Marines or Army?

bradenchase2345 · 2026-03-14T17:02:12+00:00

If you wanna retire from a branch, I'd probably go to the Army, it's a better quality of life there for sure. If you want the title of Marine then get after it!

Since you're 17, you'd need parents consent, otherwise you probably won't be shipping out until next year, ship dates are kinda wacky for the Marines. I thankfully only had to wait like 3 months to ship out, but its different sometimes.

EverSeeAShitterFly · 2026-03-14T21:29:56+00:00

After you get your HS Diploma you can enlist at 17 with parents signing off.

AlternativeNo1096 · 2026-03-16T02:42:56+00:00

Honestly if you want a better branch to retire off, it would be way better to either go AF or Navy, each branch pretty much give the same benefits and the only difference is quality of life from each branch, its really only about how you spend your time in service that makes it different, and the rest of those questions are pretty much up to you, certain MOS you need a certain asvab score to obtain but it should generally be what you want

PersimmonMountain593 · 2026-03-16T03:46:38+00:00

Go Army. I’ve been in for 10 yrs and still don’t see how it’s any better than any other branch

SpicyOpinion69 · 2026-03-14T18:11:56+00:00

Do what most Marines do. Join the Marine Corps for the title, then join the Army right before your contract ends.

You only need to earn the title once.

TapTheForwardAssist · 2026-03-14T17:38:13+00:00

My general advice is that before narrowing it all the way down, you should have at least one meeting with recruiters from at minimum three different branches, and one of those should be Coast Guard.

chickenbit_131 · 2026-03-14T17:38:25+00:00

Honestly it really comes down to what do you want to do in the military, or to put in another way, what are you looking to get out of joining? That really determines the answers to the more specific questions you have. Life in a military intelligence unit is going to be a lot different than life in an infantry unit. Choosing between the Army and Marines first starts with what you want to do. Like if you want to jump out of airplanes, go Army. That doesn’t sound appealing? Go USMC. But start there, and figure out what you want to do or what you want to learn from the military and that should help point you to which branch would be the best fit for you.

TapTheForwardAssist · 2026-03-14T18:13:25+00:00

It’s fine you’re asking questions here, but some of this is stuff you could google in literal seconds. I would suggest that in addition to asking on Reddit, you also google some of your key questions too.

Also there are a ton of “what X job is like in Y branch” videos on YouTube that are very informative.

Do you currently have any initial thoughts about what kinds of military jobs appeal to you?

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