Throughout high school I only had one goal: to be a F111 pilot. I’m not sure when I got the idea, but I do know it was a central theme of everything I did there.
I joined the Air Cadets at age 13 (practically as soon as I could) – and by about 14 I was a Cadet Corporal (it was at this time that I needed a nickname for Quake 2 and Team Fortress. I wasn’t good at them – thus Cpl Crud).
I drank a bit (in later years) but never did drugs. I didn’t bother with girlfriends. Almost all of my extra-curricular activities were centered around getting more bits of paper so that I would have the most impressive entrance ranking. I was singularly focused on applying for the Air Force. By year 12 I was so confident in myself that I didn’t even bother applying for any scholarships.
The recruiting board agreed with me, and apart from one minor detail, I was accepted into the “real” Air Force academy as an Air Defence Trainee (not the pilot that I had hoped for).
Still, this didn’t bother me. I was more than happy to be serving my country and to be out of the tiny village that I grew up in. It seemed that the only ways to get away from my hometown were to get an apprenticeship, get married, or join the military.
You hear a lot of things about military service, like “When you step onto the parade ground for your graduation, you’re ten foot tall and bulletproof.” Even in countries that are less militaristic than the US, you will still have some kind of reverence for the “troops”. Even in Japan, the government still makes regular visits to the military memorials here – not to promote their actions in the 20th century, but to remember fallen soldiers.
All in all, the military seems pretty great on the outside. It’s a huge family – a band of brothers – that has no prejudice (unless you’re a woman, gay, coloured, or else wise different). It gives you a higher purpose – defending your friends and hometown from invaders. It connects you to thousands who have gone before you, and give you the chance to be remembered forever. Only the best are accepted, so you can’t imagine that anyone in the services can be of bad character.
All up: it give you a sense of purpose.
I’ve had meetings with people who have been successful in their lives and yet still feel empty. Their main reason is that their life lacked purpose. Who cares if you sold the most computers to businesses? Did you really help anyone?
I even feel this myself. My “career” as an author can’t even pay for the expenses that I incur doing it. My “real” career as a technology executive is what feeds my family and I. And yet, I’ve had hundreds of people thank me for working on KS. I can’t remember a single time someone told me that their new, expensive intercom system stopped them from hurting themselves.
Having a sense of purpose in your life is critical. Without it you can find yourself wandering around life wondering what the point of it all is. However, this process takes a long time and a lot of soul searching. Sometimes you don’t find your purpose until much later in life.
Thus, the military can seem like a nice, pre-packaged version of a life’s purpose. But, like most pre-packaged goods, it’s not as good as the home-made version.
I spent three years in the Air Force; all of them in training. Whilst I passed my academic studies and got great marks on my leadership tests, I also didn’t fit the culture. There are many reasons for my separation from the services, but the main one is that I didn’t have my heart in it anymore. I remember thinking to myself “If these people are the ones that make up the Officer Class, then I don’t want to be a part of it.” I think that my superiors thought the same thing.
In the end, the military is still “just a job”. By that, I mean that you have the same office politics, the same “promoted to your level of incompetency” effects, and weighting on tenure rather than ability when it comes to seniority that you’ll get in any other large organisation. Except, in the military, the incentives are skewed such that if you want to make more money, you’ll marry young, have kids, and go to war.
Chances are you’re not going to be the Rambo that will save the day single-handed. The glory and valor aren’t there.
Some people, of course, will find their calling in the services. And that’s great. But for the majority of people, it’s not going to fill that hole in your heart. That job takes longer, and it takes a lot more introspection beyond “Man, I really love guns/planes/ships”. If I could go back and tell 13-year-old me this, I think I might have had a different trajectory in life. Then again, I probably wouldn’t have listened, because fast jets are fucking cool.
Cpl Crud's Writings 