"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stuart Mill
"Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it." - Teddy Roosevelt
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." - Teddy Roosevelt
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." - Teddy Roosevelt
I'm glad you asked to be discharged. If you don't want to be there, I don't want you there.
We can go back and forth with quotes from various people all day. The point is, you couldn't hack it and asked to get out. The National Guard was too tough on you. Good luck with quitting jobs and getting rehired with other jobs. Others don't feel the same way as you.
Also, you're right. There is no OT pay. However, if you're active military, you don't pay for rent, utilities, food, medical care, or dental care. You get paid every 2 weeks. The only bills you pay are the bills you bring in. If you choose to go Reserves or NG, then your college is paid for. Who needs OT pay?
I dont deny that job hoping is a bad idea, my first job I was at for 2 months and while I was at that job I was called on my cell phone by another employer and I have been at my currant job for almost 3 years and test for my PE licence next october in chemical engineering to me that is work worth doing. I dont have all my bills payed for me but I get a choise of where I live and how nice my place is and I get a choise of how good the food I eat is. The military always talks about your bills being payed but they fail to mention the quality of your housing or the food, its not bad but I can certinly do much better in the civilian world. Just working my 40 hours I can cover all of my bills as well and still have disposable income and live and eat way better than if I were in the military and if I work OT I get even more money and can get much more (the NG pay was so meager for 2 days "work" that I had it spent just putting gas in the truck to get to base and buying so groceries, I looked at the pay charts for O1 - O3 and I could not even make my sports car payment let alone my condo and student loans. I live for tedious problems and comming up with solutions, what I hate is all the time the military wastes doing menial tasks or trying to look busy to avoid menial tasks (maybe this is not the case with all units or stations). Also 24 month deployments do not improve your quality of life very much either.
Also what exactly is it that we are fighting for in the middle east, I never stated I was not willing to fight for what I believe in, if we were fighting for OUR constitution we would be fighting in a manner that did not require our troops to be on 12-24 month deployments multipule times thats just my opinion. The problem is once your in people arnt talking about college money and housing and interesting mission problems they are talking hard about your a** is going to the "sand box" all the focus is on how you are a piece of government meat, the positive aspects of the military get lost amogst the military culture.
I think it would be a great measuring stick to have people sign on the dotted line about 4 weeks into basic training and see how many people you retain, the problem is you dont get a correct view of the miltiary from the recruiters cush office with a coffee pot and nice chairs, unless you are in a unique position to know what goes on (like you live near a BCT base and can check it out for yourself, if they will even let you, becuase the real abuse is not in the "training" but what goes on at the barracks during "down time" when they lock down the barracks and put the screws to you), we had to stand against the wall nose and toes for 1-2 hours and then get smoked in the pit because our drill was having a bad day how is that honorable, I probably should have blew the whistle but you can never tell what is alowable and what is not because they are allowed to get away with so much its hard to tell when they cross the line that is just my opinion, plus there is so much burocrocy that I did not want to be there any longer than I had to because I was not going home to my wife and condo in my sports car after filing a report and talking with JAG.
It all really boils down to overall life quality, not whether your bills are paid for you or if you get a 1/4 ride GI bill (after rising costs of tuition and expenses for a good college the GI bill will cover about 1/4 to 1/2), also your ability to deal with life issues is dramaticly reduced (like pay issues, court issues, bills, child custody, whatever), theoreticly there are laws to prevent that but in real life you could come home to a forclosed house and your spouce has divorced you and took your kid (people have a hard time being married to someone who does not exist and you cant blame them), about half of the people I was around that had been deployed in the guard had gotten a divorce or never married in the first place, what a life to live, but hey your bills are paid. And by the time you are done picking up the pieces and excersizing your legal rights as a soldier you could be going back to iraq again.
Are you catching my drift, its all about the over all quality of life, you may get a cush station but you are rolling the dice, in the civilian world I can much better control my direction in life, these are the things people need to realize. The military oversimplifies these issues and they need to be more forthcomming with the reality of all these situations. Right now the government should be drafting but they dont have the back bone and that should not be our soldiers fault, no soldier should have to spend more than a year of total accumulated time deployed in there 8 year contract (unless they voluntarily re-up after there first 4), I believe the 4 years inactive reserves should only be for an all out catastrophy on our own soil (and im not talking about an isolated terror attack like 9-11 im talking about a full blown full frontal war with enemy tanks, fighter planes, full blown naval warfare and so forth, the government is using emergency military resources for non emergency tasks, the threats to the US in the middle east were squlched in about 6 months now we are engaged in an optional liberation expanding emergency resources).
Its important for people to know this because I was all gung ho to join to be a pilot and support my state etc etc do the one weekend flying and have a normal life and I was thrust into a whole new world I did not like and was nothing like what I thought it would be, now I am learning the truth behind the front that the miltiary puts on to entice people to join. When I was in I felt like I needed to defend myself against the very people I would be serving with more so than the "enemy" but you cant deck them or shoot them you just have to tolerate the punishment how is that fighting for what you believe in, if someone did the stuff like some of the DI's and NCO's did to me they would be asked politly to leave my house once and then be asked to leave with a gun pointed at them, that usually diffuses a situation quickly especially if they know you have a right to use it without fear of reprisal but thoes options are not avalible to you in the military.
