What You Should Know Before Joining the Army
As you may already know, when you initially start the enlistment process, they ask you to fill out an in-depth questionnaire and sign some forms. The next step is to take an aptitude test and then to talk to a career counselor where you are presented with a list of jobs which supposedly fit your abilities. The career counselor will then try to persuade you to pick a specific occupation and offer you different bonuses and school options.
It’s in this room that you’re liable to make an uninformed decision. You’re standing there in front of a soldier with a list of jobs on his/her computer and they are persuading you to pick one. The career counselors have so many job slots and are trying to fill the jobs with the most openings or the largest personnel shortage first. They might pressure you into a job you don’t want to do and tell you that it’s the opening that fits your test scores. In reality, if your enlistment depends on it, you don’t have to pick a job off the screen or on the spot. All of the jobs you actually qualify for are not on the screen, so if you know what you want to do and score high enough (they do release your scores to you), demand they give you that job, DO NOT JUST PICK ONE OFF THE SCREEN. It’s an all-volunteer Army; they need you in there and will make concessions to get you in. Note: If the job you want is very popular it may not offer the same bonuses as jobs in shorter supply.
If you’re male and pick a combat job (remember women aren’t currently allowed in combat), there is a very high chance you’ll end up in a unit which is almost all men and possibly on a military base with a high ratio of males to females. In environments with a gender disproportions, expect severe alcoholism to run rampant.
After choosing a job and signing a contract, you’ll eventually be given orders and a ship out date for training. When you arrive at your reception battalion, you’ll be given a uniform, a haircut, and receive you’re initiation into military life. This initiation includes being taken into a large room with many other soldiers and listening to a scary lecture designed to scare information out of you with threats of prison. They also make you feel as though you can’t get out of the Army unless you do so right then. They are trying to get people who lied on their Army apps about drugs and other stuff to come clean. Unless you’ve done something really bad, don’t bother with disclosing anything. For example DON’T tell them that you have smoked marijuana and you said you never did on your application. It doesn’t matter and they don’t’ really care about that. Remember 50% of the population is estimated to have smoke marijuana before, and since almost everyone puts that they’ve never done it on their app (all 60 people in my battery did), I think they understand the discrepancy.
You’ll have to deal with a whole bunch of BS if you come forward and disclose anything. As far as being stuck in the army or being threatened with a prison sentence if you try to get out later on, that’s a complete lie. You can get out anytime you want (you’ll have to deal with some BS) while you’re still in training. They have certain numbers of people they expect to wash out in all stages from basic to AIT and it’s an easy process with no penalties on your part to get out in this time period. You even get a general discharge, so don’t let them scare you.
After a week or so, they’ll transfer you to basic training. There you’ll meet a bunch of drill sergeants and your unit may or may not be coed. Here you’ll be told that if your platoon makes a mistake you’ll be reprimanded by with a punishment that consists of physical exercise like push-ups. They may give you a few simply things to do and “smoke” you when you make a mistake. I’m sorry to disappoint those of you who watch a lot of war movies, but here is what you should expect from basic training. You’ll spend more time waiting in lines or standing still in a formation then you will actually training or learning. The expression “hurry up and wait” will take on a whole new meaning.
Your drill sergeants will continue to stress how it’s important that you pay utmost attention and learn all these tasks perfectly for tests required to pass basic training. Unless you fail the physical fitness test (they will even help you on it a little) everyone passes no matter how incompetent of a soldier you are. It’s important for you to realize this beforehand, or It’ll be a bit depressing when you realize how hard you worked at assembling and dissembling you’re m16a2 in 60 seconds while another soldier who can’t even take it apart by themselves passes.
No matter how well your platoon does you’ll be repeatedly punished with physical exercise over and over again. Even if you do the tasks perfectly expect to be punished. The drill sergeants will blame a single individual or a few select individuals each time as the reason why the group is being reprimanded. DO NOT let this psychologically affect you, or you’re really going to harbor bad feelings. You really will be punished the same no matter how well you do. Expect the least intelligent individuals to completely tear themselves apart over this and get into huge fights always blaming people for the group’s punishments. In reality the drill sergeants are conditioning your body since most soldiers fail the physical fitness test the first time they take it. They are also trying to instill discipline. Although, if you do something exceptionally bad you may receive some extra harsh punishments.
