You're In The Army Now

(Warning: the following is merely an anecdotal story and in no way is it trying to imply any broader claims or draw any general conclusions. I just found it interesting.)

Yesterday, I was talking with a woman whose son had recently graduated from high school and joined the Army. He went off to basic training last week and his departure was rather abrupt and unplanned due to a foul up with the military bureaucracy (imagine that). I asked her what he was going to do after basic when he went to advanced training.

She explained that his initial choice was infantry, which obviously wasn't her preference. But he was unable to get in, because the infantry allotments were already full. Apparently--at least in this training cycle--our volunteer Army has no lack of soldiers who are choosing to be ground-pounders. As I said, interesting.

Her son's second choice was to be a tanker, but since he wears glasses he was not eligible to do that. Again, more relief for mom. Since he had done quite well on a test of his knowledge of electronics, he was offered an opportunity to train to be a technician on a Patriot missile battery. This means that he will spend six months in school after basic before being assigned to duty in Germany. And he was able to double his signing bonus. Mom couldn't have been more pleased.