Reply #28: Well, it's -not- the same service...

[Shipwack]

I really don't understand your comments.

No one ever said it was "all the same service". I do things better than some Marines. I've had guys with combat experience tell me they'd rather be someplace where someone might be shooting at them than sail under the ocean in excess of 400 feet. I feel the same way in reverse, but... If we were told to switch places, we would. Sure we'd bitch about it the whole way ("a bitching sailor is a happy sailor", and I'm sure the other services have similar sayings), but we'd do it. This isn't a "ours is not to reason why" type of thing. It's about doing what you are told to do because you put your name on the dotted line and swore an oath to do so. She got herself a spot at one of the most highly regarded learning centers in the US, and in return she had a job to do and a debt to pay, which she refused to do, not because she thought war was morally wrong, not because it would be dangerous, but because she thought it wasn't what she trained for.

For what it's worth I joined the Navy over other services because they offered me a better deal. ::shrug::

No, I don't have to support her career, other than her career being what the Navy says it is. The most valuable skills the service taught her were to lead, administer, and learn. Sometimes (if not most) of the time you get in places that don't use your formal schooling. Such is life of an officer (or enlisted person). It works the same way in the civilian world too. Many people don't get jobs based on what they went to college for. My brother spent four years getting a degree in physical therapy; his first jobs were in sales, and now he's head of admissions at a state university. Life's funny like that.

I agree with you, the whole "guns/butter" ratio is way out of whack, but that is an entirely different issue.