Is an Army career outside of Rangers or SF, really just being a professional janitor?

I'm sorry, what was that again? Everything outside SF is professional janitorial work? That's a HUGE NEGATIVE. I hold 3 MOSs. I was a medic in a line unit and at a major army hospital. I was also a combat engineer, getting paid sick money to blow stuff up. Now I'm preventive medicine where I do health inspections, collecting water, collecting dirt, collecting air....and collecting bugs. I sure as hell ain't doing any janitorial work. Sounds like whoever says this either didn't serve or were stuck doing some menial job because they flunked out of the hooah hooah schools. Damn stupid people talking out of their ass.

I cleaned latrines, buffed hallways, polished baseboards and raked sand as an E4 in Ranger BN, and I cleaned latrines, buffed floors and mowed the parade field with a push mower as in E7, alongside E8s and O3s, in SF.
You get to do your real job a a lot, too.
But you'd be hard pressed to find a unit that contracts out janitorial and gardening services, good luck with that.

As a Marine vet, I can’t personally speak for the army, but in the Marines, every junior Marine is a professional janitor regardless of MOS. Yea you’ll still get to train and do a lot of cool stuff, but the cleaning and the new guy work will always be there regardless of what you do. A lot of that fades away as you transition into a NCO but that just takes time and keeping your nose on the grindstone.

No. Anyone saying that either has never been in the military or is trying to degrade others in order to feel better about themselves.

Your career is what you make it. Plan your exit future while your in the service. College education, vocational certifications, and most importantly obtain points of contact based off experience and degrees. The best value is your dedication to service which displays loyalty to outside companies.

Branden Hadley There is no truth to the idea that you are a professional janitor. Stop going to the websites that you are going to for this information. To succeed in life, work hard at your MOS or civilian job. Work on increasing your education. Be a planner and set goals. Live beneath your means, Save and invest for the future. Your future is what you make of it.

Listen, you will be a professional Soldier. While you will have a primary duty you also have secondary responsibilities. The junior member of any Team including special ones takes on the brunt of whatever that secondary responsibility is. As time goes by another person is assigned being the junior. As that occurs the details go to others

We all picked up a toilet brush in our past, but never felt as a janitor. I served for multiple decades having literally 10s of thousands of Soldiers assigned and never did anyone want out because of the secondary responsibilities.

I can tell you this... there are soldiers in my squad that are more janitorial then 12B.... but that is due to their actions and choices... not their MOS. Stupid games = stupid prizes.

On a side note, maintaining your gear and equipment will never stop and is essential to mission success regardless of ones MOS.

Part of readiness is being healthy and a big part of being healthy is not living in filth.

People struggle with expectations when they clash with reality. Having to field day, clean or get stuck on crap details like sand bags isn't limited to just non spec ops roles. At some point any MOS or unit will get jammed with crappy jobs they don't want to do which will not be what they expected in that job field. Something you need to understand is that the Military doesn't contract a lot of things out. You don't have a massive budget for people to clean everything, take out the trash or anything else. Somebody in a uniform will end up mopping the floors more times than not except for somewhere like Hospitals or major hubs like the Pentagon. There will be junior enlisted running out doing crap jobs and sometimes even Officers and SNCO's wlll be out there sharing the suck. Even spec op dudes get stuck with stupid stuff. You are putting them on a pedestal that isn't there