Things No One Tells You About Being in the Military

If you’ve ever thought about joining the Army, Marines, Air Force, or Navy, your parents, teachers, or other caretakers have probably tried to throw their two cents in on the value, or perhaps, the folly of serving. Most of the time, however, these snippets of advice are based on skewed media perceptions or irrelevant opinions. In my experience, the real factors that will decide whether you’re right or wrong for the military are the ones no one really talks about. If you can handle these, you might be a good fit. If you can’t, you certainly won’t be.

You Often Can’t Pee

This one is sort of branch-dependent, but soldiers and marines spend a lot of time standing in formation and manning various posts. Leaving these situations to use the bathroom is often complicated and awkward enough that soldiers simply avoid doing so.

A lot of the places where they find themselves are unpleasantly hot. If you’re like any good soldier or marine, you’ve hydrated properly. Now you have to pee. But you can’t — that new lieutenant is still going on about the importance of wearing safety belts when it’s dark out.

It might not seem like a big deal, but not being able to pee is a big part of being a serviceman or woman. Though you’ll lose a lot more freedoms than your freedom to use the bathroom as you please, this restriction sometimes seems like it’s the most violating of all.

You’ll Probably Have To Sing

Remember in elementary school when everyone had to sing regardless of their talent, desire, or ability? That’s kind of how things are in the military. There are branch songs, cadences, and guys who just like to hear their own voices. When you march as a group, you’ll often go through one of a handful of tired, overdone cadences about the airborne or being better than everyone else or whatever. Not exactly the manliest, badass thing about the military.

Maybe this isn’t a downside for you. Maybe you’ve always dreamed of using your position in the Army band to make it on American Idol. Great, but consider this — If you’re anything like I was, you’ll find the forced part the disagreeable part. Singing is fine, but forced, synchronized singing combined with cringeworthy foot maneuvers can feel incredibly demeaning.

Even the Jobs that Sound Cool Are Often Boring as Hell

While there are a vast number of careers available to young people looking to serve in the military, only a small number of these options primarily involve combat duties. A large percentage simply supports the “big” military in doing what it needs to do.

A lot of military members, like human resource specialists or mechanics, pretty much do what their civilian counterparts do, just with a slightly baggier outfit. Sometimes, they get paid much less than they would otherwise. Generally, these careers are best for people who know what they want to do in the civilian world but can’t get the experience they need on their own.

Some of the jobs in the military seem like they’re right in the action. With names like rifleman, mortarman, human intelligence collector, master at arms, or psychological operations officer, it sounds like you'd be among the first called upon when terror strikes. Unfortunately, even the coolest sounding positions are absolutely filled with morons. You can think of the military as a cross-section of society. 50% are above average, and the other 50% are below. Where this might not matter so much in your standard office job, when lives are at stake, the most incompetent people really stand out.

This sad reality hasn’t been lost on military leaders. When times are tough and the S starts to lean toward the F, nobody is going to trust a group made out of 50% below average soldiers. This is why everyone is so obsessed with the “elite” members of the armed forces. The Green Berets, SEALS, Rangers, Force Reconnaissance, CAG operators, etc. are the best of the best and therefore entrusted with the coolest, most exciting missions. Everyone else gets the scraps.

The average line or support company in the army or marines spends months rehearsing the same field training exercises they’ve done a thousand times before. Sometimes, they happen into hairy situations, but when they do, they don’t have nearly the financial or material support that more elite units enjoy. Being in the military means enduring monotony, boredom, and tedium until something crazy happens — and “something crazy” isn’t always what you want, anyway.

If you want to spend your enlisted time doing the kinds of things you’ll want to write a book about, you’ll have to prove yourself first. You’ll have to excel to show others that you’re worth it. Even the most high-speed special forces operators you’ve seen recreated in video games and movies often sit in menial jobs for years before they get to move on. Not always, but often.

Sometimes, Being the Best Isn’t Good Enough

Some things in life just come down to luck. Never has this phrase been more true than in the military. Perhaps your commander hates redheads. Perhaps you’ll zig when you should have zagged in a training exercise and break your ankle. You can join up, do everything to show your leadership that you’re smart, capable, and skilled but still end up doing something you don’t want to do. Though your personal volition usually has some impact on where you end up in the world, the “needs of the military” are far more powerful.

