5 Mistakes People Make When Joining The Military

what's up guys and welcome back to the channel if you're new consider subscribing today we're gonna be talking about five mistakes that people make when joining the military and I'm really excited because one of these tips is my all-time favorite thing to tell people about what they should do when they join the military alright guys if you are joining the military really soon or you want to in the next year to three years maybe five years from now this information is still gonna be relevant for you even if it's way out in the future and it's even more relevant if you're joining the military this week so I'm glad that you're watching this because this video should be able to help you a lot and again one of these tips is going to be my all-time favorite advice that I give to people to join the military so stay tuned for the rest of the video so you make sure you don't miss it now a really common mistake that most people make when joining the military and that's why I'm starting it off as the first mistake that people make is expecting to do 20 years when they join the military you guys might think well no I am doing 20 years or I want to do 20 years and I'm just gonna I'm gonna gently ask you to please reconsider not saying that you're gonna go well then I'm only gonna do one enlistment I'm not asking you to do that either what I'm asking is for you to have an open mind and take your first enlistment as your first enlistment don't worry about your second third or fourth enlistment and trying to run up those 20 years in your first year because you're gonna have plenty of experiences you're gonna have plenty of time to fully decide if the military is even for you and I'm sorry if I offend some people but it's not the smartest thing to go into the military expecting to do 20 years before you've even served in the military now I'm not just gonna sit here and bash your hopes and dreams without giving you some statistics to prove my point now when you go to basic training not only you but 90% of the people that you are gonna be with at basic training are going to say I am in this for the long haul I'm doing 20 years I'm gonna stick it out I'm gonna get my retirement everyone nearly everyone in your basic training flight now I'm referring to basic training because I was in the Air Force but if you're in any other military branch this goes pretty much the exact same thing the real-life statistics of this are around 18% of people that joined the Air Force do 20 years it's even less for the other branches like the Navy the Army and the Coast Guard and the Marines so when it comes to joining the military it's around 15% on average of all the branches of people that join actually do 20 and a lot of people make that mistake of thinking they're doing 20 before they've even set foot into the military and personally I believe that this can hurt your career because when you come in you're so focused on the long term that you aren't living in the moment to understand what is going on because you're just so focused on that end result it can be extremely beneficial if you just take things 1 enlistment at a time there have been so many people that have joined the military that say that they are gonna get out after their first four six years and they end up Rhian listing because they truly love it so by saying you're just gonna come in and take it one unless man at a time does not mean that you aren't doing 20 so really to sum up this mistake that people make it all comes down to keeping an open mind don't come in and expect one thing or the other if you're joining the military the best thing that you can do is take things one week at a time one month one year at a time don't worry about 20 years when you first join and you tack on a little mistake that people make with this one is also because they plan on doing 20 years they stop trying to set themselves up in case they don't do 20 years so then it becomes well I don't want to do 20 years but I don't have another option so I have to don't be that person that doesn't set your life up regardless of what you're gonna do stay in get out make sure your building skills make sure you're improving make sure you're building a work ethic that is going to be successful regardless whether you stand for 20 or you get out after 4 the next mistake that I see people make when they join the military is they think that the military is just like the commercials on TV now I was in the Air Force right and one of these things would be that people think everybody flies now I know a lot of people once they start to research the military they start to understand that there's all these different jobs do not think that your job is going to be like the Air Force commercial for your job I highly suggest that you do your research find a real airman or a real soldier or somebody that has your job and talk with them or either watch their videos get to understand what it's really going to be like because a lot of people think that the military you have this amazing amount of camaraderie with everybody you just having the time of your life but you're working really hard you're defending your country and to be quite honest the military is similar to just a regular job you're going to show up every day and you're gonna work your job and you're gonna go home and then you do whatever you want in your free time now there are some limitations all beginning into that with one of the next mistakes that I talk about the military pays hundreds of thousands millions of dollars every year for advertisements commercials to convince people to join but the best thing that