As a former Navy recruiter, I can assure you that not all recruiters lie. My office had a no BS policy and we told our applicants and recruits the whole truth. We had absolutely no reason to lie to them.
Whether or not your eyesight disqualifies you is based on more than just how far you are from being 20/20. The shape of your eyes and your lenses makes a difference as well.
If you can't find the record of your most recent exam, your recruiter has a form that you can sign authorizing them to contact your eye doctor on your behalf and to obtain that record. If it has been more than one year, then your exam won't count and you will be at the mercy of the MEPS doctors.
Also, ROTC is good for those that it is good for. And not everyone will qualify for ROTC. That program is not as simple as just applying and getting it. One cannot simply just choose to be an officer instead of enlisting. If you think that you might want to be an officer, then check it out. But the reality is that some people make good officers, and some people make good enlisted personnel. There is nothing dishonorable about being enlisted, and making it seem like being enlisted is beneath a person is disrespectful to that line of service. Not everyone who is enlisted is a "grunt" who has no value.
But more to the point:
Consider what kind of service you want to perform. If you join the Air Force, Army, or Marines, there is a very high chance that you will be on the ground in a war zone. If that is what you're looking for, you should look at one of those branches. The Air Force is not exempt from that. Wherever the Army goes, the Air Force goes along with it. Some from those branches won't see that type of service, but most will.
The Navy, on the other hand, is primarily ship-based. Most people in the Navy won't see what the other three branches see. Although there is a chance that, depending on your job, you may be where the other three branches go, you are much more likely to end up on a ship out on the water.
There are pros and cons to each branch. Most of that depends on what kind of person you are. I can talk up the Navy all day, but you have to find which one is the best for you. Either way, all the benefits (medical, retirement, education, etc) are exactly the same. The pay is exactly the same. Certain specific jobs in different branches will have some incentive pays, but all branches have some jobs with incentive pay.
If you have any other specific questions, or if you want to verify something that a recruiter has told you, feel free to PM me. I no longer get any credit for someone joining the Navy, so I'm not going to try to talk you into that. I ended my time as a recruiter relatively recently, so my knowledge of what goes on is still pretty fresh.
