joined army am i stuck?

[jmiester96]

Hey guys I went to army MEPS and signed up for the reserve. My recruiter told me that no matter waht, If i decided to get out of it before the date that I had to leave. That I could. Do you guys think he was telling the truth? I dont plan on getting out of it, but if something happens, I want to know if I can or not.

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[HITMAN]

Have you been sworn in?

[bigsamdog]

u swear in twice once in MEPS when u first do ur contract,then again rught b4 u ship out.if u havent done it the 2nd time i think u can postpone(sp) ur ship out date

[Black03civic]

back in 99 i joined the army reserves, i went to meps and was sweared in once when i did sign my contract, i decided to finish college and not go into the reserves, i wrote a letter to my recruiter and said i was geting my BA. I then got a bunch of discharge papers and i signed them and i was done and went and got my BA. If you have a change of heart, its not too late. Unless things have changed since then. Good luck

[jmiester96]

alright thanks guys. my recruiter told me that we had to swear in again and that if we wanted to we could get out before our date. Anyway im thinkin of going and checking in with the marines reserve. the army reserve where i live only had about 5 jobs to offer us. one was cook, one was truck driver, one was construction worker, and i dont remember the rest. but i did very good on my asvab so i dont wan to take a crap job like that.

[silverdevil]

Dude, the Army is HURTING for people. Don't let them give you any crap. Tell them you want the job you picked or you're not going anywhere (you can even tell them you spoke to the Marine recruiter and he offered you the job you wanted). You don't have to go if you don't want to go (up until you swear in at MEPS the second time and you have orders).

Trust me, I'm in the AF right now and I've seen it done quite a bit (mostly by people who were going to join the Army or Marines and ended up switching to the AF).

[jmiester96]

awesome thanks man. so what do i do, just dont show up to meps on my ship date? Let me tell you the story.

Me and my buddy were at MEPS. We found a job we wanted and the "councelor" told us we were going to leave next week for boot camp. I was like hold up, thats way to soon. I wasn't expecting something like that, nor was i ready to go that earlly. Nevertheless, they got so pissed off at us. We ended up going outside with our recruiter and just talking for a little bit.

Well some smart ass 1st SGT comes out side talking all this shit to us. Hes like man you guys are ****ing idiots if you take this job. Hes like you got the EXACT job you wanted. you have to work with us on the date you leave. all lthis shit calling us idiots and shit. I was pissed as hell.

I dont know why but they made a huge deal out of this. The devision commander ended up callilng my recruiter and wanted to tlak to us. So im on the phone with him and hes like you need to seize the opportunity now. I ended up explaining why i didn't want to leave on a weeks notice to about 7 people.

Well when im about to get off the phone with him, hes like well we'll see you in a few months when you come back and decide to be a cook.

I was so ****ing pissed. Anyway they got the date pushed back and we signed up ONLY BECAUSE our recruiter said just sign up now, and when the time comes if you dont want to go you dont have to. he said you can always back out. thats why i was asking everyone on here to make sure he wasn't bs'n me.

But thas another reason i want to get away from the army. Thats ****ing bull shit.

[silverdevil]

Dude, if they're treating you like that BEFORE you're actually in, just imagine how they'll treat you once you do become a soldier.

Honestly, I don't like the Army because of the way they treat people. I much prefer the Air Force but we're overmaned and they're actually kicking people out. They're offering something like $30K to sign up for their Blue-to-Green campaign (basically, go from the AF to the Army). They're not having much luck. Once you get used to the pampered AF life you never want to go play soldier again.

I'm not saying the AF is Disneyland, but it's much, much easier and they treat you much, much better than any other service except maybe the Coast Guard.

Give me some details man. Answer the following questions for me:

Age -
College Credit or degree -
Marital Status -

I'm only asking because, if you can come in as an officer, you can do much better than being enlisted. I've been enlisted for the last 9 years so I know what I'm talking about. I've decided to leave the Air Force, tho, because I think they've become too much like the Army in many respects. It's not the same AF I signed up for and I'd rather go now than be faced with a situation where I've been in 12-13 years and only have 7 more to go before I get a retirement check but I'm stuck doing something I no longer enjoy.

