this is an extremely hard decission and i need a no bs answer

S

soybean1324

New Member
im debating on wether or not to go to college or to join the Army right out of highschool. i know everyone obviously would say go to college, but theres ups and downs to going to college. i just want a seriouse answer. im going in the Army to be a Ranger, also, if i go to a college like west point, i wouldnt be able to be in the army at the same time right? if i go to a normal college like UNLV and i join their ROTC will i join the army as a 2lt just like if i went to west point or no? another thing, if i do join right out of highschool and i did ROTC in highschool will i join as a 2lt in the army? last thing, which will increase my chances of commanding a squad when i join the Rangers, going to college then army? or joining army right out if highschool? sorry for all the questions but if you could answer them i could be extremely grateful, THANK YOU:mrgreen:
 
ROTC in high school doesn't earn you 2nd Lt. but it will earn you PFC and will help you out in basic, also you just don't join the rangers you have to be physicly fit and pass ranger school. Collage ROTC will grant you 2nd Lt. just like West Point both will require 5 years of service afterwards so it depends on what you fell is right for you
 
ranger awesomness said:
ROTC in high school doesn't earn you 2nd Lt. but it will earn you PFC and will help you out in basic, also you just don't join the rangers you have to be physicly fit and pass ranger school. Collage ROTC will grant you 2nd Lt. just like West Point both will require 5 years of service afterwards so it depends on what you fell is right for you
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If you want to lead as an officer your best shot is to go to collage.
If you want NCO you can work your way up through the squad.
Either way yo uare going to have to put your time in. No one leads straight out of high school.

You will not have to pass Ranger school to become a Batt boy.
You will be encouraged to go to Ranger school but it´s not a requierment.
You WILL however have to pass RIP or ROP to be able to serve in Batt.
It is a long road and it is very physically and mentally demanding.

Good luck on making your decision.
//KJ.
 
Making a decision about what to do after High School is always hard.

I'm not sure how it is in your country, but here in Canada, a person can go to college and be in the reserves part time as well. I believe the training for the reserves starts at two days a week, and is all summer long too. Not only that, but if your grades are good, you can get some help financially towards tuition while you are at Uni.

Once you leave Uni. you can then go into the Military full time. But with a college education behind you, it's a big plus, especially if you are looking towards becoming an officer at some point in time.
 
College, then Officer would be my idea (not knowing the US details), but overall that makes sense also should you change your mind otw.

Rattler
 
I'll answer these in order. If you go to West Point, you won't be in the Army, but if you stay in WP then at the start of your 3rd year you owe the Army time so if you fail out after that, you'll go active as a Specialist and serve some time to pay it back.

If you go to a normal college then you you can come in as a 2LT after ROTC, but wait! Most officers that are making a career out of the Army and want command pick Infantry and Armor branch due to the advancement oppertunities. Especially if you want to go Ranger. Say the Army only decides to commission a certain number of officers this year.. say 10,000 (that's an abstract number, I'm just making an example). Say the graduating class from WP is 4,000 (again, these are fake numbers for example purposes). All 4k of those guys get comissioned automatically. Then say that another 2,000 guys went Green to Gold program or Officer Candidate School from the regular Army.. those guys get in guaranteed as well. That leaves 4,000 spots left. They make those spots up from ROTC guys, but guess what? The top WP, OCS, and G2G guys already got to pick what branches they wanted. Soooo, you may not get picked up at all, or even if you do it might not be for the branch you want. ROTC is not a sure thing, but West Point is, see?

Highschool ROTC could get you PFC rank on the way in, but you are going to wait to at least Corporal or more likely Sergeant before you will command anything. If you come in as an officer, the lowest amount of guys you will command is as a platoon leader (could be anywhere up to 60 guys if you go infantry), but you will have a Sergeant First Class right next to you mentoring you and making sure you don't do anything stupid.

Lastly, Rangers are their own thing. If you come in wanting to go to Rangers, you will do 11 series OSUT training, followed by Airborne (usually) followed by RIP (Ranger Indoctrination Program). IF you pass that, then you will go to a Ranger Batt to "grow up". If they like you and want to keep you in the Rangers, they will send you to Ranger School to get your tab, otherwise they will just have you reasigned to a normal infantry unit. That's if you come in enlisted. Officer spots in the Rangers are very competative, so if you are planning on being an officer and leading Rangers, you better be one tough mofo because there are a lot of guys trying to get a small number of those highly coveted positions, and it will not be easy.
 
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