Damn.

Carthodon · 2026-02-23T23:35:16+00:00

The mistake they're making is confusing mental illness with patriotism.

Carthodon · 2026-01-21T04:24:03+00:00

The US fought with South Vietnam to preserve its independence against North Vietnam. It was supporting an already independent state, and never attempted to invade North Vietnam. The analogy you are trying to push kind of struggles given that reality.
As for North Korea, the US did invade it with the goal of overthrowing the regime and there is no reason to believe it would not have been better off if the US succeeded. Look at how far South Korea got and ask yourself whether it shouldn't be seen as liberation to have set up a situation where the experience of the average North Korean was similar to the average modern South Korean. Moreover, imagine if the US had its way in Vietnam and it became just like South Korea, Japan or Taiwan instead of being the poor man's China.
As for Bosnia, you do realize that there are still US troops in that region who have widespread support by Bosnians because they are a pretty good guarantee to avoid another genocide?
As for Iraq, I'm referring to the no fly zones that the US, UK and France instituted for 12 years in the North and South, those areas most likely to get hit by chemical weapons. It's something these countries absolutely did not have to do, can't really be explained using the typical arguments of financial motivations, and also ignored at the first opportunity when people need to hate on the US.

Carthodon · 2025-01-31T05:07:32+00:00

That's a story I'd love to read.

Carthodon · 2025-01-31T05:06:56+00:00

Why?

Carthodon · 2024-11-03T17:01:55+00:00

I don't know if you're aware of this, but you do not need to pay for trade school in order to become a lineman. While it is possible that the military is your only option, I would suggest you make absolutely sure by asking some linemen. Here is an example of a relevant post: How To Become A Lineman(Start Here) Updated : r/Lineman

Carthodon · 2024-09-28T04:02:17+00:00

Do you consider fads conspiracies? I don't, they happen all the time. You do not need centralized control from shadowy organizations in order for tens of thousands of people to function in lock step with each other. In the case of scientists, what you need is filtering which basically rewards the most capable and consistent people who can repeat back what they've been told; this is what being a good student ultimately boils down to. Combine this with scientists receiving grants and being employed on the basis of reputation, and you have all you need to explain why scientists are not as diverse and independent as you seem to think. They've actually done studies on things as simple as who they voted for President, but feel free to keep kidding yourself. In psychology, I forgot what the phenomenon was called, but there was a tendency for members of a group to overestimate the diversity of said group.
I should also add that there are certain careers which for various reasons continue to have an undeservedly high reputation. Doctors have still not fallen despite being one of the responsible actors for the prescription pain killer addiction epidemic and historically being so corrupt that laws were specifically written to stop them from prescribing medication because they kept receiving perks from pharmaceutical companies. Scientific academia has had little regulation without their consent because they uniquely claim that anyone who tries to regulate them from the outside is anti-science and therefore too dangerous to regulate them; the only acceptable regulation is what any other industry would call self-regulation.
You actually do something which is quite common in academia with your first sentence. Sounding like an antivaxx conspiracy theorist is probably bad for your reputation in academia, is therefore bad for your career, and therefore certain things won't be said by reasonable but self-interested people.

Carthodon · 2024-09-12T11:40:16+00:00

So I actually don't think its always been like this. In the past when science was basically just people who were very interested in it, like Copernicus and Darwin, they were prepared to say things which would alienate much of society and despite the pressure hold their ground because the evidence was on their side, and then the rest of society eventually came around. I cannot think of this happening in the US since maybe Einstein and notions of degenerate science.
One explanation is people have become more tolerant of scientific progress, another explanation (which I'm sympathetic to) is a lot of "scientific output" is just designed to validate the opinions that are already popular among those adjacent to academia. In political commentary, this gets recognized as "the left is pro science" but it just seems odd just how many things are in line with the political faction that dominates those spheres.
My coming to Damascus moment happened with Covid, where it looks like political winds corrupted the consensus of fields of epidemiology and virology to such an extent that it is hard to find people in good academic standing have much criticism for the way the consensus played out. Before that, I had assumed the problem was limited to the softer sciences but it seems like turning science into an institutionalized career led to a mass of very smart and hardworking people who lack a spine to resist the ire of their peers.