I can compare this to would be Disneyland for instance when you see a commercial for Disneyland it shows you how amazing the experience is going to be it's gonna be magical you're gonna go and you're gonna have the time of your life but have any of you ever gone to an amusement park and you spend two three four hours waiting in line for one ride that is not what the commercial showed the commercial did not show anybody waiting in line for all day to ride one ride so that is what you have to keep in mind is the commercials aren't showing all the things that are gonna happen in your day they are literally showing the best case scenarios and to be honest those best-case scenarios are almost never gonna happen they're only doing that by showing you the very very very very very very very very very best things of that they're not showing you all this stuff because it would make you realize how normal it is their goal is to convince you that it is magical so you go and then you'll find out when you're there that is why I say no last steak have an open mind because commercials are not what its gonna be like at all I highly suggest you do your research on YouTube if you're watching this video it's a good thing means you're doing your research means you're doing the right thing to set your life up making sure you're putting yourself on track and you're not set up or failure another mistake that I see people making is not taking rules seriously there's so many simple things that people get in trouble for all the time because they think they can get away with it such as underage drinking breaking curfew and even not following your job correctly there's a lot of job directives or in maintenance we had technical orders which was how we did our job and a lot of people don't take it serious but if something happens you are legally responsible for your repairs that you do so if you do a repair which results in somebody dying you can actually go to prison for killing somebody people don't take it serious I don't know why but that's why it's making it into this video and you also might be wondering curfews what yes overseas you might have curfews in Korea and Japan currently they have curfews when I was there in Japan in 2013 until 2016 we had a curfew the whole time when I first got there curfew was midnight you had to be back on base before midnight you could get in a lot of trouble you could lose rank you could lose pay you could have all these issues that could happen because you didn't follow a rule that you might have even thought was stupid but it doesn't matter because in the military rules are rules they need to be followed don't take them as a joke especially underage drinking that is one of the easiest ways to get kicked out of military well that and DUIs and you might think common sense don't drink and drive especially on to a military base but you would be surprised to know how many people actually get stopped at the gate coming on to base driving a vehicle after they'd been drinking but even if you get pulled over off base you're still gonna be responsible and that's gonna be my next mistake that people make my next mistake is people not understanding that the military controls everything that you literally they own you now something that I had commented on when I started this video was I've had a lot of statements not questions but statements towards me saying they can't do that what happened to freedom of speech freedom of speech means that you can say whatever you want to say but everyone else can do the same thing a company has the freedom to not serve you if they don't want to you can walk into a restaurant and say fu fu fu fu and they could say sir I'm gonna ask you to leave oh so I'm gonna call the cops and you can't say I got freedom of speech I could say after you to whoever I want they can go and we reserve the right to not serve you well when you join the military you swear an oath to be a part of the military under contract the entire time it's not like I swear to only be an airman during this hour in this hour of these days no you're literally saying for the next six years you own me you don't say that exactly but like that's what you're doing you're saying I will follow the orders of the officers appointed over me well guess what the officers appointed over you all the way to running the military there's all these rules that they have appointed as laws while you're in the military and a lot of people don't think that the military can control you or own you but they do another thing that people don't realize is the military can control when you travel and where you travel now a lot of people that are used to not being in the military like people joining well in the military every time you go on vacation or you leave the general area that your base is that you actually have to one have approval and also let people know where you're going and what you're going to be doing because the military likes to keep tabs on people and knowing that they're not doing anything illegal knowing where they are in case we get a recall and also knowing where they are because the military is paying for our health care and everything and they're taking care of us health-wise so people need to know we go and get injured that we can still get taken care of and everything so there's all these things that go into it with the military they control where you go and when you go you might want to go on vacation during Christmas but a lot of people do so what's going to happen is your shop might say hey like three people can go on and all three spots are filled oh but I want to go sorry we could only afford three people to