Originally Posted by Freebase Dali

Thanks for the honest answer, as much as you could answer anyway.

Personally, I joined because my life was sh*t and I had enough foresight to know that if I didn't do something about it, it'd be sh*t forever. The best option for me at the time was the military. I could learn a trade free of charge and also kick a lot of the habits that were bringing me down, but also just have a "jolt" to change myself. It was a good jolt.

But believe me, there were multiple times where I wanted to get out. I remember thinking about ways to do so while deployed in Kuwait for my first stint in the middle east... I'd left my weapon under my bed because I was told to go on a detail in another camp (Doha) and was being rushed, and I didn't have time to sign my weapon in the arms room if I wanted to catch the bus. A "welfare inspection" was done and my weapon was found unsecured, and I got a field grade for it. Spent about a month picking up trash and digging ditches in the hot Kuwaiti weather of about 120 degrees farenheit, every day, for hours.

This other time, I had a huge douche of an E-6 that was in charge at the TCF and he was bitching me out about my uniform not being ironed. This is in the middle of deployment, mind you. Well I had enough. Snapped. Yelled, "F*CK YOU" right in front of everyone, including the platoon leader, turned around and thrust a middle finger in the air as I walked out.
Of course, the moment I stepped outside, I realized how f*cked I was.

Fortunately for me, the E-6 was pretty dumb. Instead of writing me up, he made me do a power point presentation about the chain of command. Me, having at least moderate skill at the English language, blew him away. He'd been planning on making me bring a freshly ironed uniform to him every two hours, but dropped that punishment when I was done with the presentation. Weird. I got bonus for being literate.

Throughout my service, I've had little issues like that. And to be honest, those are the hardest to deal with in the military, in my opinion. It's dealing with people that have this "authority" over you but don't really have the character and qualification to be effective with it. It's very difficult to manage internally.
And I say all this to say, that over my enlistment, I learned the most important thing I've ever learned... Just suck it up and drive on. Keep the personal feelings out of it, and just do the job. After all, you're there (or anywhere) for yourself, and you want to make it as painless as possible.

I don't mean to say just bend over. Well, in the military that's pretty much all you can do. But out in the real world, pick your battles. And if you're gonna make waves, make the ones that benefit you, not the ones that bring you down based on an inability to control your ego. A job is a job, but your life is the only one you got, so don't make it harder to live in.

Anyway, I don't know why I wrote all that.
But I did.
Whatever.