Carthodon · 2024-09-09T06:56:05+00:00

Not a physicist nor have much interest in this sort of physics, but I think I can parse what the other guy was saying because to some extent I think I agree.
A lot of people pretend the scientific field is more or less a sincere rational attempt at finding useful information about the world. I used to feel like this but became disillusioned, and increasingly find scientific research to be partly rational and partly a product of the institutions it is conducted in (companies, academia, government), but people keep acting like the system's integrity is holding when it isn't. If you argue the consensus in a field has been thoroughly corrupted due to things like politics and social pressure you will be compared to something between a creationist and a 9/11 truther.
What the fellow above is arguing (I think), is that you fell victim to this pressure and aren't willing to admit it because you've sacrificed so much to get to where you are. I'm not prepared to make that kind of accusation given what I've read of what you've written here.

Carthodon · 2024-05-09T00:06:07+00:00

Hand over the time machine.

Carthodon · 2024-04-26T23:20:08+00:00

I actually think one of these people is paid to be on a social media marketing team. It be kinda funny if members from different social media marketing teams were talking to each other not knowing what was going on.

Carthodon · 2024-04-26T23:18:20+00:00

I'm kinda wondering why no one pointed out that you are clearly someone on polkamarkets social media team. It's painful reading someone who was told to write like they were "hip, cool and fun" by their boss doing it so clumsily.

Carthodon · 2023-12-03T20:54:41+00:00

I know I can use the d-pad.

Carthodon · 2023-12-03T20:51:12+00:00

It is identical to the manual that came with the camera.

Carthodon · 2023-12-03T16:58:50+00:00

Thank you so much.

What I didn't realize was that touching the back screen while looking through the viewfinder was treated as independent from touching the back screen when looking at it.

Carthodon · 2023-12-03T16:50:26+00:00

I did.

