However, challenging peoples motivations for joining isn't exactly all that fair either. If you want to join for the sole reason of flying jets, then good luck to you. You'll have other duties as people have made it abundantly clear. However, why is it a problem that people may have the desire to join for a reason. I have plenty of friends who enlisted solely for the monetary gain and college benefits. Is that a problem? No. Everyone has their motivations.
I actually don't have a problem with people whose initial sole motivations for joining the military are to get free flying training and education benefits. I know of a number of people who had that thought when they started out.
The problem is that
alone isn't enough to carry you through what is a long and serious commitment of all aspects of your life. It isn't enough to keep people going through the tough times and circumstances that 10 years flying for the military eventually yields.
First of all the training is hard. Standards are very high, the learning curve is steep, and there is zero flexibility for students who don't learn/perform at the rate required by the program. It takes an immense amount of personal dedication to make it. Those with just a casual interest won't make the cut. There are a lot of people who drop out of pilot training early on in the program when they realize this...and then they're stuck with a 4+ year commitment to being in the military as something other than a pilot.
Second of all, being a military officer is no joke. Not something to be taken lightly. You're not "just a pilot"...you're someone who could be (and often is) called to do things that you don't want to do. Anything from driving a desk all the way through being boots-on-the-ground in a combat zone comes with the territory. Being an officer entails having different legal accountability for your actions. It requires living in places you don't want to live, moving from places you like, separation from family, and living in austere -- often dangerous -- places...none of which you have a say in, or have any recourse if you don't like the decisions made for you.
And all of that for the 10 years of your life
after you graduate training. Being able to tolerate all of that requires something a little more down deep in your character than simply wanting some "free" training.
The punchline to all this is that most of the guys I know who joined initially wanting just to get some free training realized very quickly that it wasn't enough...and at the same time, they started to realize that there was something else in them that DID motivate them to do it. That's when you start talking about these cliche'd ideas of patriotism and duty that a lot of us in the business talk about. In fact, I don't know anyone who I have ever actually flown with who still thinks that way.
So, I am certainly not hostile toward what DCA is thinking. In fact, I love this career and I encourage everyone who is interested to investigate it some more, because it can be immensely rewarding. But it's important that he knows the whole picture before committing to it. He's asking for advice, and we're giving it to him based on our own experiences.
I only get annoyed when someone asks an opinion, then
doesn't like the one they get from the people who actually know the real deal...
and then start telling the 'experts' (I hate that word) that they're wrong.
