Anyone with a Ranger or Marine service background care to share their experiences? What does the process look like for those already in industry? FYI - 25 years old

Given you’re in consulting with a bachelors degree, the culture shock from your current environment to an enlistment may not be a great fit. Your autonomy will be significantly different than the officer life could provide you. The pay difference is also a factor. If you’re an officer, you can get back up to ~$100k in 4 years depending on your specialty.

If you want to lead people, I would strongly encourage becoming an officer. Not knocking the enlisted career path at all, because it can be a good one, but these are things you have to consider before you make your choice.

Did my time as an 11A in the army. Here’s the crash course

First, do you really want to do this? I mean, really, really, more than anything in the world want to do this? Because I’ll be frank with you, it’s going to be miserable. It is not going to be all Call of Duty cool guy shit, I promise you. And if you think you’re gonna just walk into DEVGRU or CAG then you need reevaluate your life because it’s never gonna happen.

Second, learn the differences in the services.

Army has Ranger Regiment, which is where I came from. This is specialized light infantry. IE, when we need to capture and airfield or something. A lot of what we do now is go on raids and provide QRF for the other groups listed below. You’ll need to get an infantry option 40 contract to go to RASP 1 (Ranger Assessment and Selection Program) as a junior enlisted. Otherwise, if you’re an NCO or an Officer, you will need to be a graduate of Ranger School, and then go through RASP 2

Army also has Special Forces, which are commonly known as the Green Berets. These guys specialize in unconventional warfare and foreign internal defense. IE, they’re the guys who are training our Afghan/Iraqi military counterparts. Generally they are embedded with foreign counterparts to help advise and train. Read the book Horse Soldiers or watch 12 Strong, but those are both a bit dramatized for obvious marketing reasons. Go for an 18x contract, otherwise as an officer you’ll have to wait a couple of years until you’re a 1LT (P) or a CPT in order to go to SFAS. SFAS will take at least 2+ years to complete, depending on the foreign language and specialty you are assigned (it is also much more difficult to go to SFAS as an officer if you’re not a combat branch - infantry is the most common, but artillery, armor, etc aren’t uncommon)

The Navy has the SEALS. Obviously I’ve never been to BUD/S, but it has the reputation as the most difficult. If, and I say if very strongly, you pass BUD/S, you go on with the rest of the pipeline which I am not familiar with, but safe to say advanced land warfare and navigation training, jump school, etc. all of which will be very demanding and will have a big attrition rate.

The Air Force has their PJs and the CTACs. I don’t know as much about them so I won’t give you the wrong info, but what I can say is that the PJs are basically flight surgeons who fly into combat zones to evacuate the wounded, and CTACs basically are the guys on the ground coordinating close air support in combat. I’m sure they are both extremely demanding.

I won’t bother mentioning the crayon eaters as they aren’t really part of SOCOM... JK. I do know the Marines had the Force Recon guys, which I’m sure have their own ridiculously hard selection program. I had a couple of my soldiers over the years go to Marine Scout Sniper school, and they talked it up as one of the most difficult schools they ever went to. I have no reason not to believe them.

Third, make sure if you decide to pursue any of these option, you get it in your initial contract. If you don’t have it in your contract, it’s highly unlikely you’ll get a chance to go, at least not until earn a slot somewhere down the line. Also, most of these roles are not open to brand new officers. I know in the Army for example, you aren’t even eligible to try for SF or Ranger Regiment until you’ve been in for 2 years. Unsure if that’s how things are in the other branches, but definitely a consideration if you really are serious. Would be happy to talk more in detail about the army specifically, and some generalities about military life and what I know about the other branches if you’d like .

RASP, SFAS, BUD/S, AFSOCAS, etc are significantly different than the fleet USMC. Apples to oranges comparison. You’re going to have to pick one avenue as the criteria are significantly different and harder for the former then the latter.

Rangers and Marines are very different paths within the military.

Are you trying to join the Marines or become a ranger? Or are you leaving the service to join the private sector?

Marine here. Do you want to go active or reserve? Officer or Enlisted? What job (MOS)?

Marines Corps has a lot of options when it comes to special forces. I'd look into MARSOC but like the others you have to go through your MOS school and while there they scout for people. I don't know how it works on the officer side though. You may have to go Intel as a lot of Intel officers are infantry.

25 years old isn't old too. If you are to go and want to be officer though 27 is the cutoff for Marines.

Maybe consider enlisting in the Army as an 18X. This gives you a direct path through Airborne School and into Special Forces Assessment and Selection. Worst case scenario you wash out in SFAS and are reassigned big Army. With your bachelors degree you could pursue a number of different routes toward alternate career paths. Just a thought.

With the specific ask of Marine or Ranger I assume you want to be in the infantry. If you want to deploy and get in the shit go to the Ranger Regiment. Regular army has deployments and they are actually up but not in combat areas. Marines still have some deployments as well but mostly on boats or training missions. That is not to say they don’t have some to combat zone but it is minimal.