ASVAB Domination Podcast 01 – Joining at an Older Age

If you’re considering Joining the military late, this episode is made for you. Joining “late” is different for different people, some folks join the military at their mid 30’s while others think joining the military is just for 18 year olds. Whatever your bias is about age the real question is an individual one. If you want to join the military later in life the only person who can stand in your way is you. Don’t let your age be the deciding factor of whether or not you chase your goals. Go out and get what you want!

Personally I joined the Army late in life and I’m happy I did!

As Always,

Be good to yourself, treat yourself as a learner.

If you’re looking to improve your Math Score, check out gamonaltutors.com for the ASVAB Crash Course for the Mathphobic.

This episode discusses joining the Military later in life. If you’re 30 plus and anxious about joining the military (or passing the ASVAB) this episode is for you!

Transcription follows:

 

Mickey Gamonal: What’s up, everybody. My name is Mickey Gamonal. And this is ASVAB Domination Pro. Today, I’m talking to you guys about joining the military at an older age. So I get this question a lot. A lot of people are trying to join the military at later points in life.

And for me, this is very near and dear to my heart. I joined the military at just about 30. And so I was a little bit on the older side. Some folks in my barracks were closer to 35 or even later. So if you’re a little bit on the older side and you’re still considering joining the military, I want to tell you, that’s going to be okay.

The military is still totally fine if you join in your late 20s or mid-30s and even in some cases in your late 30s. My personal story goes a little something like this. I joined because I was about to turn 30. So you could consider this kind of like a quarter-life crisis. I knew that it was an either now or never moment. So I knew that I was going to keep getting older. I had just recovered from an ACL surgery, meaning that my knee was all broken up.

And luckily, I had insurance. So I was able to get the knee replaced. My ACL got a donor in there and recovered and everything like that. And so once the surgery was done, I still had to do like a ton of paperwork. I had to get like this huge stack of papers for my recruiter and I had to come up with 10 years of work history. For someone like me, it’s kind of hard when I spent two years in Morocco doing Peace Corps, and a lot of time, just kind of bouncing around from job to job.

Also, one of the big things was the student loan repayment program. That was one of the reasons that I joined the military is because I had a lot of student loans out on myself. So I ended up joining the military right around 29 to 30 and I’m happy I did. But it’s not super easy to do. It’s something that you have to be pretty serious about doing.

You have to follow up with your recruiter and make sure that all your paperwork’s done. And then, redo all your paperwork a couple of times and there are a lot of hoops to jump through. But if you’re patient with it, and you’re serious about it, it’s something that can change your life.

And I’m happy that I went through basic training. I’m really happy that I went through officer candidate school, and I think it’s made me a better person spending time doing hard things. It just makes me a little bit more stable. So even at 30, 35, or more, there are still things that you can learn from military service. But there are some difficult things as well. One of those is the recruitment process.

There’s just so much history that you have and recruiters kind of struggle with working with older folks. I don’t think recruiters would actively say this but a lot of times you get the feeling that a recruiter would rather work with an eighteen-year-old because they don’t have any history. They’re really easy to do the paperwork for. Maybe they don’t need as many bonuses or, as much different reassurances, they don’t need as much medical paperwork and all that.

So you get a feeling that you’re kind of a pain to get through. At the end of the day, a recruiter is a recruiter. And their job is to recruit. It’s right there in the name. So if you stay focused with them, they will continue to do their jobs and they’ll continue to try and get you into the military. And I had a great recruiter, shoutout to Rodriguez. Anya, she was great. And now, I’m in the military and kind of doing what I want to do.

Drill sergeants can be tough too. Oftentimes your drill sergeants going to be younger than you. And their job is to kind of scare you and put you in your place and tell you what to do. Tell you how to brush your teeth. Tell you how to shave and it can be hard to hear that when you’re older than a drill sergeant. But again, they’re just doing their job too.

