You know, after typing that heading I realize that now is as close to a dull moment as I can experience. well actually I take that back, being out in public and feeling like this would be much more tedious and difficult.
Anyway around to the point: I'm sick. I don't know what it is but I think I know why I'm sick, and that's because I've been running myself ragged, and I've been spending MANY more hours among people. Everything has a price I suppose.
I decided not to join the national guard, on the basis that the incentive does not outbalance the risk. They wanted to offer me a couple hundred a month, plus partial school benefits, and lets see... that's it.
For this they want a minimum 6 year commitment. The limits on the GI bill are ridiculous. They use phrases like "up to" 50k for school. That sounds familiar doesn't it? Like when I was in sales and they talked about how rich I was going to be. It's an incentive, granted it may seem a large incentive, however given my abilities and how much time is involved I don't think it's a fair offer. In my humble opinion they should pay all college expenses, regardless of how high they get as long as they all fit into a degree plan. That would make more sense. It's similar to how cell phone companies used to have "unlimited data plans" but they actually cut off your service and canceled your contract when you used more than 5 gigs of data, over a whole month. Bait and switch almost. But from reading their site you can see that they assume you are so worked up over how wonderful their benefits are, and we know they aren't actually. Add in the danger of losing my life. Oh and the silent draft.... just heard about that actually.
Ok, I just did some research on that... just to have the facts.
fact 1: when you sign a military contract with the guard you are subject to being called back within 2 years (that's the offer they gave me, your mileage may vary).
fact 2: there is something called stop loss, and if you HAVE been deployed to a war zone during your tour they can force you to reenlist, because they need you on the ground in iraq or afganistan or wherever the country decides to drop troops.
Questionable second hand fact 3: The military will twist your arm into reenlisting by giving you a choice between reenlisting of your own accord or they will send you to a war zone so you can be covered by stop loss.
fact 4: it's all in the fine print.
Now even if we could ignore fact 3 (which is the worst of the bunch) this still doesn't sound like the sort of organization I would want to work for. Actually let me be a bit more clear, it doesn't sound like a deal that is worth the paltry sum they give you for the risk.
All business deals are a risk/reward calculation. Let's say I want to buy a house. The risk is that the market will drop and put me underwater on my investment, or that the costs to keep everything repaired outstrip my budget. Both of those have happened incidentally to me. The reward however is that houses are a good hedge against inflation, and in addition you don't throw away thousands a year renting an apartment. In the case of my house it's more secure and in a much more relaxing neighborhood than any apartment I've ever lived in.
Once you calculate the risk and balance it with reward you will see whether this investment will be prudent. The risk of military service is about as high as anything I've ever heard of.... with the possible exception of marriage. Losing your life, and in many cases your sanity as a result of living in a war zone is a giant risk. The rewards on the other hand are disappointing... again similar to marriage. You are at the mercy of the military, part of a giant system which includes in it's mission statement to kill people. And finally you have to make a time commitment to them, they promise next to nothing in return for that commitment.
On the romance front.... I was talking to one girl and she just dropped off the radar. Now a new one has contacted me. Young but fairly intelligent, I happen to know she's been on the market for a year. she's a poet. She definitely is worth getting to know, after that who knows?
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