What's One Thing That Makes or Breaks a Military Career? Share and Be Entered to Win!

Common sense. It's not too common any more tho

I think there are many ways to tackle this question. I think first and foremost is someone's desire to serve. Being in the military is not for everyone but there are those individuals that want to serve their country and answer the call when needed.

I joined as a Supply Clerk and quickly found out I didn’t like sitting behind a desk all the time, so I changed my MOS to Combat Engineer. Best decision I ever made. The job you do is critical to deciding how long you want to stay in. I guess you’d call that “attitude”. The Engineer job I did required a TS/BI clearance and the units I served in had the best leaders compared to what I experienced in an Infantry BDE. In 1988, the job I was doing as an Engineer evaporated and I found myself in an Artillery unit. Their motto was “On the Minute” but what it should have been was “in a minute”. Worst leadership structure I’d ever seen, which prompted me to go Reserve instead of re enlisting Active. I did the Reserve thing the rest of my career. I had an opportunity to make E8, but Top wanted me to get behind another desk and I chose not to.

What makes or breaks a career is to answer what are you willing to do to keep it. I retired with 36 plus years. Half was active, half was reserve. My best time was with the Engineer units I served with and I guess that’s mainly why I stayed in so long. So, Leadership is a key factor, but your attitude is high on that list as well - in my opinion.

To have the initiative to take charge of a situation showing your knowledge skill and leadership and showing that you can get it done even under pressure

100% with Sgt. Reynolds

True comradeship- knowing your unit has your back, helps you achieve your best and encourages growth.

The persons attitude.

Never shirking from the military values we swore to. NEVER!!!!!!!!

Working on promotions, or not working on your promotion. This is something that always has to be on your mind, or you are frozen in your career and can eventually even get pushed out like I was. It was a mistake I made that I regret.

Good leadership makes a military career. Poor leadership will break a career. I was blest to serve under some great leaders both at the small unit level and at division level. in my 20+ years I only served under two poor leaders, one a battery commander and the other a brigade commander. The brigade commander never made general, and the battery commander end up retiring as a major. In one sense you might say the system worked weeding our bad leaders. I wonder, however, how many good soldiers, and good leaders, those two men stop from making the Army a career.