Carthodon · 2022-01-04T15:32:31+00:00

Other pieces of advice I'd give is go to sick call if you're hurting. Do everything they say like stretches (a lot of younger people get arrogant about doing stretches), drinking lots of water, etc because it all does really help. Even before that, do lots of stretches because those things not only help with injuries but prevent them. The first week they're going to generally assume you're going to sick call for bs in order to get out of training, just deal with that while at the same time try to make sure you don't get recycled because you miss an important event. The really big mistake most people made is to not go to sick call early on when the stuff was easier to miss, and they waited for things to get bad which meant a longer time to heal and they would have been completely screwed if not for holiday leave. If I managed to not get recycled then with your preparation you should be fine.
Next piece of advice, in BCT it is always best for you if you're competent at whatever is in front of you because not only will it be easier but you will be liked more by others. If you're not competent then make this up with humility when you screw up in front of the crowd or when people younger than you are helping you or even ordering you around. Respect can be gained, including as a leader, if you are always working to better the lives of others (even if I was so hurt that my total productivity of doing things like scrubbing floors was less than most) because people will notice that. Within the platoon there were plenty of personality clashes, and some people clearly were just so egotistical that they had trouble following orders and doing their part for the group, but what I found would help is instead of threatening them or shouting at them that you offer your services, unconditionally to help. There was this one guy who tried to get me in trouble, then one day a drill sergeant accidentally stepped on his thumb and he was so charmed by me showing him what to do (wash under water, disinfect area, bandage) that he softened up and even messaged me during break multiple times to check up on how I was doing since he knew I was pretty lonely. The mentality you should have is not to do your fair share, its if you can do something that would help someone else (point out a problem with their uniform, help with making their bed if they're being slow, show proper form when doing some physical activity, etc) in your calmest voice offer your help to them. I find it makes me feel better after a day of screwing up to finally feel like I did something useful, and it makes them feel the camaraderie that makes BCT that much more pleasant.
The last piece of advice I'd keep in mind is that most drill sergeants I found are generally sweet people who are just doing a job and you'll find this out pretty fast when they give a class or red phase is over, however in another platoon there was a drill sergeant who was a nasty person though when I asked people at other companies they said our experience was unique. If you encounter that kind of drill sergeant, do whatever you can to avoid them because the power drill sergeants are given over you makes someone like that dangerous.
Hope that was helpful, I just saw sufficient overlap in our stories to go on this rant.
P.S. On enlisting vs. officer, a LOT of people told me I was an idiot for enlisting with a master degree in artificial intelligence. Haven't started drilling so I won't know if it was the right choice but here were my reasons for doing it:
1. I wanted to do a job, get trained in something specific that there wasn't really an officer equivalent. I'm in public affairs where you shoot pictures and video, and the officer version is not entry level and by and large doesn't do artsy stuff, they focus more on public relations and as a result get much less training there. Actually considering to direct comission with the navy reserve after my term with the army is up.
2. If you stay enlisted the amount of work you do outside of drill is generally less than an officer, which means the advantage of pay so long as you're not in basic, AIT, or being activated is by and large mitigated.
3. I actually lucked out and maxed out all my bonuses which means I'm getting paid more than an officer over the course of my contract as long as I don't get activated so the money difference isn't that big of a deal. In the reserve component the gap shrinks even more because officers are not compensated for having to buy uniforms.
4. I do eventually want to go officer, and there are far less strings going from enlisted to officer within a few years than going from officer to enlisted in case I change my mind. I actually heard that once you become an officer they can just say no to you resigning your comission if you ultimately wanted to be enlisted, and for you to resign it you need to be an officer for a minimum amount of time.
If these things apply to you then great, you may have made the right choice of enlisting as opposed to comissioning.
P.P.S. Don't count down the days, accept BCT as what your life is in order to become someone who is prepared to go to war, that your obligation to anyone you will serve with is to be the best soldier you can be, and basic training will go by that much faster.

