In Defense of "Life, the Universe and Everything"

My pretentious title strikes again! This time even more bombastic than before.

Froggie89's mother linked to my post about my experience with the Marines. She invited comments and the results went something like this:

"I just don't buy it. His experience seems to me to have been embellished."

"His 99 ASVAB is also HIGHLY doubtful... My genius-IQ Naval Academy brothers with the best classical homeschool education scored 92 and 96."

"I agree with the other commenters; this young man's experience does appear to be embellished or exagerated."

"As for whether he's lying or not I don't know."

"I'm sorry to say that I just can't believe this young gentleman's experience was entirely truthful."

...etc.

I've thought about it a bit and I'm unsure how to respond. I didn't take a recording device so I can't prove anything. It seems odd to have people I don't know questioning my honesty. I guess I can rule out being a con man from my potential job opportunities. I can't even tell my own experiences convincingly.

First, I want to make it very clear that I am NOT anti-military and that I have an enormous amount of respect for the men and women serving in our armed services. I think I would like to serve but I am very concerned that it would interfere with my plans for starting a family. I have no desire to make the military a career. I just want to serve my country before moving on with my life. I'll confess I'm a little confused on the whole issue.

There were several factual issues brought up that I can address pretty easily. I'll address them in order of their appearance.


"His 99 ASVAB is also HIGHLY doubtful... My genius-IQ Naval Academy brothers with the best classical homeschool education scored 92 and 96."

I was a bit surprised myself. However, I did have an excellent homeschooled education. Possibly not "the best", but I wouldn't have traded my mother's instruction for any other. Our state requires homeschoolers to undergo standardized testing every year. I was in the 99.9+ percentile every year. I started testing post-highschool in every subject starting when I was 10 years old. For comparisons sake, I received a 1460 on the SAT(old style) and an Associate in Business with Honors and a 3.85 GPA. I don't mean to brag but I want to defend my academic reputation.

"The Marine Reserves by law can only be deployed for up to two years for any one operation. Which means Bush will need to change the name of the operation if he wants to keep the reservists there. Nobody is there for the eight years he's writing about."

From my understanding the Reserves are usually called up for one year. I really haven't looked into the Reserves much because if I were to join up I would choose the regular Army. However, the eight years I referred to was the time that I would be on the hook to be called up. All four branches require an eight year commitment. If you are in the Reserve you are eligible to be called up as many times as you are needed during that time. Lt. Gen. Dennis McCarthy, commander of the Marine Reserves, referring to units that have been called up to serve in Iraq says, "I would like to be able to go back to these units in a couple of years, if I need to do so, and redeploy them." (Read in context here.)

"I see this fellow is from Seattle...I wonder which recruiters he met with. I may have to ask around. It'd be fun to do a point/counterpoint on this one."

I'm have no desire to talk about a guy who can't defend himself on my blog for the world to read but I'd be happy to answer your questions via email. You can find my email address on the sidebar.

"Specifically addressing his comments about Reservists not being eligible for jobs with a multitude of employers: that, I believe, is bunk and pure propaganda... In my opinion, only an individual grasping at straws as reasons for NOT joining the Reserves would even worry about such an issue."

I found a couple of articles that talked about this online but the thing that really makes me question how easy getting a job as a reservist would be is the commentary offered by a local, conservative talk-show host. Brian Suitts is a 2nd. Lt. with the Army Guard. Recently, he talked about the difficulty his men were having finding jobs. He had lots of callers who were in the Reserves calling up and telling how employers were passing them over when they realized the applicants' military status. If you think about it, it makes sense. If I were a small business owner, without a special loyalty to the military, I would be very hesitant to hire and train someone who would likely be taken away from the job for a year or more. This might be a mere straw to Mr./Ms. MelM but it matters a lot to me. As previously mentioned, even in today's military a reservist is likely to spend less than half his time on active duty, how am I supposed to support a family without a job?

Finally, to address the whole lying recruiters problem, I would advise those interested to check out Military.com's discussion board. Browse the entries a bit and you'll find that recruiters lie and encourage others to lie on a regular basis. I'm not saying that all or even most do but there certainly are some and I stumbled on one*.


Sorry about the long, boring and self-righteous post but it really bugs me to have people who don't know me or what I believe saying that kind of thing about me.

*Only one of the three recruiters I spoke to on Monday gave me the "Marines don't deploy their Reserves" line. He was the boss though and the other two didn't contradict him. I didn't say anything at the time because he made it sound semi-plausible and I wanted to check my facts.