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[SD-Ness]

I've been thinking a lot lately on what I want to do with my life after college. I'm, unfortunately, going to be done with high school is less than two months. I've applied to colleges, been deferred, rejected, and accepted, but I still don't know where exactly I'm going yet. I do know that I will be going to college for the next four years. As of now, I'm interested in doing a double major in both English and Math (yeah, weird, eh?) Sometime after college, I want to go to law school. So right now, I'm six years ahead.

I've also been thinking of joining the ROTC program that is affiliated with one of the colleges I may go to. The thought came to me a few months ago, but I forgot about it. I, literally, just remembered it about an hour ago and don't know that much about ROTC, nor do I know if I'm really go to sign up.

Is anyone here apart of an ROTC program? Can you tell me about it? Thanks.

My motivation to do this comes from a couple of things. First, there's the honor. I find this sort of thing pretty noble and I would love for people to view me in this way. Second, there's the experience. My life has been pretty boring and easy, I'm not complaining, but I am capable of doing things in life, and I think this would give me a new perspective of the world. Thoughts?

 

[acoustix]

Take your time thinking it through and try to imagine yourself 4 years down the road in the military. Will you be happy? Where do you want to be when your 22-24?

If your looking for a way to pay for school it certainly is a lucrative option. However I know a couple guys who regret doing it because they feel trapped. That said I have the utmost respect for anyone in the program as entails alot of dicipline.

 

[whytemyke]

Dude... do NOT go through with ROTC. It's full of fucking pogues. Most enlisted people will tell you this, but I was in the program for two and a half years here at my university. It's a Peice of Garbage program. Everyone runs around treating it like a fucking game of grabass at some frat house-- guys fuck the chicks, chicks gossip about it, instructors aren't allowed to instruct in the way they should because they have to respect everyone as students. It's a joke.

Basically the idea behind ROTC is that if you take these classes for four years you'll be comissioned as an officer into your designated branch of the military upon your graduation. The problem with this is that ROTC is supposed to train you in how to interact with subordinates and superiors-- the crux of any military career-- and it fails to do so. Nevermind the training is piss poor (we've had some prior service guys who came outta Iraq as 11B's being bitched at by pushy college students because the move they pulled wasn't how the 'student' read it in their particular field manual. I've even seen fat little non-contracted students try to smoke people who've been through basic and AIT for not addressing them as an officer.)

My beef with the program is that it fails to train you. I won't say all of them do, but I'll just say that I haven't seen an ROTC program yet that adequately prepared their students for life after college leading platoon-sized groups of enlisted men, some of them having been in for over 15 years. We've been trained for infantry fighting using rubber ducks (shitty M16s they took and coated with rubber so they wouldnt work but would still be good for training purposes) in the field, using Night land navigation (NTLNDNAV) a couple times, but most of the time they teach the basics by having the cadets indoors in gymnasiums. I've had times where I was told to "Pretend theres a trench here, a tree here, and the bunker you're assaulting is over there... and pretend you have guns and grenades too. Make the motions even though we werent able to give you anything to train with." Shit like that used to make me soooo angry that I would almost want to vomit... that these people were training these kids to lead men into battle like this, because all it would do is wind up getting a lot of good soldiers killed because they had some dumbass second lieutenant enforce an order when his platoon sergeant told him not to.

That being said, it is possible to become a good officer from ROTC. The difference is that with ROTC, you're going to have to search for the means to become one. You'll have to regularly find the CSMs, majors, colonels and captains that they'll have training you if you want to improve. You'll have to do the physical fitness and training on your own, and you'll have to focus yourself on your own. I've seen some damn fine officers come out of ROTC, don't get me wrong, but the ratio of shitbag to good officer is not very good.

My advice? Get through college and stay in shape. Most branches, especially the Army and USMC, will set you up with a contract for OCS within your first year, simply because they're hurting sooooo badly for recruitment goals. So go through college normally but stay in contact with a recruiter. Then once you start your final semester of school, start the process of getting into the military (MEPS, ASVAB, physical, PT test, etc) so that you'll be ready to ship once you graduate. You'll have to tolerate OCS, which could be up to 6 months for some areas, but it beats the piss poor training and shit-ass career you'll be likely to have if you go with ROTC. At least at OCS you're all but certain to come out of it as an amazing officer.