So, listen to what everybody has to say, jump through those hoops, just like the kids. And anytime that you’re having a tough time with the drill sergeant because you think they’re kind of going after you because you’re the old man or old woman or whatever and you think they have some sort of like power issue or something, just look at the 18-year-old. They’re going through the same struggle you are but probably worse. And so putting things into perspective, as in like their sky is falling. At least, you know, these months will pass. Kind of helps you to keep it in perspective.

And one thing that I still struggle with sometimes, is the other soldiers are going to be much younger than me, and sometimes they can just be a little bit childish and you don’t have patience for that. I used to be a teacher, Then so I get into this very big teacher mode of teacher ego. Like you have to respect me. You have to respect my name. You have to say things right and do things right. Then, I can get a little bit tense. And so that’s something that I continue to work on.

But being around young kids is like something that makes you young. It helps you to just realize there are new ideas out there. And the world’s not going to hell. Generation Z is not horrible or anything like that. Everybody’s just out there trying to do their best. And so it’s a really good experience for that. If you kind of struggling with the newer generation, spend a little more time with them and you’ll realize that they’re human too.

One of the biggest benefits of joining it at older ages is you’re older and therefore, you’re wiser. And so this may not be true for everybody, but it’s true for me. I’ve gotten a little bit smarter with age. I have gained a little bit of wisdom. I know more now than I used to. But at the same time, the more you learn the less you realize you know. And so it’s given me a little bit more humility, especially as I’ve gotten older.

One of the biggest draws to the military for me was, like I said that’s the student loan repayment program. And then also, I was able to commission. So I have Bachelor’s Degree in Secondary Education focused on Math. And with that bachelor’s degree, I was able to come in two basic training and then go almost directly to OCS. Not quite directly, but yeah, from basic training into OCS, and then finish officer candidate school as a 2nd Lieutenant, which means at that age, I outrank a lot of people who have been in the military for a lot longer than me.

And so getting some respect for my bachelor’s degrees is always like a really big win because oftentimes teachers don’t get a lot of respect. But if you go in as a lieutenant, you’ll find that people talk a lot of trash about the Lieutenants. Like the saying is you can’t spell legit or you can’t spell lost without LT. And I always say you can’t spell legitimate without LT either. But people like to joke about LTs because they
don’t know how to do the job or they haven’t been in the military very long. But a commissioned officer has a lot of responsibility and a pretty good amount of authority.

And a decent amount of respect which is a major plus at least for someone like me. It helped me to kind of make the National Guard a little more worth it. And finally, I think if you’re a little bit older, you’re in a better position to decide whether you want to go to reserves or active. So I did National Guard because I love coaching and tutoring. I don’t want to give up on my ASVAB Coaching Business. I want to keep that kind of the main focus of my life right now, but I still want to do the military thing.

And then for you listening, maybe you have a job that you don’t like. And maybe you’ve had this job for a long time and you feel like you need a big change. Active duty army or navy or whatever is going to be a very big change. Maybe it’ll make you decide that you like the job you hate a little bit less or a little bit more. But at least you won’t feel like you’re doing the same thing anymore. So I’m a big advocate for the kind of flipping your life on its head if you’re not happy with the way your life’s at right now.

So to anyone who’s joining at an older age or has any struggles with joining, I want to tell you, to keep going. You’re going to be a better soldier in a better person for the struggles that you’re going through now. So if things are hard, it means that you’re getting stronger. It means that you’re doing better.

So don’t let those struggles define you. It’s going to be the success over the struggle. It’s going to be your triumph that makes you better. The next struggle is going to be so much easier if you’re struggling now.

I’d also like you if you got something out of this podcast, go ahead and like it. Go ahead and share it. I’m still new. So trying to get more views and more listens and things like that. So definitely like it and share it with somebody who could use a little more motivation on their journey.

And I wanted to sign off by saying do something today that makes either your or someone else’s life better. So hope everybody’s having a great day. Thanks for listening to me. And yeah, let me know what you think.

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