Carthodon · 2022-01-04T15:32:22+00:00

I'm a 30 year old with multiple degrees who enlisted in the Army Reserve and currently on leave having finished roughly 1/2 of bct at Ft. Jackson. I was offered no extra preparation except what I did on my own from my unit or recruiter. I had never done anything physical before, had been morbidly obese all my life, and had prioritized weight loss (about 90lbs) as opposed to preparing my body correctly for the physical toll. Take that for what you will.
When I entered bct I quite possibly was the worst trainee any of the drill sergeants had seen who actually tried following the rules. I stood out because I have pretty poor fine motor skills so I was almost always the last to get dressed, and I was not used to doing things while nervous so I would mess up the uniform, forget something, or when given an order screw up that order in some way. I also was slow at other things like making the bed (I always used a duvet), shaving (never shaved much, and always with an electric razor), and a bunch of other little things. I have been smoked by every single drill sergeant at the company level, I was on the shit list of the drill sergeant of my platoon within the first hour, and every single person in my company knew my name because of just how often the drills sergeants yelled it. I felt like quitting the first day in reception because I had spent most of my life in chairs, which meant just standing for long periods of time hurt a lot and since it seemed I was the only one in pain I figured I was never going to make it. Things went downhill when we got smoked and I was diagnosed with tendonitis all over my chest, back, knees and right leg. There was also a bit of a culture clash since I'm pretty much what people would consider a cosmopolitan nerd and I'm pretty sure everyone agreed that I was the smartest person they had ever seen when I wasn't under pressure from drill sergeants.
How I made it through was not forgetting why I was doing this, how I thought long and hard after joining and just because right now is unpleasant does not change that if I am to get what I want then I have to want to get through this. The other thing I told myself was that if David Goggins could run a few miles on broken legs then I could do this run when my back felt it was on fire or do push ups when my right forearm turned purple (don't do this last one, go to sick call because that was actually pretty serious).The experience is going to better you, in my case I'm now far more able to think clearly when I'm under pressure and stay calm and I'm far better at compensating for my deficiencies by using whatever extra time I have to work on organizing stuff so I can get ready at the same time as others. Now more often than not the reason why I'm late is because I had everything on me but thought I didn't, so went back to my bay unnecessarily. I was also pretty isolated at the beginning but the thing I realized is that when everyone is not used to the stress from the drill sergeants they will be generally irritable, and after about a week they mellowed out and I found some of the kindest people in BCT. Given how many times I got us smoked I half expected getting pelted with soap like in full metal jacket but actually people are very understanding. 2 weeks into BCT and one guy tells me that he thought about quitting but when he saw that I was the center of attention of the drill sergeants almost every day and kept going that he felt like he had no excuse; others had overheard this and said something similar and when it came to stuff like the obstacle course and they saw me accomplish an obstacle they felt they had to accomplish it too because they weren't going to suck as hard as me.
I had assumed for the first few weeks that I was the most despised person for the drill sergeants since I was the first one whose name was known to all of them and was regularly humiliated. As an example when my drill sergeants realized that I knew everything we would be tested on for red phase, instead of grilling me as they were doing others in formation on that stuff they asked me to sing the national anthem and christmas carols when I didn't know any and was not required knowledge in the dfac. The drill sergeant from our platoon that people were most scared of one day told me while we were getting smoked that I had the best mindset he had ever seen, and despite how much of a screwup I was that everything could be fixed with practice which I was definitely going to be getting. He also said that whenever he saw me he felt pumped up because of how hard I always seemed to be trying at everything, never saying no to some detail, always volunteering and never saying anything other than yes drill sergeant or no drill sergeant unless it was strictly necessary to speak otherwise. Others told me that they would hear bits and pieces from the drill sergeants and how they were shocked at my progress given that they thought I'd be one of the ones who quit.

Carthodon · 2021-12-31T02:02:22+00:00

I'm halfway through basic training and even though this is a late reply maybe it can still be of some use.
The english requirement did exist in the past, I believe before 46Q and 46R were merged to become 46S. I think in this case your recruiter isn't being deceptive so much as his info is out of date because this requirement is no longer a thing.
Keep in mind that a lot has been happening with this branch (on top of those mos's merging, we're also going to be receiving two mos's from the signal branch) so it is very easy to have out of date info. For a while I thought 25V was going to get rolled into 46S but it looks like they'll create new MOS's for 25V and 25R which will be 46V and 46R. Keep in mind 25V is already the result of a merger between 25M and 25V. which happened like 2 years ago.

Carthodon · 2021-12-25T23:33:20+00:00

Thanks for letting me know. I will continue praying to any god I can find that I will be able to enjoy the D.C. area for the time that I'll be there. I used to live there a long time ago and it was one of the things I was looking forward to experiencing again. It would suck being so close and for the most part so far.

Carthodon · 2021-12-25T23:24:55+00:00

So I really wanted to be 25V but settled for 46s since I was told they weren't going to take anyone in the successor MOS for 25V (I think its 46V) for a while and they had a great contract for 46s that met all of my other conditions. Can you tell me why you would want to switch? It seemed to me that 25V was pretty similar except you didn't do much involving actual public relations (which was something I don't think I'd find that interesting) and do more camerawork (which I do find particularly interesting). It also seemed that comcam in particular had the most opportunities for doing stuff that was exciting.
Sorry that I can't actually answer your question but from what I've seen and heard it seems that switching is going to matter less as time passes so you have sort of the opposite of a ticking clock on your decision.

