Any Dad's out there with teenage boys?

[Instrument 41]

I have 4 boys. My oldest, 18, high school Senior is wanting to join the National Guard reserves. He's done a great job of investigating the benefits and responsibilities. I met with the recruiter, found out we have some of the same Friends. I know, or at least I think I do, that this decision will be good for him. He is really smart, made 95 on the ASVAB test, 26 ACT score, never been a discipline problem, but just doesn't know what he wants to do. With one exception, that is to join the guard. So knowing this, why do I have this inner apprehension/reservation about the whole thing? I can't put my finger of why or what is causing this feeling. Any one else have a son that joined the military and felt the same way?

[GH85Carrera]

My biggest regret is I never served in the armed forces. I think it would be a good experience for anyone that wants to make the transition from teen ager to becoming a man.

[daepp]

I have 16 year old boy who had no idea what direction to take. I think the military is a good option. Esp. ROTC.

Next I have an 18 year old daughter who has been accepted to the USNA at Annapolis. I too share that inner feeling.

My oldest is at a private/classical liberal arts college in MI. They make a compelling argument that a liberal arts education is exactly what you need to make these kinds of huge life decisions. They pursue truth through a great books core curriculum. Of course, as for a career this will require post grad studies.

Hope that helps a bit.

[daepp]

I heard this speech, which I thought was fantastic and spot on, given by Joseph Garnjobst. I hope he wont mind me posting it. He is a professor of Latin and the classics.

The Shocking Truth about the Liberal Arts

Parents and prospective Hillsdale students: it is to you that I will be directing most of my comments this afternoon:

It is with a little hesitation that I have entitled my talk as I have, since I know that, first impressions are more often than not lasting impressions, and I don't want you to leave here with the wrong idea about Hillsdale College. You have seen a beautiful, dare I say idyllic campus, lovely, well-appointed buildings, you have seen our friendly, helpful admissions staff, you have been to convocation, and the speech of Dr. Brad Birzer on our responsibilities in our republic during this time of tenebrae, the time of shadows, you have heard our talented choir, heard our president speak about the strength of the college and the principles upon which it stands. You saw Professor Chris van Orman honored for his teaching, and the senior class honored for their achievements. Finally, you have had a nice meal, so you might be asking yourself, "is this place for real"? "Does stuff like this happen every day"? I have to be honest with you, it doesn't. The weather isn't usually this nice. And the choir practices only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the Chamber choir on Mondays and Wednesdays, so tomorrow will be an off day. But other than that, things will be as you have seen them.
In the interest of full disclosure, I feel that I have to tell you these things, since, if we encourage you to come here under false pretenses, then in a few years neither one of us will be happy, and that's not what we want. The truth of the matter is that for most of you college will be the last formal, directed education that you will receive. It needs to last you a lifetime. The friends that you will meet at college will most likely be some of the closest friends that you will have--friends which will last for the rest of your life. Such a choice is not to be made lightly, and it may be that Hillsdale College is not be the place for you. Rather than to tear up the campus, vandalize the buildings, make everyone surly and unhelpful (an impossible task) to undo this first impression, I thought I might disabuse some of you of the idea of coming here by telling you the shocking truth about a liberal arts education at Hillsdale College. I will concentrate on only three today, but I must still preface my remarks with a further disclaimer: if you have a medical condition, small children, or just scare easily, I would ask that you excuse yourself now. Those of you who stay, please know that you do so of your own free will, and that I cannot be held responsible for any injuries, mental or physical, which may occur as a result of these shocking truths.


