Former military members?

[Fullfan]

Law enforcement. It’s been a good choice, really. But if I had it to do over, I’d stay in the Army for at least 20. I could have retired at 38 and still become a cop.

In many ways, I’ve never gotten the Army out of my system. I was a young Sergeant/E5 and doing well. I got a good Non Commissioned Officer Evaluation Report when I got out. I wish I had stayed in and gone to Special Forces selection.

But that ship has sailed and it isn’t returning to port.

No way I would have wanted to endure the 28 weeklong Academy at 38. At least the PA State Police Academy. I was a long-distance runner and in great shape when I went through. Would have been a tough go for someone at 38.

 

[sconnieVLP]

That’s a lot of moves. I had 8 moves in 20 years and personally I appreciated most of them.

To maybe add a “positive” to moving, we wouldn’t have known for sure where we wanted to settle down unless we would have seen all the places and been “forced” to live there.

The one assignment we were most frustrated about ended up being our favorite and making #2 on the retirement location list.

Almost to 20, hang in there!

(Side note: we actually “moved” 14 times but 6 of those were self inflicted moves at the assignments, which that much moving sucked….but our fault).

That’s a fair point, although my assignments generally cemented my desire to move back to WI when I’m done. I would do shameful things to get an assignment out West at some point. I’ve bounced around the East Coast and back and forth to Europe a couple times (to include NCR x2) so it would be cool to be somewhere new. Got to NC about two months ago, and if I don’t blow it in the first two years I’ll stay for a total of four. Looking forward to not having to pick up and move every 12-18 months like I have been.

I’ll PM you for some gouge on retirement, I’m trying to figure out at what point I want to start telling the flight doc everything to get it in my records.

 

[mtwarden]

I was a law enforcement specialist in the Air Force—it paid for the remainder of my college and the four years of LE experience I gained helped me land my dream job as a game warden.

The military has almost every equivalent job that you would find on the civilian side, not a bad way to gain hands on training AND help pay for college.