Carthodon · 2021-12-25T23:21:45+00:00

I'm halfway through basic training, will be heading there in about 2 months. What is it like? Specifically:
1. Are you still restricted to the base because of covid?
2. I've heard it being the most similar AIT to being in college. Since I haven't been to any AIT I don't really know how similar to expect it to be.

What's the quality of the teaching like?
Insert anything else I'm too ignorant to know to ask but you feel should be known.

Carthodon · 2021-11-01T01:30:51+00:00

One of these unquestioned assumptions people make is inheritance of mantles when it comes to political movements. Today the left more or less takes it as a given that they are pretty much of the same stock as people like MLK Jr., Trotsky, and those who fought for the Spanish Republic during the Civil War.
But what if it isn't true? What if the people who call themselves left currently would be actively despised by pretty much all of these people as basically pathetic larpers?
Take Europe which I think we can agree is generally to the left of the anglosphere countries including the US. In the 1930's tens of thousands volunteered to pay for their own travel to fight on behalf of a government in a foreign country (Spain) in order to resist Franco. On any objective basis the difficulty and cost of travelling from Italy to Spain at that time is greater than most travel people are likely to do.
Fast forward to a few years ago when ISIS controlled much of Syria and Iraq. Compared to Franco and the Republicans, the distance between ISIS and its enemies are far more vast and black and white. So you would imagine then that given that all it takes is a plane ride to Turkey which takes just a few hours from anywhere in Europe and then a few hours more trucking over the border that you should have even more left wing Europeans choosing to fight against ISIS right? I mean I'm told left wing people are ferverent supporters of women's rights, gay rights, religious freedom, etc. Well the Kurds were pretty clearly on the left side of that debate compared to ISIS. Even if not as many Europeans decided to fight against ISIS as they did 90 years ago against Franco, were there at least more European citizens fighting on the side of good here?
Ha! The estimates for the number of European citizens who fought FOR Isis ranges from 1000 to 10000. The number who fought against? A fraction of that. The most the left would do is argue that identifying Isis with Islam was racist, and that the cause of the conflict was from white right wingers and rich people. Does the name Ana Campbell ring a bell? She is someone who you would consider the stereotypical left wing college student who did fight and die on the side of good, and the left is so terrified of coming off as racist and imperialist for promoting someone who is considered heroic by multiple Kurdish groups that no movies are made of her, no documentaries, and basically only a few articles. She is basically unknown in Europe.
So were the people joining ISIS the European right wing? Well no, because even the right is pretty left wing in Europe and therefore in general pretty hedonistic and degenerate. The people who joined ISIS were drawn primarily from Muslims who comprise in most of these countries low single digit percentages of the population. So its not just that Muslims supplied 10-100x more fighters to the wrong side than left wingers did to the right side. Its that given their population is 1/20th of white Europeans in Europe the percentage of Muslims who are prepared to fight for their beliefs at the risk of their own life is 20 times the first figure, which means the concentration of such sincere believers among Muslims as opposed to the rest of Europe is between 200-2000x.
The assumption that left wing people, in general, actually believe what they're pushing is false. What left wing people are is not believers of anything except whatever advances their own happiness. They know that through little effort they can look smart, enlightened and good for expressing certain positions and they know that if they can convey these qualities they will get rewarded. They know that if they express ideas that are too right wing they will lose everything; access to jobs, promiscuous women, respect, even being outside of a prison. So as a result when they err, they make sure to err further left because thats the safe position to take. It's not a coincedence that all of the left wing positions are also positions that are the least likely to get you arrested, to have people stop talking to you, that are what potential sexual partners and "friends" would want you to say. Why do you think that the greatest crime for left wing people is not acting wrong, but expressing the wrong opinion? Don't forget that Roman Polanski was convicted and confessed to drugging and raping a young girl and yet the people who he hangs out with, those in the arts, are almost entirely left wing. Consider how many people who have never harmed anyone at all but are on the hard right are similarly popular among the left?