Truth Number One: If we (meaning we the faculty working with you the students) do our job correctly, when you graduate from Hillsdale College after four years, you will not leave here satisfied. Now by that, I do not mean that you will leave here DISsatisfied. There is a world of difference between the two that perhaps needs some explication. A liberal arts education is not simply the accumulation of a specific and defined set of facts and figures, names and dates, though it is certain that before you leave here you will have accumulated a fair share of them. Rather it is a pursuit of the larger questions of who we are, what our purpose on this earth is, and we attempt to answer those questions by consulting the great thinkers of the Greco-Roman Judeo-Christian tradition to see how they approached and answered these questions. We evaluate, weigh, and consider their answers and incorporate those ideas into our own daily lives. Perhaps my description was a bit abstract, a bit detached. In case that it so, I have often found that it is useful to give a physical, concrete analogy which brings the point home. Since we have just eaten, perhaps a food analogy will be appropriate. A liberal arts education is not an all-you-can eat buffet at which we encourage you students to gorge yourselves on any-and everything in sight in the hopes of getting your money's worth before the management kicks you out and you waddle out the door (assuming that you fit). Rather a liberal art education should be an awakening of a hunger that you may not have known that you had before. The piquing of a non-physical appetite that cannot be sated by the mere accumulation of facts. We are not training you to be stars on Jeopardy, though we do have a Jeopardy champion on our faculty. It is not the covetous hunger to possess selfishly, but rather that insatiable curiosity, that sense of awe and wonder of the world that compels us to further inquiry, to further investigation, all the while knowing that the ultimate answer is far beyond our poor powers of understanding. If you are thinking that once you graduate from college you will never have to take another test in your life, read another book, write another paper, then my advice to you would be to save yourself and your parents four years of time and effort and quit now. Get an early start on that freedom. We can't help you here and your resources would better be spent elsewhere (or nowhere). But in the same breath I should also tell you that despite your best efforts you will be tested, you will have to read things you don't want to read, and you will have deadlines that must be met, and I assure you, I have yet to meet a boss who drops your two lowest job evaluation scores or gives extra credit. The point of a college education, a liberal arts education is not that it is the end of your studies, but instead it is just the beginning. We will not build the entire structure of your learning in these four years, but merely lay the cornerstone of what will be a great treasure house of wisdom. Make no mistake. This is no pie in the sky castle in the air, but an edifice grounded upon the firmest foundation that we know: the truth as it is revealed to us. This is as close to bedrock as we can get. We do not build on shifting sands here. Do not expect to leave here with some prefabricated cookie cutter McMansion, but rather expect to leave here with a plan and a desire to build. We would also like your house to be made of something sturdier than straw and sticks, because there are a lot of big bad wolves out there that will attempt to blow your house down. In order to be successful builders you must have that drive, that hunger that is too often stifled by the feeling of complacency. In his Symposium, Plato has Socrates describe this point between privation and satiety, that intellectual place between knowledge and ignorance, philosophy, the love of wisdom, the desire to seek after wisdom. That is the hunger that we want you to cultivate while you are here, and it is through that hunger that we hope you will leave here unsated and unsatisfied. That is shocking truth number one.

to be cont.

[daepp]