Service is dangerous, and the surest way to end up in perpetual administrative limbo is to get hurt. If you happen to end up in a combat environment, luck is everything. History shows that danger is a numbers game. Delta force operators have been killed by Somali teenagers, and Japanese shock troops have been devoured by crocodiles.

You’ll Probably End Up Somewhere With Few Romantic Choices

As a young man or lady, you’ve probably reached the peak of your desire to lay with one or more representatives of your gender of choice. If you have joined the military purely to accomplish your romantic goals, you’ve made a terrible mistake. This isn’t to say that there aren’t options in the service, but your pool of candidates is severely limited. If you’re a man and you’d like to try your hand at wooing a fellow service member, you may be in for some stiff competition.

If you’re heading to a middle eastern warzone, don’t even think about the opposite sex. If you wind up in a U.S. installation, on the other hand, most of your options are townspeople in the many quaint or even dilapidated habitations surrounding military bases. Depending on your preferences and, once again, your luck, this could be a good thing or a bad thing.

One of the great benefits of being in the service is that you receive excellent healthcare. Better yet, married servicemembers often get to live in separate, reasonable housing, rather than jammed together with a bunch of other people like sardines. For some small-town ladies (and sometimes men), these benefits are too good to overlook.

Sadly but truly, there are some people in the world who will marry you just for health insurance and housing. They certainly aren’t the majority, but they’re a real enough phenomenon that they’ve earned their own name — dependapotamus, presumably for their tendency to lounge about and become rather large.

But perhaps you have a significant other who is endlessly devoted to you and will stick with you through even the severest longing or temptation. Once you join up, you’re putting them through the test. A large percentage of relationships don’t make it through basic training. After this stage, the numbers stabilize somewhat, but they drop off again with long periods of absence.

It’s no secret that military marriages are more likely than other marriages to end up in divorce. Interestingly, the highest average divorce rates across all branches occur in the air force. These numbers are nothing, however, compared to the most esteemed units of the military. The idea of dating a super badass who spends 6 to twelve months away at a time is sometimes a lot nicer than the reality. When husbands come home for a few months, still in war mode and with undiagnosed traumatic brain injury, things can get tough for even the most resilient spouses.

Much of the Military Still Thinks You Can Train Yourself Not to Need Sleep

In some parts of the civilian world, there’s a weird bravado about not seeping. Corporate lawyers sometimes brag about how many hours they worked into the night, sacrificing sleep for productivity. Hospital workers sometimes work multiple overnight shifts in a row. Nowhere, however, is the lack of sleep more institutionalized than it is in the military, the army and marines in particular.

After hundreds of years of the same pointless hazing and posturing, the army and marines still force members to forego sleep regularly. Not only do branches allow individuals to sleep minimal hours during training periods, but they also require simulated guard duties, surprise nighttime formations, and other pointless exercises in restricting sleep.

Of course, many martial activities require a lack of sleep, so these exercises are necessary to prepare for more critical ones, right? No. For years, the army has ignored its own experts’ advice. The only results of needless sleep restrictions are increased injuries and accidents, health problems, and psychological disruptions. But maybe you follow Jocko Willink’s Instagram, a mind-numbing collection of pictures of his watch at 4:30 am, and think I’m wrong.

I’ve Talked to a Recruiter — Should I Sign the Papers?

Consider this: People like Jocko are better than most of us, but they probably won’t live longer. This point kind of sums up the military as a whole. You can either burn out quickly or spread your stress and excitement out over your whole life.

Before you join, ask yourself: do you want to roll the dice on your years and your health for a shot at being something great, or do you think you could find a way to fulfill your desire to serve in the free, civilian world? Remember, choosing not to serve because you’d rather be drinking with your buddies is a lot like joining because you want to kill somebody. There’s a wrong reason for everything. However you look at it, being in the army, marines, air force, or navy is a sacrifice. If you decide to pull the trigger, make sure you’re in it for the right reasons.

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