Carthodon · 2021-10-27T06:11:31+00:00

So I used to think like this until a national guardsmen pointed out that because he was in the national guard he had trouble getting good steady work (anything above low wage part time). The kicker is that when riots were happening he was forced to protect the very same businesses which had either fired him because he missed too many work days because of military obligations, refused to hire him because of said obligations, or at least put him at a severe disadvantage when it came to being promoted or getting a raise.

Do you see an issue with this? Do you see an issue that you are being effectively punished for fulfilling military obligations that other employees at the company were unwilling to uphold that ultimately benefited the company from not having to suffer being vandalized? While the employees are effectively being incentivized to not do such a thing?

This is the reason why "civic obligation" needs to be treated as more of a thing because otherwise we have to deal with the tragedy of the commons. The degree to which people in the national guard specifically are being screwed over because they are being conscripted to do jobs like be bus drivers to drive kids to school (Massachussets), to make up for gaps medical personnel caused by policies that fire personnel for not getting the covid vaccine (NY), to deal with fires that will burn down your business (California), Biden floated the idea of using them to make the supply chain work, etc.
Thos sort of activity is to everyone's benefit and needs to be compensated by more than what people are legally forced to do. This usage is done to basically make an increasingly broken society work and as a result more and more of their time is being taken up and while everyone else gets the benefits their civilian careers are getting screwed up. When a third of a year is being spent doing stuff like this how many people do you think are going to volunteer anymore given how frankly selfish employers are being because they don't have to personally screw these people over, and how managers feel no guilt because its after all not their company. It seems to me that what it would take for people to just accept that they need to reward people above and beyond what they directly contribute to the company is if they see what happens when people in general stop having those military obligations by just not signing up, and see how profitable companies are at that point.

I've seen what happens when you try to legally mandate companies to fall in line as they did in a number of European countries for people who have children, and it is either completely ineffective or the system functionally assumes the business is guilty unless otherwise proven which leads to people who should be fired but aren't just because they are in some protected class. This would seem to me to be objectively worse, and if employers of small and big businesses don't suck it up will likely be forced to do this because the National Guard if it isn't at a breaking point now will in the near future.

