My son, to my great pride, has said he wants to enlist. He already took the ASVAB and did well.
He is saying he wants to be an "engineer". He will have a high school education when the time comes. I'm getting some conflicting stories about what engineering specialities are available today and what the qualifications are. An uncle is telling him that you can't join the Corp of Engineers without a 4 year degree. So now his Mom is saying she heard the SeaBees don't have the same restrictions.
I know recruiters can be salesmen and have to make quotas. I will be going with him to talk to the Army and Navy recruiters.
If anyone has any experience specfically with engineers Army or Navy I would really appreciate some info from you.
Please email direct snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com or post here.
Just be careful about the recruiters bait and switch.
My younger son went in to become an engineer, was told he could make the next available class and wound up an 11 Bravo carrying a M 249 patrolling Dora neighborhood in downtown Baghdad......
ftauss wrote the following on 12/15/2012 11:28 PM (ET):
Enlist in the Navy. They will give him an aptitude test to see where he will fit in. They did for me and decided that I was mechanically adept, so they made me a metalsmith (welding, soldering, forging, heat treating, and sheet metal work). I got to go to the 12 week Class A metalsmith school right out of boot camp. Today, the Metalsmith is part of the Hull Technician rating.
I had an uncle whom was an Army Combat Engineer - he had a degree in Electrical Engineering, and was an officer. I'm also a bit familiar with the SeaBees and Combat Engineering in general, and am a degreed working civilian Engineer myself.
There is a distinct difference between being assigned to a combat engineering unit like the SeaBees, and being a Combat Engineer; i.e. - Enlisted vs Officer. An enlisted SeaBee is a guy at the end of a shovel or driving a forklift - a technician. A Combat Engineering Officer makes decisions, directs work based upon objectives and strategy, and is an actual Engineer with a degree.
The job of a Combat Engineer is to prepare and facilitate battlefield operations and logistics. Bear in mind that his choice of Army, Navy, or Marine Corps will determine *where* he works in relationship to that purpose. If he truly desires to be a Combat Engineer he needs to go to college and obtain an engineering degree - I'd recommend at least a BS degree in mechanical, electrical, or civil engineering - *before* he enlists and to go in as a junior officer.
He can also be in an ROTC program in his desired Branch through college if he desires (and I'd recommend that), but simply enlisting as an E-1 out of high school and working to obtain an engineering degree while in active service is *very* difficult - they will make him go to school continually anyway if he is to be promoted. If he signs up and has a BS in Engineering I he can rest assured that they will push him to obtain a Masters during his service.
It can be done, but given today's length and frequency of deployments I would imagine it would be very hard and take multiple enlistments...read
Agreed, when I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1966, I wanted combat radio operations (I might have been suicidal, thinking back), but they sent me in to computer operations and programming. Two years later, someone I knew wanted (and I quote)and was promised Archit ectural School, no Vietnam and stationed entirely in Germany. The recruiter told him "three years will guarentee better than two years", so the guy to ok the three years. They sent him to the Mechanics' School for Heavy Machin ery, then sent him to Vietnam, where they gave him an M-16. By the time tha t he got to Germany, he had quite the hard drug problem.
Agreed, they're the best for a career - no matter how long.
Depends on what he wants to be -- officer or enlisted. Former requires a degree
- no cuts and no options in this era.
There are two kinds of engineers -- combat and construction, but not sure which slots are open. Former gets to blow stuff up (!) and the latter gets to build things.
But right now most troops are being trained as de facto infantry for use in Afghanistan and as such the MOS is not relevant.
Just be advised, there is a HUGE distinction between the US Army Corps of E ngineers (basically the country's civil engineers) and the US Army's Engine er branch (MOS 21). Even within the Army's engineer units, there are engine ers who build airfields, roads, buildings, etc. and the combat engineers wh o follow the maneuver forces by clearing lanes in minefields, blow up or em place bridges, etc.
I wanted to be a tanker and my local National Guard unit was a combat engin eer company that had a CEV at the armory. Looked like a tank to me at the t ime, so I enlisted as a 12F. Basically you end up as a grunt with a shovel spending time putting in mine fields, digging up mine fields, putting in tr iple strand concertina wire, taking down triple strand concertina wire and becoming extremely familiar with items like pick axes, wire gauntlets and p icket pounders.
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