be gone during Christmas and you didn't sign up soon enough so all of a sudden you don't get to go home and spend time with your family because you have to be present because our mission is 24/7 it's always going so you have to understand that you are limited to when you can take vacation time so a lot of shops for instance my shop when I was in the most people we would allow to have leave at one time was two so if you were like hey I want to take these three weeks to go home but there was already two people during that portion and there like one person during the other they might be like well you don't get those three weeks but we can give you this week and a half and you're like no but I want to be home for that and they're like weird you have two people going it doesn't matter even though it's not a holiday it's not anything crazy the military needs to balance when they have people there and when they have people on vacation especially if you want to travel overseas you have to do a lot more work to travel overseas and people think there's like one or two websites that you have to go to to get approval depending on the country and then you also have to go get a security briefing you got to do all this extra stuff just to go on vacation overseas for instance living in the dorms if you had just joined in you're 30-some years old they're going to be doing dorm checks regardless whether you're an adult or not that's kind of their responsibility they need to make sure that one you're taking care of the dorm - you're taking care of the dorm so other people don't suffer from like cockroaches nasty mold all sorts of stuff now believe me you would think how old people in the military like cockroaches be in the room all this stuff the amount of people that fail room inspections because they have literal boxes of pizza sitting in their room happy just sitting on the floor things will get into your dorms and people are lazy I know it might be surprising like there's no way how can you go to basic training get to your first base be in the military have your job and be that lazy and disgusting well people are it blows my mind I do not get it two other things that I want to talk about with this same mistake about people not understanding if the military controls them is double jeopardy is a thing now in the United States in the legal system double jeopardy is not allowed but in the military it's a whole new ballgame double jeopardy in this instance means if you get a DUI off-base not only are you going to get a ticket from the state and lose your license from the state but the military base well also restrict your driving privileges so if you get caught stealing or doing something off-base the military's gonna double up on that punishment not only are you gonna possibly go to jail and get fined by the state but the military is gonna go okay well we're gonna withhold your pay for a month they might even deduct your rank they might put you on special duty they might restrict you to base those are all things that are very very plausible if you get a DUI off-base but getting a DUI on base would result in you losing your driving privileges for six months to a year on base but they still let you have your driver's license so you'd actually be able to drive home or have somebody pick you up so it still becomes a big pain but it's not as bad as getting in trouble off base but again if you just understand that you need to follow the rules not make mistakes you're gonna be fine all right guys this is my personal favorite thing that I tell people when joining the military because this is one of the biggest mistakes that people make when they join the military he goes down to your TSP now your TSP is your thrift savings plan this is your 401k of the military now I know some people might be like I don't want to save money that I can use when I'm 65 I just want to spend my money now I want to live while I'm young okay you can do both I promise you can do both but you do have to make some sacrifices now your TSP is like it's huge it is literally one of the biggest advantages of being the military there are not many companies that offer a 401k as good as the military now the military when you join you can opt into the TSP anybody joining after this video has been posted as of January 1st of 2018 you are going to be automatically set into the blended retirement system this is called the BRS this is the new retirement system and a lot of people didn't like it but that's because they're stupid I didn't really mean that but I kind of do same time a lot of people didn't like it because when you retire you're gonna make a little bit less like $100 less a month every month for the rest of your life remember what I said about people retiring it's only like 18 percent in the airforce means it's even less than the other branches so unless you're in that 15 percent of people that actually do 20 years the older retirement system was garbage the new retirement system actually benefits 100% of the people that join 100% the other retirement system only benefited 15% of the military there's a reason why I said people are stupid if they think the new retirement system sucks now with the new retirement system when you join I highly suggest that you just get used to putting 5% of your base pay right into it just throw it at it don't worry about it act like it never existed and just like the TSP grow now the best part about this is after that one or two year mark the military will start to match your 5% if your 5% of your base pay equals a hundred dollars and that's what you're taking out of your paycheck every single month to throw in your TSP the