Military to LEO employment questions

[katydee]

Hello all,

I have been looking over a lot of the posts on this forum and have realized that attempting to go into law enforcement directly out of college might be a bad move, both in terms of job-market competitiveness and in terms of life experience/burnout chance. I am still very interested in this field but am now thinking that it might be prudent to acquire more life experience before attempting to join, and think the military might be a good way to do so while also doing my part to help the country. I am wondering two things:

1) Does the branch of the military that you enlist in affect your chances in hiring? From what I've gathered here, your job within the military isn't very important except when applying for certain federal positions, but I don't have a clear perspective on how the different branches are regarded.

2) Is experience as an enlisted man considered better, worse, or the same as experience as an officer?

Thanks for your time.

[Cat_Doc]

It has been my experience that the branch does not matter as much as the record of good conduct while serving.

[retdetsgt]

It has been my experience that the branch does not matter as much as the record of good conduct while serving.

That pretty much covers it. Just go in, do a good job and stay out of trouble. Officer or enlisted is immaterial.

[mcsap]

Military experience isn't so much as what you did but HOW you did it.

Steven Segal was a cook , remember ??

[Kimble]

Steven Segal was a cook , remember ??

A cook that was a former SEAL. ;)

[marinepilot]

It has been my experience that the branch does not matter as much as the record of good conduct while serving.

This is probably true for the most part, but we have an agency down here that has so many former and retired Marines in it that they have their own Marine Corps Birthday Ball each year! I have heard people say that they won't hire any more Marines (and was unable to get on there myself, but I believe due to different reasons... LOL) because they feel they would just become another, smaller branch of the military services!

Otherwise, and all kidding aside, what everyone else has said is basically true. Doesn't matter which service you go in or what you do, as long as during your time in you do your job well, stay out of trouble, and leave the service honorably. Enlisted or Officer doesn't matter too much, although I still get some crap about being a retired Captain of Marines and now being at the bottom of the totem pole again. Mainly that's only from the retired Enlisted guys / girls.

[retdetsgt]

Enlisted or Officer doesn't matter too much, although I still get some crap about being a retired Captain of Marines and now being at the bottom of the totem pole again. Mainly that's only from the retired Enlisted guys / girls.

In my academy, of the military vets, it was probably 50-50 enlisted and officers. But during the Vietnam era, the Army made a lot of people officers that they probably wouldn't today (me included). Infantry platoon leaders had a high mortality rate and you only had to serve one tour.

There were a couple of semi famous ones though, one guy was a retired Navy SEAL Master Chief (the real thing, not a poser) and the other was a retired Army CSM. It was kind of funny that neither had any desire to go up in rank and be a supervisor of any kind again! And you wouldn't have known either had their backgrounds by looking at them or talking to them.

Now that I think about it, we had a number of people who stayed in the reserves or joined the guard and went up in rank there, but stayed at the patrol level at work. Several were full colonels, one made BG, but I guess that found it easier to make the time for the reserves by keeping seniority at the department.

[tekjr1]

Sometimes depends on type of military experience. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Marine Interdiction Agents almost always come from the USCG. This is usually the only place to get the highly specialized expereience needed for that position.

[TF4-4]

Sorry for the late reply, just got on but if your still looking for answers I can give you an active army prespective.

So I have been enlisted active army for more than 10 years. My MOS is 11B Infantry however, once enlisted there are countless opprotunities to try out for different and unique organizations within the army that will certainly give you a advanced training that most LE departments local or federal will desire. Also will open some doors to organizations and agencies not very well advertised that you may be happy working with. Good luck