>>105795332
I've been in for a while and it wasn't hard, but knowing some boomers(literal) whose kids joined, the main impediment is pure time. It's also the biggest problem among the "working rank" and manigement classes of the force; it takes a fucking incredible amount of time to generate a useful soldier/sailor/airman. I've been in for over 10 years now and I'm still not sure if I'm "useful", and only got to "Occupational Functional Point" like 5 years in and due to a lot of whining and lucky breaks.

But once you're in, people are willing to train you, exploit your side-skills, and slot you into soft positions where those other skills matter. I only got to be a hell desker so much becuse I was already a computer nerd, for example. Some people I sailed with are hailed as radio heroes because they're HAMs on their own time. Some people make entire careers of being on Boarding Party because they're casual shooters/hunters on their own time and know how to climb a ladder without shooting the wrong animal.

So for juniors, yeah, first question I always ask is "Have you seen something like this before?" and if they say yes, unfortunately that results in some pigeonholing. But it also means that when I need someone to do that thing, I know where to go, and they know they can get paid for it.

But this is Canada, I have no clue how the US military goes; I hear they're cooler, pickier, but way faster in generating functional members, but those members are both much more specialized and much less trained before being considered competent enough to stand watches by themselves