Quote Originally Posted by Schmedlap View Post
Definitely agree there. I don't know anyone who decided to join ROTC while in college. It was a decision made concurrently - or before - the decision of which college to attend. College seems like a bit late in the game to be reaching the demographic.

If individuals are not drawn to military service, I think it tends to be so for reasons that have more to do with interests, values, and attitudes developed during their first 18 years of life and not likely to be influenced by on-campus recruiting.
oh, ROTC may not be the primary mechanism by which to reach this demographic (though if there was a serious CUNY ROTC program you might be surprised)...my post that started all this was just stating that Army culture in general is an issue. The fact that posters here don't think that both command influence and peer pressure relating to religion and politics isn't an issue in the Army simply shows that you're too used to it and see it as ordinary (I hear and statements which cross the line all the time, from LTs up to three stars).

BTW, I agree that the Army does a good job advertising its leave policies. It's effective propaganda. Too bad it's pretty misleading. Since weekend days count toward the 30 days of leave we're really just talking about 3 weeks of vacation. No different from other jobs. On the other hand, many units do get a fair amount of three and four day weekends in a garrison environment. But then plenty of private sector jobs are on a four day work week or offer the opportunity to work from home part of the time.
Then throw in the hassle that is involved in actually traveling somewhere (redundant, pro forma safety briefings, POV inspections and having to plan everything way in advance) and I can't say that military vacation policies are actually better than the civilian sector. It's worth it for other reasons, not the vacations.