Shocking truth number two: What you will learn here will have little practical use. Again, notice that I did not say that what you will learn here is useless, though I'm sure that a few of my colleagues would call me a coward for not going so far as to say just that. And perhaps I should. The point of this shocking truth is that the core of what we do here is not a specific body of knowledge oriented to a specific job or trade. There are perfectly good institutions which do that, and they do serve a useful purpose (pun intended). We call them trade- and technical schools and ideally their graduates leave prepared for the job market into which they emerge. This ideal would be sufficient if the job market or the world would stay the same, but we can see all too clearly that is simply not the case today. That job for which we have trained ourselves may not be there when we get out of school if we have chosen poorly. Then again, even if we have chosen well, it is often the case that we do not stay on the same career path that we started on as bright-eyed teenagers. I went off to college to become a lawyer and a judge, and in the world I dreamed of then, a supreme court justice. As fate would have it, I happened to take a year of ancient Greek as a prerequisite for another class that I intended to take my sophomore year (a class that incidentally was never offered--so I was duped into this job under false pretenses) and as a consequence, my life has not been the same since. My original career path (assuming that we do not count football player, scientist, or superhero) lasted not quite a month, though in truth career paths last a bit longer than that. In an article on entrepreneurship that I read in the Economist last month it said that in the 60s, workers had an average of four different employers by the time they reached 65 years of age. For the workers of today (and I find this number shockingly high), they can expect to see 8 employers by the time they are 30. That's about one per year out of college. That's a lot of different jobs, a lot of different careers. Even if that number is only half that size, what are the chances that you will be able to pick with a high degree of accuracy the exact body of knowledge while in college that you will need for each of those jobs in the years to come? Is that the best way to spend your time in school: to try and figure out what the next four jobs you will have and prepare for them? If so, than that approach will get you to the ripe old age of 30, and you will have another 40 years or so before you can retire, so good luck with that. There was a time when certain technical careers were advertised on the backs of matchbooks, though now believe they are on late night infomercials. In any event, they offered lucrative careers in fields such as TV/VCR repair. Imagine putting all of your academic eggs in that basket? Your once lucrative career has pretty much gone the way of the 8-track. I wouldn't say that DVD repair would be much better. I'd give the format maybe 10 more years tops. Perhaps I am overstating my case, but you get my point. The truth of the matter is that any new job that you will get will have its own body of knowledge and its own set of skills which you will be trained to tackle, and these skills will have to change over time-- but getting back to our first shocking truth: will you face this need to master these new skill as a reluctant worker who didn't expect to take another test or as a eager learner who delights in the challenge? Which approach better prepares you for the changes in life? Which one, though seemingly useless, provides a better beacon in your life?

So if we are agreed that a liberal arts degree is practically useless and will leave you unsatisfied, what other shocking truth can I tell you except that a liberal arts degree will make you rich. Once the shock wears off, I will have you notice that I am not saying that a liberal arts education will make you a lot of money, though if you go on to do so, that will only be of tangential interest to me and I hope to you as well. I'm certain that you understand the difference between wealth and money, but I want to show how you can enrich your life in a way that a job and the money that goes with it simply cannot. Let us first divide our lives into thirds, by which I mean to think of an individual day as a microcosm of our life which will be repeated as many times as we are blessed to have them. Within that one day (and for the sake of this illustration I am assuming that it is a week day) we must commit a third of it to sleep, assuming that we are allowing ourselves the average needed for health (and I can speak for a lot of the students here that we are going by an average, not a specific day, especially around this time of the year). Another third will be allotted for work, assuming that we have a typical 9-5 job (and no significant commute). The remaining third is what we are left to live in. This is our home time, family time, hobby time, leisure time, the time, I hope that bears the seal of what make you you. It is for this part of life that the liberal arts degree exists. If we can bring purpose and direction to this most important third of your life, an appreciation of the arts, music, literature, the sciences, a knowledge of the events and trends of world history, and an appreciation of the founding principles of our nation, then we have done you a good service, for without that purpose, that enrichment you run the risk of letting your job inform your life rather than letting your life inform your job. Put another way: wouldn't we all be just a little better off if we brought the joy of our life to the necessity of our work rather than the necessity of our work to the rest of our life? If through our work here together we can enrich your life, then we have done you a service that is more precious than any money can buy.

Perhaps it is only fitting that I should conclude this talk and bid you farewell with a poem. It is by the modern Greek poet Constantine Cavafy, written early in the 20th century. A little set-up is necessary. The poem is essentially a propemtikon, a genre of bon voyage poem delivered to a person who is about to go on a journey. Menander, not the 4th century BC comic poet, but the 3rd Century AD teacher of rhetoric, set out in great detail the essential themes, figures, and tropes of the genre, and he tells us that the well-wishes before departure can originate from a person of lower status to one of higher status (as citizens or subjects to a leader or ruler) from a superior to and inferior (as a parent to a child), or from social equals (as from one friend to another). In our poem, the obvious and unnamed addressee is the man of many ways, polutropos Odysseus. The well-wisher too is unnamed, but from reading the Odyssey we know that all of his companions die before his fantastic voyages are completed and he arrives alone on his native shore, and because the well-wisher presciently advises our addressee about adventures that he has not yet encountered, we can be sure that it is no inferior or equal of Odysseus, but a superior, one of the gods, his guide throughout the epic, the goddess of wisdom, Athena. While Odysseus is setting off for his home in Ithaca after the Trojan War, the same well-wishes could be spoken to you as you are about to leave home and embark upon your own adventures. For some of you. perhaps Hillsdale can serve as that destination.
Ithaca, by Constantine Cavafy.
When you start on your journey to Ithaca,
then pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
Don not fear the Lestrygonians
and the Cyclopes and the angry Poseidon.
You will never meet such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your body and your spirit.
You will never meet the Lestrygonians,
the Cyclopes and the fierce Poseidon,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not raise them up before you.