I had the choice to become an officer but I had to commit 4 years after graduating OCS and I did not want to do that. I took my AFOQT (Air Force Officer Qualification Test) and scored in the 98 percentile. They were all over my jock about becoming a pilot (that's where I scored the highest) but I'm not about to go spend a week in winter doing Survival and POW School (my old roommate went through it and it's no fun). If I were to become an officer I'd stay in the communications field but they're cutting over 8000 Comms Officer slots so I had no chance to do that. I thought about changing over to the Coast Guard but I think I'm just going to stay here and get a regular job.

As for your situation, I'd suggest you call the recruiter and tell him you've had a change of heart. DO NOT just not show up at MEPS on your ship date. For one, it's not nice and I don't know the consequences of that action. Just get them to cancel your paperwork and STAND FIRM against them, don't give them an inch. Just tell them you're not going and threaten to not show up on your shipping date unless you get the job you want. Tell them you're flexible on the date so long as it's not in the next 3 months or whatever and you're willing to wait it out if they don't want to give you the job; or, that you'll just go be a Marine or a Coastie.

[jmiester96]

im 19 no college credits and im not married.

im definetly hating the way i was treated and thats why im trying to get out of the contract.

im definetly going to be getting into a different branch.

[jmiester96]

talked to a friend in the air national guard. we're meetin up with a recruiter next week. hopefully we can get into the security forces job. thanks guys.

[TransformedBG]

If you flake out of the contract you can be considered a DEP loss, and it can bar you from joining for a little bit last i checked. But the army wasnt all that bad for me. I did comunications, CAKE job. my day was like this:

0630 PT *i had a permanent profile so i didnt do it ever lol* (Went back to my room and slept*its called shammin*)
0900 Work call
0930-1100 work, if there was nothing to do, go to my room and sleep lol
1100-1300 Lunch
1300-1600 work or sleep depending on what was going on. lol

Tell me that life sucked! I dare you. OH how i miss it and wish i wasnt such a gimp. But i got out as an e-5/sgt made some money. Wasnt to bad. But if you going in as like an 11B aka infantry.. Sucks to be you.. and i just wouldnt ever go back or pick up the phone from the recruter again lol.

[jmiester96]

well i was going reserve. and the job was 96B, military intelligence.

[TransformedBG]

Dued that aint a bad job at all. and the reserves.. cake.

[jmiester96]

what does the job consist of?

[RedBull]

Man.... i've been pm'ing you tons of advice for awhile now.... and yeah 96B ain't bad of a job. Did you ask about the college money bonus? It's seriously better in the long run than taking the cash. And no they can't amke you leave until you swear in the second time... and i'm pretty sure that you also sign acouple more forms then too.

96B is considered a 'star MOS' right now i believe... which means they are trying to 'push' people into it... cause most people that are in already are getting out to find civilian jobs because they have experience now. Man... that shit is a cake job..... way better than say '13B: cannon crew member'.

Dont' take cook, and driver job (not sure if it's still 88M or not), MP, NBC... or EOD! Stay away from them... even if the bonus looks big... not worth it imo. You probably will have fun in those jobs... but it'll get old really quick.

And your going Reserves.... i'm in the guard now... and i don't do shit! Way better than Active in that sense... but alot more boring.... too boring. Plus everyone looks at me funny cause i have Active Army standards beaten into me.... my lat drill i had like 12 people ask if they could pay me to shine their boots!

You'll be fine.... your getting cold feet over nothing.

Originally Posted by jmiester96

what does the job consist of?

Crazy brain washing techniques! And 007 stuff, Tom Cuise- MI:3 stuff... i don't know.... but i do know they don't really do anything that hard... i talked to a few during my 7+yrs... from what i know it all depends on the unit and where they need you. Some do communications stuff all day, others do stuff like reconing intell work, etc...

It's really a cake job like TransformedBG said.... i'm 25B now and it's way better than 13P. Although my Artillery buddies make fun of me now cause i'm in the Signal Corps now.