Uhh, can't you get your degree while remaining in the military? Is their any way for you to go from enlisted to officer? If not I'd say ditch the military, go to private sector, but if you can become an engineer in the military and do that another 13 years and retire with pension I'd do that.
My brother went to college on his own dime but couldn't get a job he wanted after (it was 2008-2009, recession) so he joined the air force as an officer. A couple years in he got approval to pursue his masters degree and he worked while getting it, but the workload is light. Now he's on some r&d project. His degrees are in computer engineering. Now his trying to get approval to get a phd lol. Before all his perks his pay is pretty low especially considering his degrees, he probably makes about 30% less than he would in private sector, but he gets housing allowance TAX FREE, doesn't pay any social security/fica taxes or state income tax, so in the end I think he might actually make more after taxes than I do, and I'm 12 years of writing software. His base pay is like 65k but he gets about 2k a month tax free. It's pretty fucking dope tbh. The only downside is the travel (he has moved from florida to ohio 2 years in each, plus had to do officer traning a couple months out of state and a project for like 4 months in north carolina) and no flexibility on vacation and hours (you have to use leave for everything, can't just go in late when you feel like it), but his job is pretty cushy. He's coming up on the same thing and I think he's going to stay for his 20. After that if you get security clearances and military contacts you can go private sector for HUGE money cus it's very hard for a private citizen to get those clearances and companies pay a lot of fees for that stuff, or just go private and hire back into the military as a contractor for like double the pay.
However if you are enlisted in the army it's probably totally different. For one enlisted vs officer, and second air force vs army. Air force has all the cool r&d jobs and like never gets deployed.
Also where do you live? If you're in a sweet tech town like austin or something that also affects my advice.
if you don't enjoy military and it's caused you so much stress over the years i really can't see why you would stay there instead of pursuing something you love doing - engineering. especially when talking about such a large timeframe as 13 years i definitely would spend more time pursuing my interests than doing something i don't enjoy at all.
good luck in whatever you choose on doing man, it's your life and only you can decide how to live it
i think that you'll make lots of money regardless if you choose to be in army or an engineer
so i'd choose based on what i like to do more
Did they do some butt stuff to you in army?
If they did, leave it when you can and go to a psychologist
also what does your wife do? she may not be able to relocate so easily as you, take a paycut or be on hiatus for a while if army moves you.
play dota - if you win, play military, if you lose, go engineering kappa
Well I am going to check out reserves next week I got an appointment but my wife doesn't want me to do reserves either cuz she works weekends , she's a registered nurse btw so she can relocate just about anywhere but every time we move she'll get a pay cut at first . Officers make some good money if your brother making 60k before benefits he's probs bringing in close to 100k in benefits. Reason I am considering reserves is I think it would make it Easyier to come back as officer . I can go to school while in military but I am not confident in doing engineering while working over 50 hours a week and going non stop while at work to boot , I could def do an Easyier bachelors though . Currently I have my associates . My wife says to get my engineering cuz she says with how long I have been wanting to do it I'll regret it . If I get out without going reserves the big question would be whether to collect disability or not becuase I have a lot of service related injuries and if I collected on them I probably wouldn't be able to come back as an officer . Currently I am thinking I'll just collect on the disability and not come back in . We'll see I got a few appointments in the next two weeks to look at more options .
*sigh* I should've married a career woman. I made like 50% more than all my friends and they still have bigger houses and cars than me cus my wife can't do shit lol. Well she takes care of our kids, which is pretty nice xD
regarding my brother, it's kind of weird but I think it's because they are government funded or maybe just cus they want to recruit, you can look up any service member's base base. He's a captain, 7 years in, 66,488 base. But he's married, pretty sure he gets 2k housing allowance a month, plus the tax benefits which are hard to quantify. Oh and when he went to carolina he got deployment pay if you can believe that, it's a stateside deployment in a suburb lol
Update , so if I time it right I will get 50 thousand dollar bonus but it could easily get messed up and I'll get 33 thousand instead . Big kicker I find out was engineers got to be an intern for 4 years getting crappy pay before they are licensed . So I will be taking a large pay cut for basically 7 years.
I hit the button to get out , figured I could take the short term pay cut for happiness plus by the time I retire my son will be 20 and I don't wanna be miserable during the remaining night years I have with him still living with me I'd rather have the time to take him to sports activities and do what I enjoy . Was toughest decision of my life so far because up until now I have had no choices big choices since got girl friend wife now pregnant at a kinda young age . I am going to check out the reserves now though might do that so I can get some benefits and still get retirement OO.
I feel that if you pursue military that would be the worst decision of your life.
Weigh your options again. You're obviously not considering a lot of stuff like personal interests, family time vs income, etc.
I did choose to get out^. I am only considering reserves at this point and I don't really consider reserves being in since it's only 34 days a year .
until trump gets elected and starts wars with russia and china and they call you up
or hillary gets elected and lets isis grow more lol you're screwed either way
I wouldn't feel that bad about the retirement though, you build social security credits so quickly you will still max easily and you've not been paying fica taxes for the past 7 years so that's like free money.
Dude if I were Trump waging a war against Russia or China would be on the very last of the things I can do to deliver America into economic suicide
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So I have a very tough decision I have to make soon on whether to get out of military and finish engineering degree or to reenlist and take bonus and do 20 years for retirement . I have done 7 years active duty , the first 5 years sucked very bad and I was extremely stressed . The past two years I have not been very stressed but I have been planning on getting out for the past 4 years although I finally erased the stuff from being screwed over for the first 5 years and made rank a few weeks ago . Now with bonus being offered and new rank I will make about 70,000 per year for the next 5 years until bonus drops and by then I should make next rank keeping my pay at around 70,000. Majority of my career my wife went to school and didn't work but she currently makes 60,000 per year . So if I stay in total income will be about 130,000 but I will do a job I don't like however I am not getting screwed over every day and harrassed any more plus made new rank but can do 13 more years to retire getting about 35,000 dollars per year in benefits for the rest of my life . On the flip side I could finish engineering degree in 3 years getting payed 20,000 per year to go to school full time adding to my wife's 60,000 for a total of 80,000 income for those three years. After getting degree I'll likely start around 70,000 before moving up over time to maybe 90,000 but I have always wanted to do engineering . At the time of my retirement from military in 13 years I'll likely have about the same amount of money earned in my life to be about the same either way however with one I'll get that 35,000 for the rest of my life but won't have a useful degree on the other hand I won't get the retirement but will have worked 10 years in my career of choice . I think it should be smooth sailing to finish 13 moreyears in the military however I don't think I'll enjoy my job but I'll get retirement pay plus next three years a lot more income then other option or I can follow my dreams and get out . Btw just bought a new house in this city and the wife won't let me rent it out if military moves me so I'll have to sell it losing a lot of money on the house if I stay in . This is the totally wrong place to post this so not expecting much useful replies however I am currently talking to everyone I can bout this and getting tons of different opinions .