I frequently get emails from people who are curious about enlisting in the military. While I will never claim to be an expert on all aspects of our armed forces, I did spend some time in and have no problem sharing what I do know about.

I left active duty in early 2001 and I was only in PSYOP. I will answer every question to the best of my abilities, but it has been a while and my experience was limited to only one area. Please take that into account when reading my responses and feel free to pipe in if you have any specific knowledge that you think will be helpful.

Man, the Army should so be paying me for this.
For the first question we have two very similar ones, so I’ll just put them both on here.

Bryan writes:
“So would Skippy recommend the army to those that find his experiences humorous?”

While Jordan writes:
“…I’m going to be shipped to get my G.E.D. (I’ve had a rough history) then I’ll be off to basics.
Any pointers to have everyone there in stitches?”

Well, I think my site has demonstrated that you can join the military and still keep a sense of humor. As to whether I would recommend the Army, it depends on what you are hoping to get out of the military. If you think that it will be 4 to 8 years of non-stop comedy, then no, you probably won’t like it much. If you’re looking for specific job training, or college assistance, or even just a place to be productive while you figure out what you want to do with you life, then there are worse places to go. If you are looking for adventure or combat, then there are few places that are better.

But as to being funny in basic training, I would try to avoid any serious attempts to keep people in stitches while you are there. Because if you try to be funny, then your Drill Sergeant will probably become inspired by your example. And then he will try to be funny. I promise that you will not appreciate his sense of humor. And Drill Sergeants like to be funny with large groups of recruits at the same time. The resulting bit of improvisational comedy will probably make you very unpopular with your platoon.

Basic sucks, but it’s supposed to. Don’t go out of the way to draw attention or be a smart-ass. (Trust me on this one, this is a case were you very much would rather learn from the mistakes of others.) Just suck it up until it’s over, and save up the comedy for AIT. They love it there.