> > So my AP US teacher unwittingly talked me out of enlisting, and got me decided on going to either the CIA or FBI or some other U.S. Intelligence organ someday.
>
> I'm exceptionally smart for my age, and all the wise people forsee a great academic future for me. Yet, I'm going to become a grunt, and then a professor of somehting like that.

While the two of you are patting yourselves on the back for how smart you are, thoughts of my own are running through my head.

TOM, did the military tell you that you, too, were too smart for them to use right off? Are you sure that the needs of the U.S. military are the same as they were when your teacher told that story? Are you sure that your skills are the same as those of the person in your teacher's story? You have to be sure of all these things to assume that your country can best use you in the same manner. If we are to entertain the notion that our primary responsibility with respect to our careers is to do whatever benefits the U.S. military (or intelligence, or whatever) the most, we should be going down and asking.

Gortman, I think the most important thing I can say to you is that I respect your respect of our military. Nonetheless, you haven't said much else in this thread that I can agree with. Well, that's what's fun about living in a world with other people.

But come on, is your assuming line of reasoning rational at all? What IF you go to enlist in the U.S. military, and they tell you, "You could better serve us doing [something else]."? How can you sit there and say that military service is the end-all, be-all way to serve one's country? Certainly you can decide that a military career (or, at least, a period of military service) is the right path for YOUR life to take. But it's ridiculous to assume that one can't serve one's country in other ways. It's ridiculous to assume that YOU can't serve your country in other ways. It's ridiculous to assume that some of those other ways may not be BETTER.

The only thing *either one of you* can determine for yourselves before you actually solicit the opinion of an enlistment dude is what the best choices are FOR YOURSELVES. And, ultimately, is that not a choice made in self-service, rather than in service of your country? If serving your country is your priority, then you're both wrong to assume that, hey, I will serve best by being an FBI agent, or, hey, I will serve best by being a grunt.

I submit, though, that serving one's country should be *a* priority but not *the* priority -- for a number of reasons but, most compellingly, because serving your own life needs, in general, *is* the best you can do for your country. An FBI agent that wants to be an FBI agent is (in general) going to serve our country better than a military soldier who would rather be an FBI agent. A soldier in the military that wants to be a soldier in the military is going to serve our country better than an FBI agent who would rather be a soldier.

I have a little more respect for the notion that those who don't know what to do with their lives should go into military service "by default." But even that seems silly to me, and the story of TOM's teacher is a perfectly good illustration. Sometimes people are needed elsewhere.

Let's face it. If a country has a really great military but no, for example, economy, it's pretty much dead. A country needs a lot of things to thrive, and a military is only one of them. Businessmen are serving our country in important ways.

Gortman, why do you feel military service is the best way you can serve your country? You might be right, for yourself, but you haven't said why, and, frankly, if you want to be a professor and would make a good one, I question sincerely whether you would be serving your country better as a soldier. Few things benefit a country/society more than education does. Now, if you also *want* to be a soldier, I'm not about to talk you out of that, and certainly you would be serving your country in that role as well. But don't make the mistake of assuming that's the only -- or even the best -- way one can serve one's country.