I didn’t serve in the military, I was in the Air Force. A joke from back then because the Air Force only had a 6 week basic training course and the hardest thing we had to do was fold our T-shirts in 6″ squares. Then active duty was incredibly comfortable. We had air conditioned tents and better meals in the desert deployments.
My service wasn’t as bad as I imagine it could be, especially given what it’s like now. I graduated high school early(15) and joined the AF when I was 16, in 1997. I didn’t even do high school, so I was still very young, especially emotionally. socially and worldly. A normal high school experience probably would have changed this drastically, looking back.
But, I went in as an Eagle Scout, so I got a stripe automatically, and I ended up being a leader through training. Basic was easy because my Training Instructor assigned me laundry, so I made everyone’s life easier by doing laundry everyday. We only had to fold our T-shirts in 6″ squares once and left our drawers alone the rest of the time. Doing laundry everyday also inadvertently got me out of a lot of marching practice.
I have to skip ahead, past even a few operations, like Kosovo, because they had no impact on me, to when 9/11 happened. Aside from exercises that my base had to do, because in war, we would have been the first hit by nuclear missiles, it was a really easy job. NORI, Nuclear Operational Readiness Inspection. If I was a higher rank, those would have been easy too.
But then 9/11 happened. “Terrorists” attacked our country and we invaded Afghanistan for no reason at all. This is where the problem occurs. You can’t lie to us, you can only hope we’ll, INTJs, be ignorant. But we’re not.
Given that we’re in, I don’t know at this point officially, 7–9 wars, for no reason at all, any INTJ will have a hard time processing that. There is no proof other than “we said so”. That’s not good enough. There’s plenty of evidence that most of the wars we’re in are a waste of time and have no win conditions, other than securing oil in the middle east, which just seems more ridiculous when you consider global warming and the contribution fossil fuels play.
The U.S. military is the Department of Offense. It hasn’t played defense in it’s entire existence. The two times we were attacked, it was completely useless(Pearl Harbor and 9/11). You have to ignore a lot of moral objections to be an INTJ in the military, especially today.
I had an easy job on an easy base. I scheduled training sorties for the B-2 bombers. Four a day at most. I cannot express to you how easy I had it that I can even say I wasn’t completely miserable.
I think most INTJs in the military can’t stand it, but they are thinking about their/the future to get through it. It’s awful. It makes me wonder why other types don’t have the same morals, even though they claim to get the from a higher place.
Killing people is a horrible thing to be associated with when they did nothing wrong.
EDIT 2/2/2021:
I think this is relevant since it’s happened in the last few days and related to potential military action. Joe Biden, the guy who laughed in Paul Ryan’s face during a vice presidential debate about Iran having WMD’s, just incited the drums of war declaring that Iran will have enough nuclear material by the end of the year. Nothing relevant has changed.
Just speculation at this point, but war with Iran would mean WW3. Consider that before you consider joining the military. Also consider we’re only a month in and war is on their minds.
The wars in the middle east have nothing to do with terror or weapons, or maybe Israel wouldn’t be an undeclared nuclear state, it has everything to do with OIL. OPEC wants to build a pipeline across Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan and we’re now 20 years and three presidents displaced from when this project started.
If you’re an INTJ and you can square peg those round holes, good for you. Don’t know how any personality type could, but most don’t pay enough attention.
