I am preparing my son for the ASVAB. I am pushing him toward the Air Force Intel (after being in the Navy, and working for the Air Force, I like how they the Air Force treats their people), but he is a rebel so he is thinking Army and ultimately wants to jump out of airplanes.
Since I am his teacher (he is homeschooled), my goal is to get him ASVAB ready for whatever job he wants to do. What Army rate should I get him ASVAB ready for where jumping out of airplanes is a possibility?
Enlist with Option 4 (guaranteed Airborne school) or Option 40 (guaranteed RASP) with the MOS of his choice. 18X will guarantee him a shot at SOPC, and if he passes, he’ll attend SFAS.
RE: intel; look into the 75th’s Military Intel Battalion. He can enlist with an intel MOS + Option 40 and find his way there.
As Wake27 noted: going through jump school and being assigned to an airborne unit are two totally different things. Plenty of people go to school and serve in leg units. However, enlisting with a pathway that includes (or greatly increases the chance of attending) jump school will significantly improve the probability he ends up in an airborne unit.
If he is really interested in Airborne, there are several MOS that require you to be on jump status. That will ensure that he get Jumps school and gets on Status.
To get him ASVAB ready, get a couple prep books and go from there. He wants a competitive GT score and needs to do ok across the different topics. In the Navy IS required a pretty hight GT.
Lotta jobs are available that are airborne slots. Just make sure he gets jump school in his contract, so they don’t try to screw him out of it after AIT/OSUT.
Disagree. Serving in the woke forces with DEI policies will make it even riskier for him. Frankly, this country isnt worth putting on the uniform when the real battle is here on our border and a large portion of the country is encouraging our takeover.
I somehow ended up on an Air Force FB page. Man I thought us Marines had issues but those guys are miserable. It really is like a corporation with low pay and low standards. Sure their rooms and food might be better but I really get the impression most of them hate it. I know we all have leadership issues regardless of branch but it sounds like the AF is a whole other level. I also live near a AF base and some of the story’s I hear from personal is sad. The funniest/sadest is when a neighbor had to pickup an airman on his way to work for months because the guy had a dui and couldn’t drive. I asked why this single airman was still allowed to live off base and got no good answer. That dude in the Corps would have been in the barracks quickly. Basically I don’t get a warm fuzzy about the AF.
His ASVAB will determine what he qualifies to do, as you know being a Navy Vet.
Myself being a Navy Vet, would advise him to wait and see how things play out in 2024 before committing to serve under an administration such as the one we presently are enduring. I was lucky to have been in during the Reagan administration which was wonderful from a policy perspective.
Your instincts are right, being at Sea isn’t an adventure…my oldest daughter was only a few months old when I went on a long deployment and I didn’t have any contact for 6 months. Most Air Force jobs are more like “Normal” jobs.
I don’t have the answer to your question regarding the Army, but anything above 85-ish used to qualify for pretty much anything the Navy offered.
There are some jobs in both the Navy and the Air Force that would afford him the opportunity to jump out of airplanes. I doubt you need a particularly high ASVAB to qualify for jumping out of planes. (No offense to anyone on here who jumps or jumped out of airplanes intended.) There are a variety of rates, including BM’s in the Navy’s most elite combat units.
Score high enough and he’ll have his pick of jobs in whichever branch he chooses. He is very likely already ahead of his competition from being home schooled.
Whether or not to join or not should be on him, and on what he wants to do. I am neither encouraging it nor discouraging it. Not too many civilian jobs get to jump out of planes, do SOF work, work on fighters, travel of the government dime, or name-your-reason-here.
The first goal is the ASVAB. If he scores high enough, he can pick jut about anything. I scored pretty well, I could get anything I wanted, but the only reason I did so well was because I had some prep books to hep with the math and mechanical stuff. I believe it’s written at the 11th grade level.
While I have been adamant about sharing that my perspective on the “woke Army” has not been anywhere near what all the randos on forums and social media say, I do think extra pause is prudent when considering joining right now. The last few months have been particularly spicy and even with the recent strikes in Yemen, I’m not sure anyone is scared of us right now. That’s a dangerous and concerning precedent. Waiting for the election to pan out isn’t the worst idea.
Not knowing anything about your kid or his level of intelligence, I think the first step is to study like mad and maximize the ASVAB score. Rock that and he can pretty much do anything he wants.
I also agree on maybe holding back and seeing how things play out in 2024…
Don’t get the cart ahead of the horse. Prep for the ASVAB and if he scores well take the tour of the recruiting offices. Could be they offer up some gem gigs he hasn’t even thought of. High speed grunt shit is fun and all, but there are a lot of opportunities out there. It’s his future and his choice, just sayin.
Also, have him take a thorough physical to be sure there are no surprises later. Even if your kid is a jock, hit the PT with purpose. It’s a sellers market for warm bodies right now but the better he looks mentally and physically, the better his options will be.
Thanks, guys. You’ve given me a lot to go over with him (and more than a few acronyms to look up).
He doesn’t know what he wants to do for a job, but since Grant was a Cryptologist and I was an Intelligence Specialist, we are recommending intel.
We’re hitting the ASVAB study hard now that he is 4 months from turning 18. I’ve actually been giving my boys ASVAB tests while they were doing ACT training all through high school, just in case military was the way they wanted to go.
GTF already mentioned 75th RR’s intel unit, which they recently expanded IIRC, but each SF Group also has an intel company. Either of those make it a lot easier to get behind the JSOC curtain too.
I meant to clarify it’s not because of the woke rumors, if that wasn’t clear. It is because tensions and associated offensive actions throughout the world seem to be spiking and I’m starting to wonder if we’re on a path to WWIII that likely won’t be corrected in time. I hope not, but the more I look at current events (open source only), the more pessimistic I get.
My two cents- if he joins the Army, then do whatever Army job he wants. I was fortunate to have received training and combat experience that I will never replicate in the civilian world, and the work ethic, discipline, and interpersonal skills I gained translated into a relatively successful post-ETS career in something that is literally the polar opposite of my MOS.
There’s a lot of solid guys in this thread that are great resources for your son. If he has any interest in combat arms, feel free to shoot me a PM and I’ll be happy to be candid about what he can expect.