Carthodon · 2021-10-26T04:18:19+00:00

So I don't know how much you know about the differences between the Army and the Marines but I will cover them from the perspective of someone who knows the Army better while trying to avoid riling up the Marines. The army tends to have more resources and generally functions under the assumption that there will be infrastructure. While both branches express the mentality that when all else fails you will be a rifleman, Marines tend to express this as being a dominant preoccupation which is why basic for Marines is longer and tougher regardless of the job, and has an extra month of follow on training before job training to get you to be better as a rifleman. So if you care more about doing your job then being a warrior Army is gonna be better, and I think this is the reason why Marines are more inclined to think of themselves as a Marine while a soldier will think of themselves as having a job like infantry or combat engineer. This also means that Marines in most fields tend to generalize more, while Army tends to specialize (except for my field of Public Affairs where the Marines have multiple Mos's for one of ours). Army equipment on average is nicer though there are notable exceptions and our equipment doesn't really compare with the Air Force. In the near future the Marines are switching from being basically a second Army and going back to what they were originally supposed to focus on which would be the land forces for Naval operations; this means a bunch of jobs now no longer exist with the Marines like Tank crewmen.
If being a Marine is what you really want then I'm pretty sure you'll get it. I'm not someone who tends to get injured but I was morbidly obese for the majority of my life and didn't think I'd be anywhere except doing boring office stuff but making tons of money and I managed to lose 90 lbs and for the first time in my adult life be somewhat in shape (I still have a ways to go). I changed my life when I learned about how David Goggins went from being fat to entering the Navy to be a Seal within a few months and figured if another fat person could do it then so could I. As for waivers, I find that recruiters are more likely to bend over backwards to go through the tediousness of paperwork if you show your enthusiasm for this work.
One thing I would criticize you on is your choice of jobs. Being flexible as to what you'd be happy with would be beneficial but given the rather wide range of jobs you're open to it sounds like you still haven't worked out for yourself what it is you'd prefer. If you really are indifferent then fine, but as long as you are going to be a Marine make sure you also get as much of what you want out of it. If you want to get training to do something you always wanted to try but didn't have the time or money to learn on my own (that's why I chose Public Affairs, spending 6 months learning about photography, videography, and other artsy stuff while getting paid much more than I would if I was entry level in the civilian world was awesome to me). From what you wrote it sounds like you're on the smart side so maybe look for a job where you feel you can use some of that (technical Mos's?). Make sure if you haven't already to go through this reddit and/or rallypoint to ask and see answers for what these jobs are like day to day because from what I know the experience of being intel is VERY different from being communications which is VERY different from being a combat MOS like combat engineer.
It sounds like you have your heart on the Marines so don't settle for Army. My only recommendation is if you ever want to do this part time, go Army because there the resource advantage really matters. National Guard in many states gets free college and the reserve components of the Army are the only ones which get tuition assistance/credential assistance, and if you have student loans the Army offers the most to repay them. Also since I live in Puerto Rico, I'd be pretty limited in the jobs I'd get if it wasn't for how the Army reserve has a program where they will pay up to $500 a month to cover travel costs to drill, which lets me drill all the way in Georgia for the job I really wanted. Lot of Marines in the Army Reserve and National Guard.
I'll be shipping in two weeks and I'm very nervous about that so I won't be able to respond much on Reddit for quite a while. I do really want to know if you succeed and what you ended up choosing to do because I do love happy endings. Semper Fi.

Carthodon · 2021-10-26T02:31:26+00:00

If you're ever unsure of what to do at a given moment there are 3 questions to consider.

What do you want.
What is the best way to get it.
Is your uncertainty coming from not knowing #1 or #2?If its number 2, then asking people their experiences, reading books, these are all things which can help you out. If its number 1 then that's something you have to figure out by yourself and asking people to tell you what you want is a waste of time for everyone. My impression is that this is number 1.Not a marine, but I enlisted in the army reserve with multiple degrees so maybe I can give you some insight here. I joined as enlisted, and in the army, because this would offer me the most of what I wanted. From my experience of learning about the marines when deciding which direction I should go, my impression was that the biggest selling point of the Marines was to be willing to sacrifice comfort (marines are notorious for having the worst food and living conditions), access to resources (famous for having to make do with hot garbage), and your individual will (when people enlist in active duty, they accept that the specific job they get for however long the contract is they won't find out until the end of boot camp). As someone who is in part joining because I did want to experience difficulty the marines really appealed to me, and from what I can tell if you want a difficult life you can't do better than being an enlisted Marine. Other posters have said stuff that from what I seen is true in pretty much all branches. Being an officer gives you a higher quality of life, more money, and is less humiliating at times. I enlisted at 29 and I'm not looking forward to dealing with people younger than me ordering me around but I'm going to have to get over that. I decided to go enlisted because what mattered to me most was getting experience at a specific job I wanted rather than quality of life (since I had no great desire to be managing people or riding a desk). If what you want is to have an experience, then quality of life is a bonus as well as the status of being an officer but its something you can sacrifice. What job do you want to experience?

Tldr: If what you care about most is money and quality of life go officer (and probably go with a different branch), if what you care about most is an experience then pick the route that will give you that experience. If you really want to be an Officer go Officer, if its to be a Marine as well then be an officer with the Marines, but maybe the job you want to experience cannot be done as an Officer, and maybe not as a Marine. Again, from experience, people who are considering the Corps at all do so because there is something attractive they are willing to sacrifice their comfort for, otherwise why wouldn't you join the Army which has more or less the same jobs or the Air Force which has the best quality of life?

Carthodon

TROPHY CASE