Even with the military's "generous" sign-on bonus, when you crunch the numbers you make less than the average wagie. On the bright side, you don't have to pay rent for your rat-and-mold-infested barrack.
Generally you are getting paid less for a bunch of "step ups" when you get out, like GI Bill and a bunch of skills/discipline you learned. And it used to be that society respected you so highly it was a huge benefit.
The problem is that the negatives you walk out of it with usually cancel all of that out and often cost you even more. Even outside of the wartime scars one can get, even in relative "peace" way too many guys walk out with high ass disability counts and a VA that is barely worth even engaging with to deal with them.
So you basically sign up to hope you survive unscathed enough to get free college and some home loans and that's about it. Its all you can guarantee of value.
That's before you even talk about the political angles.
I mean I could easily say how they COULD get more people interested in joining...but:
I ain't doing it for free
I ain't recommending ANYONE join the military so long as Dems in charge and Trump hasn't purged them of the degenerate traitors.
Even with the military's "generous" sign-on bonus, when you crunch the numbers you make less than the average wagie. On the bright side, you don't have to pay rent for your rat-and-mold-infested barrack.
Generally you are getting paid less for a bunch of "step ups" when you get out, like GI Bill and a bunch of skills/discipline you learned. And it used to be that society respected you so highly it was a huge benefit.
The problem is that the negatives you walk out of it with usually cancel all of that out and often cost you even more. Even outside of the wartime scars one can get, even in relative "peace" way too many guys walk out with high ass disability counts and a VA that is barely worth even engaging with to deal with them.
So you basically sign up to hope you survive unscathed enough to get free college and some home loans and that's about it. Its all you can guarantee of value.
That's before you even talk about the political angles.
I'd say that he VA can eat the peanuts out of my shit, and they'd still find a way to fuck it up.