yea im gonna agree with alot of the comments above that say Dont become a Butter bar.
I hate to be blunt about it and I'll probably piss off some people, but here's the truth you may not hear anywhere else.
E: You are told where to live, what to eat, when to eat, how to wash and fold your clothes, etc etc., for YEARS.
O: Once you pin on your 1Lt bars, you follow the rules however you see fit, and either reap the benefits or suffer the consequences.
Pay: An officer with 5 years in will make more base pay than a senior NCO with 16 years in. By the time an officer starts thinking about whether to make it a career or not at the 14ish year point, the officer may be pulling in somewhere around 2x to 3x the pay of an enlisted soldier that has more time in service.
That career-minded officer is also looking at a promotion to O-4 which is both a hefty increase in pay as well as a huge increase in responsibility and authority. If you want to raise a family, even a junior captain has an easier time of it financially than a master sergeant. The bennies are simply better, in return for service filled with vague and conflicting expectations including the requirement that the officer figures out what needs doing without being told, and does it better than anyone else while making both his boss and subordinates look and feel good about it. The expectations, authority, and responsibility start out high, so the compensation package is likewise high(er). Whether you like this or not, it's how the military has been run for centuries and for very good reasons outlined by military geniuses dead hundreds or thousands of years ago.
On the other hand, I have heard MANY MANY enlisted soldiers comment that they simply worry less about random stupid crap than officers. That is probably true, in my experience. Still, I really like the rules I have lived under since my commissioning when compared to the rules even senior NCOs live under. As long as I do my job, which has both very specific and very broad requirements, I pretty much set my own rules within a handful of guidelines set by my boss and the squadron commander. Guess what - many of those rules the boss sets were suggested by me or people like me who hate stupid rules. So even though I still work my 12 hr days like everyone else, I have a lot of flexibility on when and how I get the job done and that makes the job much more personally satisfying to me.
If you don't want the responsibility that gets dumped on officers but you still want an awesome career or job in the military, then please find any recruiter asap and sign up for whatever you are interested in. There are tons of great enlisted jobs and people keep signing up, and the enlisted airmen and soldiers I work with are generally happy and highly motivated, so the life is good both ways.
Everyone has their own preferences, but given a chance to do it over again I'd still go back and suffer through 4 years at the Academy in order to get the career path I chose the first time. No regrets here over my decision to go officer instead of enlisted. When given the choice to be the guy who gets to decide which hill to attack in a suicidal infantry charge, or the poor guy waiting for the jerkwad idiot Lt to pick which hill we're all gonna die on today, I'd rather be the jerkwad Lt. But that's just me.
Oh yea... Just like a dumb officer who doesn't respect and care for his troops can kill unit morale and effectiveness, there are also few things as detrimental to unit cohesiveness as an NCO who is "too smart" and who uses that as an excuse to sidestep the chain of command. Occasionally we get an over-educated NCO who doesn't have enough common sense to add a bit of real wisdom to their education, and they can really bring down a unit. Many of these types would have made fine officers, but some are simply overeducated idiots. My point being if you want to run things eventually instead of always being on the receiving end of the never-ending stream of poop that runs from top to bottom, and if you already have the degree required to be an officer, then you should seriously consider getting a commission as an officer instead of enlisting. You and the people you work with will be happier if that's the case
Last word - we're hitting a phase of severe military cutbacks right now so if you don't want to be in the military for the job, then seriously don't sign up at all. Lots of good people are getting kicked out and the system occasionally lets the jerks and slackers stay in while booting out people who would give anything to stay in. It's going to be a rough decade ahead for the military, no question about it. We're fighting 4 simultaneous wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and as of yesterday we're sending ground troops to some other African country), while being told we're going to have to do it with fewer people, will be spending less money on equipment, and oh by the way as soon as possible they're going to make the ENTIRE pay/benefits package cheaper which means pay rate freezes, less retirement pay, and fewer medical benefits that cost more out of pocket. It's going to take a little bit more dedication I think, because the compensation for dedicating your life to serving your country is about to get a lot smaller, while the people cutting your pay still take their long vacations, bank their big paychecks, and get a full pension after serving just 4 years in DC. Don't sign up if that's gonna get in the way of doing the job 'cause that's how it is.
