I have the opportunity to apply for special forces based upon my asvab score and how well a I did on physical testing. My grandfather was a green beret and this would make my family very proud.On the other hand, I have rotorcraft engine maintenance on lock. This is an exciting prospect for an aircraft mechanic. Most factory maintenance schools wont allow you to attend unless you have x years experience on helicopters. Most helicopter maintenance can only be signed off by someone certified by the factory. This creates a liability between the person doing the work and the person claiming responsibility for the work. In other words its a huge deal to jump straight into helicopter maintenance.To be fair, Im not really given to caring what my family thinks. I joined the millitary for myself, to better myself, not anyone else. What I think I face here is the choice between something mental with better job prospects, and something almost totally physical and Im having trouble deciding because I like both options.

Did they take your experience in stacking boxes into consideration?

Helicopter maintenance will no doubt make you indispensable, inside the military and out, yes?

Ive held down the same job for six years. A job a skinny little pissant assburger like you could not do. Of which I spent the least amount of time stacking boxes at. I was a heavy equipment operator for the last 5 years.

Yet another facet of my work you do not possess the facilities to accomplish. Unless of course you consider how phallic the controls are. We all know you are a master of joystick play. Your palms most likely seeing more action than even the most steadfast of street corner whores.

Now pissant, go bother someone else with your virginity, aversion to the outdoors, and lack of social skills.

I do however understand you can only maintain this lifestyle by posting on a starwars forum and playing videogames all day. And I do forgive you for these small transgressions. Your inability to ever get laid assures you wont be entering the gene pool, and this is most likely punishment enough. Punishment we are all very sincerely greatful for.

Most assuredly a pro. It does however require an additional year of school, and Im rather burned out on full time school.

I hear you on that. Sucks that instead of hands on training, they stick you in a classroom. What good does that do, really?

Rob, I've genuinely missed you.

Ditto.

Sounds like you have already made your decision. Is it really an either/or thing? You can't get Green Beret training later?

Sounds like a little bit of scorn there.



You would.

Military. Medical benefits and stuff, yo.

He's getting up there in the birhtdays, Tris.

Rob: do it, man. You know how badass you will look with a green beret and jump boots? Of course you'd have to do airborne school, but I think that's a requirement for SF anyway.

Oh and like genk said, you really can't beat the medical coverage. Just hope that you don't need it for the most obvious reason.

Also, I didn't know you were in the Army. You know you've gotta be an NCO before you can go to SF training, right?

And I see here you have to do S.C.U.B.A. training. **** that. Like really.... really really **** that.

Green berets all the way. That's something I wanted to do except my girlfriend is really uncomfortable about it.

im assuming with your grandfather being one and all you know exactly how intense it is. I would say train for a year ir two straight before you decide to join up. ESPECIALLY if you do the 18 x-ray program, since that has the highest wash out rate. That would be such a badass opportunity and I can say I'm a bit jealous.

Engine maintenance sounds more stable, less stressful, and your chances of dieing are slimmer. But on the other hand not as exciting and may not look as good on your resume as a Green Beret.

but it would look better on his resume if he is looking for a job in aircraft maintenance or manufacturing

Yeah I guess good is the wrong word I should say impressive.

Well, damn. Either option sounds pretty awesome. Maybe rotoscootermobile Engine maintenance if that's what you arelooking at making a career in.

You said pissant twice.

Do the helicopter thing. You can always reclass down the line if you still wanna.

Their schooling most likely has hands in portions. Its probably all on mockups where you can see all the parts of a system.

Green berets get all the *****es

You know how much it would suck to change your MOS? You'd end up getting stuck in some bull**** E-1 billet.

Speaking of stacking boxes, you wouldn't happen to know a guy at UPS named Jason Lloyd, would you? Red hair, beard, really into monster trucks?

I like the outdoors thank you very much sir.

Only go the Special Forces route if you are willing to make that your lifestyle. It's not like the big army, it's a bigger commitment to be a triple volunteer (Army, Airborne, SF) than it is to just schlump around in the Army or Marines. Of course, you could make it all the way through A&S and still not get selected, sending you back to whatever airborne unit you came from/they want you in.

Special Forces is very very mental. If you don't have the right psychology they aren't going to take you no matter how bad you want it.

On the flip side, you don't need to be a psycho to work on helicopters and the chances of getting high velocity lead poisoning are much lower.

Don't forget about the fact that if you join the right unit they delete you from existence.

Actually, no.

But you won't get out much.

Spook, I'm talking about Delta actually... which isn't really SF... but you know what I mean. You join Delta and suddenly you don't exist anymore.

that sounds... dramatic

If you are good enough at your job to make it to Delta you probably barely existed in the real world anyway. It's a self filtering system!

I'm sorry I forgot it wasn't allowed to like other people on the internet.

Yeah you're right about that.

I have to lean towards continuing on helicopter maintenance. A valuable skill such as that should land you lots of opportunities outside the Army should you wish to one day leave the Army.

If you applied for the Green Berets but didn't make the cut for whatever reason, you can still go back to helicopter maintenance track right? Good technical knowledge should never be forgotten, but if you have a legitimate chance to get in, that shouldn't be wasted either.

Actually, as long as you pass the basic eligibility requirements (US citizenship, age, HS Dpl, some tests), you can get into SFAS through the 18X program without prior military experience. That's what I remember reading a while back anyway when I was actually considering it.

Right. It's not like you have any rank as an SF candidate anyway, and you will be a sergeant regardless by the time you get to a team.

I thought you had to be selected for SF... I didn't know it's volunteer these days.

Not really, they have their own little recruiters running around these days. If you meet the requirements you can go. Almost nobody ever makes it, but curiously, I don't think I've ever met anyone who quit, they all get hurt or asked to leave.

I did meet one honest sailor who told me how he left buds.

"I rang that ****ing bell man, **** that ****"

You know, I worked with a guy that went in for SF and ended up showing back up at work one day to visit with a trashed arm. He's now on permanent disability. He wouldn't say what happened.

I am actually not sure if I can go back to rotorcraft engine maintenance after trying for special forces. I have while to,decide, the earliest I can leave is october.

Oh yeah I'm sure you just loved playing crysis.Or perhaps in your case cry sissy.