There isn’t a lot of individual recognition, so don’t expect to be rewarded for hard work. Just enjoy the experience; it’s unlike any other you’ll ever have. The obstacle courses are really fun and similar to what you’ve seen in the movies, but minus the competitive aspects you may expect. It’s more like, do this — it’s fun. There is almost no hand to hand training and bayonet training is only for a few hours. Most of your training involves marching, physical fitness, and basic rifle marksmanship. You do get to throw a live hand grenade. Expect to do a lot of running. You’ll definitely run until you almost collapse on multiple occasions. Plan for it. That’s probably the hardest part for most people: getting into running. If you thinking about joining get used to running at least 2 miles a day and 4-5 miles occasionally.
You’ll probably suffer a few minor injuries in the barrage of physical tasks you’ll have completed in such a short amount of time. Try not to go to the hospital if you can avoid it. Every morning they’ll have “sick call” and anyone needing to seek medical attention is allowed to wait and see a doctor. If you miss a large part of the training or get a physical profile (doctor recommendation that you not do anything physical for a certain period of time) you may be recycled or have to repeat part of basic training. It’s kind of a Catch-22, If you really do have a problem be sure to seek medical attention BEFORE it’s get too bad, so you won’t miss too many days near the end where the qualifications are held. You’ll probably have a few soldiers in your unit that were “recycled”. It would really suck to be them, you’ll be sick of having no freedom after 9 weeks, trust me.
After basic training expect to go directly to AIT (Advanced Individual Training) where you’ll be with soldiers in your job field. There will still be drill sergeants, but they’ll treat you a lot better and as the school progresses, you’ll be given the freedom to leave the base and wear regular clothes on days off. Depending on the job you pick, this may be as little as 4 weeks long or take a full year to complete.
AIT is pretty straight forward and there isn’t a lot you need to know about before hand, except that you may undergo a type of emotional breaking right about this time. Sometime in AIT you’ll be given leave to go home for two weeks or so. You will not believe how good this will feel. It will literally feel like you’ve been gone for years and it’s difficult how to express how much you’ll have changed in just a few months. When you return to AIT or your unit if your AIT was especially short, you’ll start having a lot of free time, which sounds great, but you won’t know what to do with it. You won’t have a TV, no home feeling, no community, no events or sports or anything, you’ll know a lot of acquaintances, but have no or few friends who really know your background. It’ll be very easy to feel totally lost and directionless, but know that once you make it through to your duty station you’ll start feeling settled and out of “transition”. You’ll start making long term friends and have events and places you habitually frequent.
When you finally get to your duty station, it’ll feel like a vacation. Normal work days and lots of holidays off when you’re not “in the field” or doing a training simulation that requires overtime work. The mentality of the soldiers may be very juvenile though, lots of bullying, cursing, and violence. This will be especially true if you’re in a predominantly male combat arms unit. In my experience alcoholism was everywhere and the majority of men in my unit drank every day. Be prepared for something like that. It’ll definitely be a new experience. Every two months or so, you’ll be required to take a mandatory urine test for drugs. If you do drugs they will catch you. In between mandatory tests, they also spring random urine tests on soldiers. I knew many soldiers who tried everything to cheat these tests and they all failed. You’re no longer in training so punishments may be exceedingly harsh now. Remember you’ll be under the uniform code of military justice and it’s much stricter then civilian law. One otherwise outstanding soldier I knew was stripped of all rank, spent 30 days in a military jail, and was forced to work overtime with no freedom for another month until he was kicked out of the Army. All that for failing a single drug test for marijuana.
The intent of this article was not to persuade you from joining the Army or to overly criticize it, but to inform you. To answer the burning questions you either already have or will soon be asking yourself if you decide to join. A lot of my personal Army experience was not the greatest, but I wouldn’t give it up. The experience I gained invaluably changed me. I’m a stronger human being with a courage and drive that was previously unawakened.
