In the UK, the colloquially named Chair Force had some NCO’s go through who stuck out their term in a field that had lots of factors that transferred across to civilian employment. Top of the tree was air traffic controllers - certain branches of the RAF’s ATC capability was based at Swanwick anyway so if they ever went to the National Air Traffic Service, a lot of the time they could pick up their stuff from their desk on their last Friday, and move it across the room to another desk for when they came back in new clothes on Monday morning.
Vets are another field that is great to get into if you want your fees paid for, but most of those are officer grades, same deal as pilots. The clerks are generally well trained too - those who used to “fly a desk” as they put it, went on to be good accountants and heath and safety ninjas.
Certainly for the UK, the military gave the option to poorer backgrounds to get expensive qualifications while not generally going near theatres or on deployments.
don@lemm.ee 4 months ago
As an ex-USN carrier type, there’s a common phrase used in the fleet: choose your rate (MOS), choose your fate.
My carrier, the Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), was (and probably still is) among the shittiest commands a sailor could be assigned to, and during the five years I spent aboard it as an E-5, I saw just about the very worst it had to offer. Deck Department got brutalized, and so did the nukes in the Reactor Department and the snipes in Engineering. The AZ’s (Aviation Administration) had it fairly good, all things considered.
The ship was bad enough that I EAOS’d from the fleet off of it, and never looked back.
The fleet can very easily be just as horrifying as the Army and the USMC, just in different ways. Luck is not always the lady.
NotAtWork@startrek.website 4 months ago
Time’s are tough all over, I joined the Air Force and one time the made me stay in a 2 star hotel, and when I deployed there was only one ice cream shop.
don@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Jesus fuck man, a 2-star?! Even we got better digs than that! Which CMSgt did you piss off, your CCM? Yeah, that’d do it, lol Oddly, your dining facilities on Keesler had better chow than Andrews! Good ole AF! Real bummer about the ice cream shop, though. Our carrier had an actual Starbucks on board.