to release people by 5PM that means by 5PM and not 10PM.

    I found out when I was dating my wife those barracks were tagged condemned at one point from asbestos insulation but re-opened due to lack of space for resident units. Her step-dad was an on post contractor that built a lot of the buildings on Lewis. Same style of buildings made the news at one point with constant flooding problems. I looked at that area of post on sat maps not long ago and that whole row of shit facilities are empty razed lots now.

  4. #74
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    ^^^ What he said

    The Army, and Marine Corps I'm sure also, tend to treat lower ranking enlisted like 5 year olds. The stupid shit you'd encounter in either of those two services, especially in combat arms, is why quite a few of us have recommended the Air Force. It probably isn't as obvious to an 18yo but in your 30's it would stand out big-time. Hell, even off-post personnel had to be in the barracks for first call (even for non-NCO's), so you could watch everyone else scratch their nuts as they rolled out of bed. That is only one example of the stupid shit I'd have issues with as I got older (and smarter!).

    In Panama we had a "joint" base where I was, since we were an Airborne BN so were close to the air base. Ft. Kobbe/Howard AFB. Was talking to some Air Force guys one day and they would all chip in a few bucks a month to pay some Panamanian chick to come and clean their barracks, no "GI parties" for them. For us remedial shit like that was part of our "training". I remember mentioning the "Expert Buffer Badge" and those zoomies looked at us like they had no idea what we were talking about.
    Last edited by ABNAK; 08-07-20 at 19:01.
    11C2P '83-'87
    Airborne Infantry
    F**k China!

  5. #75
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    I won't bore you with a bunch of hindsight, but I was infantry and EOD, and EOD has lasted 20 years longer than my infantry time. While I probably 'needed' the infantry when I was 17, it would be hard, if I were doing it again, to not skip the infantry and go straight to EOD.

    Something I did not know about in my youth was Intel. They have some really cool jobs not directly tied to your PT score, if that matters.

  6. #76
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    Cyber security.

  7. #77
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    I joined as a 12B (combat engineer) at 28, currently 32.

    My knees and back are ****ed up, but its been fun. I was the oldest guy in the platoon at Ft Campbell (even our E7 PSG was only 26) and a struggle with some new E5’s trying to swing their dick to the world when I first got in.

    Easiest job I’ve ever had but also the most retarded at the same time.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  8. #78
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    I went in a bit older, and I was with some decent/high-speed units. But being superbly physically fit in one's 30s is a much different animal than being superbly physically fit in one's 20s. Late 40s? Forget about it. I did the work but the recoveries were much longer, and I was sore much longer.

    I agree, it sucked ass being treated like I was 18, when I was in my mid and late 20s.

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