Only the contract is the promise

Take each clause separately, the way people here do when they correct each other. Twenty-six: some people say mid-twenties and older is not too old — people enlisted at 28 and at 33, and one mentions a forty-six-year-old in basic training — provided you arrive fit, and one person says to start running now, because one person warns the fitness standard is real and the people around you will not be kind about it. The degree: one person points out a degree does not make you an officer — you enlist, or you apply separately to an officer programme and are accepted, and one person warns the washout rate there is high, and one person says the officer tracks in some services are very selective; some people say a certificate or associate degree may lift your starting enlisted rank by a step, which is not the same thing. The bonus: some people point out the large bonuses are attached to combat jobs or to longer contracts, that the desk jobs people want are the ones without a bonus, and that a bonus is taxed like income; one person was promised six figures and no basic training; one person points out enlisted pay is rank pay and nowhere near six figures. The pension: one person points out the retirement system you have heard described from an older relative is not the one new recruits get, and this page carries no dates because people’s own are inconsistent; ask what the current system is, in writing. One person says a myth also circulates that judges send people to the service in place of jail, and that it is not how it works. If, after all that, the offer still stands in writing, people say you are looking at a real offer; if it exists only in the conversation, one person warns do not trust the verbal promise.

This page will not tell you to hide anything from a medical process, and neither, in the end, do people. Others say to keep an anxiety history or a culinary background to yourself so as not to be rejected or steered into the kitchen, and this page does not carry that advice; one person warns lying about a medical condition to enlist is fraud and puts you and the people beside you at risk, and one person points out it does not work anyway — electronic records are pulled, and a documented past condition — one person names childhood asthma — will be found and, one person warns, can end the process late and hard. What people do say honestly: some people warn some diagnoses, autism among them, are close to permanent disqualifiers; some people say service does not fix anxiety and can worsen it, though one person holds that some people do better with a rigid structure than in an open-ended civilian job; one person warns the definition of ‘fit’ moves with recruiting need. If your history disqualifies you, one person frames that as a protection rather than a loss. On the old job: one person says you can ask for the assignment that uses your skills, which is the honest version of the advice you were given. And once you are in, some people say to get every injury and illness into your service medical record the day it happens, because one person warns only what is documented is compensated later.

Both, about different people, and the fork above renders the main disagreement without picking a side, because other discussions argue the same question too. The saved-my-life side is specific: many people say that for someone homeless or broke the service is a bed, three meals and a wage the civilian market did not offer, and people came out with a trade, a paid degree, a home loan and a pension; one person says it was the best years of their life. The don’t side is specific too: some people say the physical and mental toll is the price — exposure to fuel and chemicals, the strain of deployment — and one more names joints and backs, and a level of stress even in a desk job that one person measured in their own blood pressure; one conversation describes harassment, assault and commanders punishing people who reported it or who asked for mental-health help; one person warns most service deaths are accidents, not combat, and some people name suicide as the risk the optimistic side leaves out; one person warns you cannot leave when you decide to, and the service can extend a contract. What both sides say: do not join as an escape. If the only reason is that everything else has failed, people on both sides say the stress and the loss of autonomy will not be survivable for you, and one person says the first thing to do instead is exhaust every other route — a trade apprenticeship, a training programme, a government job — and come back only if you find you want to serve. One person adds the line that the people recommending it are often the ones who did not go.