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Comment by willurd | Hacker News Reader

I almost joined the navy right out of high school. I went through much of the recruiting process, but ultimately decided against it. For me, that was one of the best decisions of my life. For you, you should consider it, but give a lot of thought to it before you even start the recruiting process. Military recruiters will lie to you and your family (maybe not all of them, but it happened to me) to make sure you join and if you don't have a lot of determination to exit the recruiting process, you will likely get sucked in even if you change your mind.

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My first chief, who is a great inspiration in my life, was once a recruiter. I asked him how he felt about recruiting, and if he had to lie to get people to join. His response was this:

"I never had to lie to anyone about joining the military. The secret is that no one walks into my office if everything is going right in their life. I just find what that problem is, and figure out how the military can solve it."

Recruiters can't effectively tell you lies if you know everything you need to know. In my case, my father had been a sonar tech and had told me what to expect like what I posted up there -- I already knew what I was getting into when I walked into that office. Don't go to a recruiter (and potentially waste their time) if you haven't done the due diligence to research a very life-changing decision.

Yes, I absolutely agree with this. Too many people rush into life-changing decisions like this. It's also nice to hear another perspective on recruiters. Mine really did lie to my parents, however. We met with my parents, he told them one thing, then we left to go back to the recruiting office and he said "what I told your parents wasn't true, I just didn't think they would say yes otherwise".

It's a common thing when you're in the military to toss around disparaging comments about the person that recruited you. Personally, everything my recruiter had said was true:

"When they ask you if you want to be a Nuc, say no." -- he could have got a lot of good will at his recruiting office if I chose to be a nuclear tech, but he was absolutely right in telling me this. They never came to ask me, because I had never taken algebra in high school.

"If you have a choice between an east coast and west coast ship, choose west coast." -- Absolutely agree with this. West coast is a much more relaxed attitude compared to east coast, unless you're forward deployed.

"In bootcamp, get the yeoman job." -- I listened to him and was able to get the division yeoman job. This allowed me to travel around base by myself -- something you'd appreciate if you've been through the bootcamp experience. It also led to me getting a meritorious promotion (only 2 or so recruits per division of like 30-50 got this), and getting promoted earlier decreases the amount of time required for you to advance to the next rank.

"Run a lot before you go to bootcamp". Ironically, he was a very slow runner, but I took his advice and worked out nearly daily for the two months before I left. At the time, in order to pass the run test and graduate from bootcamp you were required to run 1.5 miles in 12:15, which would have been nigh impossible for me had I not practiced a bunch beforehand. I eventually got it down to 10:25 in bootcamp, which is a decently admirable run time. Women get approx. an extra minute longer.

I could see how that's the case. If you're referring to what I said, you'll note that I said nothing about my own recruiter other than that he lied to my parents to increase the chances of them agreeing to let me go, because I was a minor. Which he admitted to doing.

Some recruiters will tell you flat-out lies. I had three (two from one branch, one from another) try to convince me that breaking my arm twice as a youth wasn't worth telling the processors. The pair that tag-teamed me were conveniently ignoring the framed statement in their very office that said that lying about anything during your recruitment process was a violation of the UCMJ.

I really hope those three guys were in the minority, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

It's very important that everything medical before and during your career is documented. First off, a lot of the physical and mental stress down the road can exacerbate previous conditions and lead to more major problems. Secondly, everything that occurs and is documented in your military health record can be treated for free by any VA medical facility for the rest of your life, even if you don't have health insurance.

That being said, certain common diagnoses will preclude you from entering service: ADD/ADHD, bi-polar disorder, bad knees, fibromyalgia, among other things. Obesity is kind of a no-brainer thing -- there's a maximum body fat percentage and height/weight ratio.

If it's in your health record right now, then it should definitely be declared, in my opinion. You'd only be doing yourself a disservice later on by not doing so.

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