ARGH!

What are you thinking, stay in school!

I will, I'm not jumping high school man, if I went to see a recruiter it would be to get information at this point. I feel a calling to serve my country, I can't explain it, I just feel like I need to. At this point I'm just wondering whether to enlist out of high school or to go to college for a Mechanical Engineering degree and then enlist. The biggest thing is I don't want to just sit around and direct people, I want to be someone who does the work on the ground, whether that's as an enlisted officer or as a grunt I'm not sure. Also, STA platoon would be nice, but I'd be happy to serve anywhere with the Marines.

any of you fellas floating around here?

From my experience, your 1st, 2nd, & 3rd choices better be college first!

You'd best serve your country by bettering yourself.

The only thing about that is if I get KIA I'd have four years time that I could have been doing something else for, if I enlist out of high school I'd use my GI bill to go to school. As it stands I'm leaning towards agreeing with you. I don't want to rule anything out yet, but I also agree with your point of view.

One of the hardest things to do is go back to school after taking a time off from it.

The way I see it, life is school, you're always learning, no matter what you're doing.

There's nothing glamorous about war.

Now a days if you don't have those degrees you're SOL.

I know there's nothing glamorous about war, I'm not in it for glamor. I just feel a need to serve my country. I also have always been the guy to do the jobs that no-one else wants to do, no-one wants to be a Marine anymore, so that's my job.

If you are dead set on the military try the Guard. At least this way you can go to college full time. If you then still like the military go ROTC or do the Guard's office commissioning program.

I'm not dead set, thinking about it more I'll most likely go to college and see how it goes from there. If I go into the military it will be Marine Corps.