It seems like every branch says they're the best and the others suck. Personally I'm enlisting in the army after I get my bachelor's degree (business administration, minor in finance and Pre-Med). With my degree and the fact that I'll be over 21 I can enter the pre-SFAS and go straight for special forces with the idea of being a medic in mind.
I personally *want* to see action. I never could understand how somebody could join any branch of the military and work a desk job at a base. It seems like the worst of both worlds: you wear the uniform and deal with the military structure bs and you get to atrophy behind a desk. Some people insist that I have no idea what I'm really in for and I'm retarded for actually wanting to fight... given it's true I've never really been there but I'm really convininced its what I want.
Mainly I'm waiting on my brother to get back from afghanistan so I can chat him up in person (emails just don't cut it). He's a green berret and a warrant officer and this is his 6th year of service... he loves his job.
While I was still considering joining the navy to be deployed with the marines as a corpsman medic, he sent me this as part of an email from August 5, 2008:
Quote:
The part where you say you want to be attached to a ground unit is a big consideration. I know I personally want to deploy quite often (basically I want to do my job, not sit back at Ft. Bragg) and with the Army this is pretty well guaranteed, believe you me. Most people I work with have already had three, four, five tours under their belt. So if you want to actually go to a combat theater and be a medic, you WILL get a lot more action in the Army. Again, this is different in the Navy. Afghanistan and Iraq are not their primary missions. Meaning that the majority of the time, the focus is on essentially running patrols around the ocean, and various training exercises. To date the Navy has only deployed a grand total of 5,000 personnel on the ground (not at one time, TOTAL) to both major combat theaters, and very few of these are corpsman. I have met a couple corpsman attached to marine units, but even then, you would spend the majority of your time either A) stateside or B) On a ship, basically waiting around.
Anyways that's my impression but I'm open to suggestions/insights. What do you think is the best way to go for somebody who wants to see combat and is currently thinking undergrad->military->med school?