Then pray that the raod is long.
That the summer mornings are many,
that you will enter ports seen for the first time
with such pleasure, with such joy!
Stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and corals, amber and ebony,
and pleasurable perfumes of all kinds,
buy as many pleasurable perfumes as you can;
visit hosts of Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from those who have knowledge.

Always keep Ithaca fixed in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for long years;
and even to anchor at the isle when you are old,
rich with all that you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would never have taken the road.
But she has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not defrauded you.
With the great wisdom you have gained, with so much experience,
you must surely have understood by then what Ithacas mean.

[Seahawk]

My son is a senior in HS and has applied to VMI, wants to be a Marine Corps infantry officer.

I am retired military and know the system pretty well and I am very apprehensive. You are not alone.

But, there is a point where their aims, if well intentioned and thoughtful, become the focus.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Instrument 41

So knowing this, why do I have this inner apprehension/reservation about the whole thing? I can't put my finger of why or what is causing this feeling. Any one else have a son that joined the military and felt the same way?

I assume it's a combination of things like, "he's so smart and 'with it' that he could do more (college, etc...)" and/or "what if he ends up someplace dangerous and gets hurt."

You may not be thinking this consciously, but in the back of your mind someplace you could be thinking that the military is not the best use of what sounds like a great kid with the ability to do just about anything.

Or, maybe I'm completely off base.

I don't need flames about this, it's not my opinion or even necessarily the opinion of the OP. My dad was in the Navy, I considered going in the military, and think very highly of folks in the service. I don't think that they are less intelligent or anything like that. I know there are very smart and very capable people in the service. I think that the service probably needs more of them.

I'm just trying to answer the question above.

[Rusty Heap]

My brother in law joined the Coast Guard when 18 (so never saw any "combat" but was still in the "services") and after he served his 20 years, retired with full pension at the ripe OLD age of 38.

Always saved his money, lived on base housing so no housing/utility bills, and didn't buy many/any toys through his life.

At 40, he cash bought and paid off a house in Alaska, and is a Flyfishing guide with no housepayment or bills other than food and utilities.


how many other careers allow you to retire at 40 with full pension and benifits? Very Very few if any. Most people assume they'll still be working till 60-65+ to be able to retire.


yeah life sucks for him, and always fresh alaskan fish in the freezer.

[genrex]

I'm curious. What are the tangible benefits?

I've heard that they aren't as good as they were years ago, when we had a GI Bill that actually paid our way through college, and we were eligible for a $100k+ home loan to buy a house (not the "25% guarantee" they have today). It's hard to know what to say, if we don't know exactly what's on the table.

My nephew was the same after high school. Didn't know what he wanted to do for a year, and then took a culinary class at a community college. 10 years later, he's the head chef at a local restaurant, happily married to an amazing woman, and they have two kids.

Given your son's abilities, he could do anything.

Originally Posted by Instrument 41

He's done a great job of investigating the benefits and responsibilities. He is really smart, made 95 on the ASVAB test, 26 ACT score, never been a discipline problem, but just doesn't know what he wants to do.

[Rikao4]

just make sure he picks a MOS that interest him..
and not the one that the recruiter has a quota for...
I had a blast..

Rika

[Instrument 41]

To the benefits questions, he'll get his GI bill and duty pay while he's in school. Not sure about other states but in Louisiana National Guard is tuition exempt. Just pay for books and other fee's.

