Tough one with no good answer.If you are going to convince your parents you need to be able to clearly articulate why you want to go into the Army (or any of the other services- since I spent 20 years as an Army officer and my wife has spent almost 30 years as one I tend to use Army as a generic for the military).
From my own experience i can offer a few things to think about- all of which I have discussed with my own kids. Why did I go into the Army, why is my wife still in the Army and why is my son going to VMI and then into the Army? Combination of a number of factors:
1. It's important. Every day there are young soldiers who are putting their lives on the line for the principal that there are things more important than their own comfort. Those soldiers need leaders who are disciplined, thoughtful, honest , selfless and competent.
2. Military officers learn to be leaders and managers and they learn that leadership is not just an exercise in making decisions, but in weighing the consequences and making hard decisions for which they are willing to pay the price if those decisions have a cost. Leadership and service aren't just words without actions or personal consequences. Although the perception is that Military leaders are like the Sergeant in Beetle Bailey- you learn that leadership is best exercised by convincing your people of what needs to happen and then empowering them to make the decisions themselves. Additionally you learn that there are times when you absolutely must accomplish the mission even at a high cost to yourself. This is a trait that makes you really stand out compared to a lot of your civilian counterparts who don't really understand what "giving it everything they have got" means.
3. Much more than any other organization- although it never seems to get credited for this- the Army understands that the world is not one dimensional. The Army spends a great deal of time learning about the dynamics of other cultures- Wars are not won just by force- the Army learns that you have to understand the causes and bring resources to bear to help resolve those causes. I knew far more about Far Eastern and the Middle Eastern cultures and institutions than any of my counterparts in either the business world or even the State Department people who I occasionally worked with.
4. It's exciting and it's an adventure. As an Infantry Officer- this was a physically challenging job. While my peers were standing around growing chubby sitting at their desk- I was leading 18- 25 year old paratroopers around the world. I loved the challenge, I loved the cameraderie and I thought that the Army was good to me in return. I have worked for a large multinational manufacturing company since I retired, and I don't think that they care nearly as much about their employees as the Army did about its soldiers.
The downside of the Army is that you can be sent away for long periods of time from your family- and it can obviously be dangerous. Personally I thought that that the tradeoff was definitely worth it.
Going to a Service Academy (or a school like VMI) teaches you many of the things above plus some other academic plusses- very small classes and a faculty totally focused on teaching (no graduate teaching assistants teaching courses there while the professors concentrate on their own research); you absolutely learn that honesty is nonegotiable; and surprisingly have a great social life if totally different from the social life experienced by other college students. At VMI we had a real feeling of unity among my "brother rats" and we quickly learned to have a lot of fun within the system and skirting the edges of it (and paying the price if you got caught doing so!) -I would do anything for my friends from VMI- even 30 years later.
So that is my experience- I think the key to your issue with your parents will be: you have to decide why the military would be important to you and then be able to articulate this to your Parents enough to convince them that you have given this a lot of reasoned thought. You may find that even if they don't agree with you, they respect your opinion. Parents often suspect that their kids are jumping on an option that looks "cool" without knowing much about it, so generally the task for a kid is to convince them that they have thought about this a lot and understand the long term issues involved in a course of action. If you can do that- your parents should respect your wishes when the time comes.
My parents are against the idea of me going into the military. I want to go to a service academy, and I was accepted to West Point's SLS, but my mom didn't want me to go, so I had to decline it (I'm only seventeen, and as a minor, there's nothing I could do). I've tried to seriously talk to them multiple times about it, about how the academies are some of the best institutions around, about the honor of defending your country, and about how I know that this is my calling...but they just will not budge.
However, I figured that once I turn eighteen in November, they can't technically stop me from going, right? That is, if I get accepted somewhere. Then, hopefully, they might slowly support my pursuit, right? I know that in a sense, it isn't right, with disobeying my parents and all, but I don't know how to bring them around. I've always done what they've told me but this time, it's about my future.
The biggest thing I'm anxious about is not the application process, but getting my parents to support me. I would be so much more at ease if I had my parents behind me, instead of me always trying to get to military-related mail before they get to them and throw them away or trying to secretly mail nomination requests when they're not home.
How can I get them to support me? Any suggestions would be great.
Thanks,
Jennifer
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