Airforce or marines?

But keep in mind when you talk to each recruiter, they have a quota to fill just like a car salesman. They will blow smoke up your ass to get you to sign on the dotted line. Not saying to avoid military service. I admire and respect our armed forces and have a nephew headed to his second tour in Afghanistan. When he signed up, he thought he was going to Alaska or South Korea. Uh-huh, sure.

He shouldn't have gone into it expecting to not deploy. Let this be an example of how you shouldn't even consider military service of any sort if you absolutely don't want to serve in a combat zone. You most likely will and nobody will have any sympathy for you if you have a problem with that.

Deploying in the Military is like being a criminal and having to serve some time behind bars, it comes with the territory and is something to be expected. If you absolutely do not want to deploy, do not join the Military.


:eusa_eh:

Reason why you want to join

I'm guessing under the current economic state that were in and your indecision . . . financial security. It's a challenging job, with benefits, free room/board, training/skills and maybe put a little aside for college.

The other is that you're also patriotic.

Like my fellow Vets posted before me, the Air Force and Marines are polar opposites. Air Force, ya stay clean. Knuckle-draggers, dirty. Air pukes, ya may get intellectually challenged. Marines (and USN SEALs), ya get physically, mentally and psychologically tested to the extreme. That and if ya like shooting things. Lastly, both will hopefully instill some responsibility, pride and maybe courage you never even knew you had . . . if you lacked it before.

Recruiters are supposed to recruit. When I did my four years, they gave you a list of three places you'd like to be stationed. Your third choice was a real possiblility, your second was remote, and your first choice was a wet dream. We called this "The Dream Sheet", cause you can dream about going there all ya want. You were lucky to get your third choice, but during war time . . . forget it. The only exception is if you want to be a Marine and ship off to the Afghan country or Iraq as your first choice. To be a Marine, you have to be gung-ho. That and if you lucked out in getting an 'A' school for a designated field.

"Deploying in the Military is like being a criminal and having to serve some time behind bars, it comes with the territory and is something to be expected."

Not sure in whose military you're talking about, but those are a REALLY poor choice of words. Pardon my French, but WTF! When I was with the USN, I got all the above mentioned benefits, traveled to different countries, learned to work as a unit, got into the occassional skirmishes with any Marines on liberty (time off) about which service was better (USN corpsmen had to always patch up the Marines when they ran head first into a cross-fire, USN SEALs are tougher, who had dibs on the prettiest girl in the bar, etc..), chased Somali's and Iranian's (it's called adreneline rush) and women. Then there is the pride. Also you might get deployed for humitarian reasons/disasters.

Really don't see criminals re-upping for prison . . . wait, scratch that . . . I guess many of them do 're-enlist' for prison.

But c'mon dude, seriously?! There is no comparison.
 
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Im new to this and i would like to see if nebody could help me out with the pros and cons of USAF vs. USMC
You really shouldn't just limit yourself to two choices. All 5 services have their pros and cons. It all depends on what you're really looking to get out of it. It depends on your motivations for joining. Whether it's a one oath hitch, or a career. Whether it's just to learn a viable trade to be used in the civilian world, or whether you want to seriously go and get dirty and bloody. There's a myriad of options in all services.

You also need to examine your personality traits. Whether or not you're passive, passive/aggressive, agressive, adrenaline junky, aggressive/adrenaline junky, etc.

I joined the ARMY because I was basically an agressive adrenaline junky. It had the options best suited for me.....Infantry, to Airborne qualified, to Air Assault qualified, to Pathfinder qualified, to RANGER.......Basically, it was constant agressiveness laced with insane adrenaline rushes.......All services will have what you are looking for. You just have to find your perfect match.

Good luck!
 
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I'm an Army Engineer. I trained with both the USAF and Navy. Not many Marines.
All I can tell ya is that Airmen are treated a hell of a lot nicer than Soldiers.
All I've heard from rumors is that the Marines are treated about the same as the worst of the Soldiers. But some Soldiers can get the easy way out and go to candyland for training.
All depends on the MOS though really.
Infantry/Intel: Marines
Engineering/Logistics/Ground Mechanic: Army
Nuclear/Signal: Navy
Aircraft Mechanic: USAF

The list could really go on forever. Just a quick glance I guess.
 
The marines, as a rule, have the crappiest accomodations, deployed and stateside. I freely admit this and am actually proud to say it. In my opinion, we work the hardest in the worst conditions and consequentially party the hardest when we're done.

The marines also offer specialties that challenge your intellect. I, for one am a communications officer. Same thing as army signal officer (except better at it ;) ). My job and that of all my Marines is very technically challenging, and advancing in rank requires not only a great deal of physical toughness, but increasingly advanced conceptual and practical mastery of radio wave propagation, electronic signaling formats, IP routing protocols, LAN/WAN engineering, server and service architecture, electronics maintenance, and satellite communications among many others. And it all has to be in a tactical, resource-limited (because we get the least funding) envronment that often right in the line of fire with the grunts.

Food for thought.

-the jerk
 

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