And to the job choice, I have been over that with him AND the recruiter. He's settled on being a medic. He does have a mild interest in medicine.
Thanks for the replys, especially your Seahawk.

And to the comment about about him going to college instead of military, no offense here. Thanks

[nostatic]

Originally Posted by DAEpperson

I heard this speech, which I thought was fantastic and spot on, given by Joseph Garnjobst. I hope he wont mind me posting it. He is a professor of Latin and the classics.

The Shocking Truth about the Liberal Arts

.

Actually you should post this as its own thread. Great stuff. I am a firm believer in a liberal arts education and this outlines the reality quite well. Expectations are a beotch as they say...

If my now HS freshman son wants to join the military after HS I'll have apprehension as well, mostly because I'm not sure it is the best fit. But life isn't about being a good fit all of the time. And as my under adviser said, "you can put up with most anything for a couple of years..."

[Hard-Deck]

I am an active duty Army officer If you want to PM me your number I will call you with a lot to consider.

[jhynesrockmtn]

My son is 19 and a sophomore now at Washington State and in the Army ROTC program. I have all kinds of apprehensions about him serving, being in peril, etc. Of course he's 5 foot 10, 165 lbs of pure muscle and wants to go in to the infantry so that doesn't help. He was the first freshman in 6 years to max out his physical requirements and just finished a Ranger competition at Fort Lewis with a team from his command. He's all in with this. I'm scared (*&^less that he'll be walking around some remote middle eastern village in 4 years knocking doors down. But that's my issue. It doesn't faze him a bit.

He's focused, pulled a 3.4 his freshman year, is getting a lot of college paid for and came up with all of this on his own. He wanted it, he pursued it and he's knocking it out of the park. I couldn't be more proud of him.

I'd much rather have the apprehension I have than a kid who had no drive, wanted to live at home and play xbox all day.

[HardDrive]

Originally Posted by gh85carrera

my biggest regret is i never served in the armed forces.

+1

[romad]

Air Guard.....If he wants to serve in a combat career field I believe there is a TACP det in Baton Rouge area.

http://www.goang.com/Unit/122nd+Air+Support+Operations+Squadron

SSGT Marty Lewis
172TASS TACP(ROMAD)
MIANG Retired

Just some in sight to who is responding.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Instrument 41

And to the job choice, I have been over that with him AND the recruiter. He's settled on being a medic. He does have a mild interest in medicine.

You should PM Rikao4...I'm putting him on the spot but he and Art lived that world and can provide insight.

The absolute key is to, as Rikao4 stated, get the MOS nailed...there is no worse place to be in the military than undesignated as a young enlisted person. Recruiters are in sales. They will help but you must be firm, which by all indications, you are.

Good.

I wish you and your son the best. A good friend of mines son, who I have known since he was born, graduated from the Naval Academy, was commissioned and went to flight school. His gets his wings in December.

His Dad and I met in Pensacola as student Naval aviators.

We were laughing about his son's trials and tribulations the other day and we came to the conclusion that we'd both start again tomorrow. No regrets, no hesitation. We had a blast.

It wasn't all good, but there are moments, moments as clear and brisk as the second they were minted, that I wouldn't change for anything.

[romad]

The absolute key is to, as Rikao4 stated, get the MOS nailed...there is no worse place to be in the military than undesignated as a young enlisted person. Recruiters are in sales. They will help but you must be firm, which by all indications, you are.

I totally agree with this, but the guard and or reserve will place you before you sign, so they can schedule your schools.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by Instrument 41

He is really smart, made 95 on the ASVAB test, 26 ACT score, never been a discipline problem, but just doesn't know what he wants to do. With one exception, that is to join the guard.

He's been making the right decisions so far. Why not let him go with his own gut instincts?
The Guard is a less intensive form of the branch....supposedly more flexable, but with the ability to travel and have a temporary "career".

[john70t]

FWIW- unlimited Eurorail passes(sleeper cars) and youth hostels are available for those under 26y.o. Good way to see a small part of the earth in 1st world comfort.