Pros
- Opportunity to serve and help protect the best, most compassionate and giving country in the world. - Paid college tuition while on active duty. - Medical and dental benefits, 30 days annual vacation after the first year. - Challenging work environments. - Some good career fields/jobs if you are lucky enough to get them. - Ability for advancement and to learn new skills. - Travel opportunities.
Cons
- Force Shaping (downsizing) is crushing the workforce. Those remaining do their jobs, the jobs of deleted career fields and the workload of those who were downsized. The workload has greatly increased for the much fewer that remain. - Poor work/family balance, long hours including weekends, holidays, duties away from home and deployments make it hard on family and personal life. - Physical Training (PT) and assessment requirements are more difficult to maintain for some career fields than others which affects your health, performance reports, promotion and retention ability . (Some career fields afford their people the ability to incorporate PT into their duty shift and some do not. Those who are not afforded that ability routinely work 12 hour plus shifts and must do PT on their own time.)