And let’s not forget that it affects the friends your wife and kids have, the places they live, the memories they have and the choices they may make.
It is hard to have a 17 yr old fathom any of that.
For many they see they can do a 5 and dive, but they have yet to realize that reality rarely meets theory. They have yet to understand how the commitment process of schools/training, promotions, PCS and TA will take them to 5 and dive to 20 and out.
Right now their concern is believing any SA will make them happy without thinking about the long term result which is AD for yrs. Sitting in a tank, on a boat, in a cockpit or desk sounds fine and dandy, the branch does not matter, it is all the same to them since they have yet to live the life. Flying a helo is flying a helo, plain and simple, because it is all about flying the helo, they are targeted on that one fact, not the fact that flying a helo in the CG or Navy is not the same as the Army. Same with being an Intel officer or a Med. officer.
Getting the 48 hr notice of 120 day +/- to the other side of the world is not on their radar. Everyone of us can tell them it happens, but it will fall on deaf ears. Kind of like them believing texting while driving kills. Yep, it does, but just not them.
It really needs to be stressed to any candidate asking for a nom, that the service be #1, not the nom. There are MOC's that spread the wealth, which means if they put every SA on their list for the pure reason of asking, they could land up with getting one and only one nom to the SA they don't want. Our DS asked for only one SA, he got all 3 MOCs for that one SA. Our friends son asked for 3 SA's and he got one nom to the SA he didn't want.
The state you reside in should play into the preference ranking. Come from a state that is highly competitive (VA, NY, CO, CA, etc) and you can find yourself serving in a branch that you never wanted just because you flipped a coin.
The nom process is important, but you need to see the big picture because it will be 9 yrs of your life AT LEAST. Like TPG just stated, it impacts your life, but it is also impacts everyone that touches your life too. Being married is not in your mind right now, nor are children, but once you learn how the commitment issue works it will be. I.E. PCS voluntarily and you owe 3 yrs. Accept a promotion, and you owe 3 yrs. Accept TA and you owe 3 yrs. Now try to get all of those 3 commitments to work simultaneously. Take a bonus or a specialty training and it is even harder! Bullet could not retire at 20 because he was forced to decide between a remote or a PCS. He chose the PCS and that meant he had to stay until 21. In the 21 yrs Bullet was AD, I never met anyone who was able to leave the day their original commitment was up. Granted in the flying world the commitment is longer, but I still didn't meet anyone who could bail 8 yrs to the day they graduated UPT, most bailed at the O4 point, which can range from 10-11 yrs....or in other words 32-33 yrs old, way longer than what they thought when they asked for a nom. NOT saying you can't bail out 5, just saying you need to understand that it might not happen.
I get to decide if I wish to shave or not
It is so funny how many of our friends (Bullet included) decided to sport the soul patch after they retired. I guess it was 20 yrs of being forced to shave.