military will be like oh we'll just give you an extra hundred dollars for your TSP as well they're literally giving you free money they did not do this when I first joined because the old Retirement System and it sucked their new retirement system is the coolest thing in the world and that is why it is my favorite thing to talk about like I get so hype about it because I wish I could go back and be like yo why wasn't this started when I joined in 2013 cuz I would have been on that bandwagon ASAP now why this is so important is because it's allowing you to grow a retirement fund that is way bigger way bigger then the old Retirement System ever would have allowed you to it is very very rare for companies to do that some companies will say we will give you an additional 5% of what you're giving so if you were giving a hundred dollars every month some companies would be like we'll give you an extra five every month which turns out to be $60 a year which with interest over 40 years could be a ridiculous amount of money but think about $100 a month extra with interest growing over 40 years yeah we're talking $1200 a year extra money sometimes more than that I think what I got out of the Air Force is an e5 they were putting an additional like 160 or 180 dollars into my TSP every month when I got out because January 1st of 2018 you know what I did I caught it and I opted into the new BRS even though I was getting out for a year I got an extra almost $200 a month put into my TSP almost $2,400 over a year but in my TSP that's gonna grow on interest until I'm 65 that's insane that is literally the coolest thing ever now I actually wrote an e-book on six other ways on top of your TSP and in that book I actually talked about the way is that I think you should maximize your TSP so if you guys are interested in the e-book I'll leave a link down below but I highly highly highly suggest it because it literally is it's what I'm most passionate about that's why I saved this for last because I like to talk about it a lot saving money and building your futures like the best thing ever like literally look at this YouTube channel I got made fun of I had 20 subscribers 26 subscribers or I left for basic training 160,000 right now right like build stuff for your future just because it's not big right now doesn't mean six years from now 20 years from now 40 years from now it's not gonna be freaking massive what the coolest thing about life is is that if you set yourself up you can be successful now back to what I was saying about when I was in the military I was getting around 2,000 extra dollars a year put into my TSP now imagine doing ten years in the military that's an extra twenty thousand dollars thrown into your TSP and even if you choose not to re-enlist after ten years and you just bounce you can still have time if you join at 18 you'll be 28 at 10 years and if you choose to get out you could have like $100,000 sitting in your TSP after those 10 years with interest and everything that you would put in the military match interest grew on it and then like the closer you were to getting out they were matching like 200 plus dollars a month just giving it to you for free if you just let it sit there after 10 years you could have over $700,000 by the time you reach 65 just for doing 10 years in the military and I'm like why would you not do that well the reason it's in this video is because people literally don't do that they make that mistake I'm not investing their TSP guess who was one of those people this guy I actually didn't start investing in the TSP until 2016 because it was stupid because I thought why would I want to save money for my future why would I want to put money away from my future but then 2015 into 2016 a lot of things changed I met a lot of good people I met somebody that sat me down and was like you need to do this once I started doing it I realized how freakin awesome it is and I regret it every single day that I didn't do it earlier because I could have had so much more money in my retirement fund now I'm literally gonna have like a hundred and some thousand dollars because I only invested for like two years but if I would have done it all six years of my career I could have like four hundred thousand dollars versus a hundred thousand and I'm like why why would I make that mistake well I made that mistake and that's why I'm making these videos and that's why I wrote that ebook is because I walk you through a lot of the things that I did in my life and the things that I did right I share it with you and the things that I did wrong I share it with you so you can not only learn from my mistakes but you can be better than me so I hope you guys appreciate the video if you did be sure to drop a thumbs up also leave in the comments section this emoji right here so I know that you watch this all the way through also if you don't follow me on my social media all the links are in the description as well keep up with me on there and I hope to see you guys in my next video peace out

Channel: Airman Vision

Views: 736,586

Keywords: Kyle Gott, Kyle, Gott, Air Force, vet, Veteran, USAF, US Air Force, military youtuber, military vlog, military, airman, air force youtuber, mistakes made in the military, military mistakes, joining the military, join the military, join the air force, joining the air force, joining the army, joining the navy, navy, army, marines, joining the marines, coast guard, army tips, marine tips, navy tips, marine advice, navy advice, army advice, air force advice, boot camp, basic training

Id: 8Tzgn2xvBoE

Length: 19min 20sec (1160 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 17 2019