Earlier today, we heard from a man who left the Navy in September and landed in unemployment. Now comes a note about the inverse experience, from a man who landed in unemployment in September and left it by joining the Navy.

After reading the last story you posted, I thought I would share with you my story. I am 27 and college educated. I was working 2 jobs last year and ended up getting laid off from both of them in quick succession. I’ve been unemployed since September and couldn’t find any work. I was facing eviction and was not eating very well.

At the beginning of January, I had no options and was encouraged by my family to join the Navy. I enlisted and was able to land a nifty job with the Navy which came with a bonus. For the next few years, I won’t have to worry about food, housing or money. I will be trained in a field that should prove to be highly marketable once I’m out. Oh, and I’ll get to travel and probably won’t be shot at. I only wish I’d done this sooner.

Have an unemployment story to share? Write to jobless@thestranger.com.

Eli Sanders was The Stranger's associate editor. His book, "While the City Slept," was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He once did this and once won...

23 replies on “Notes from the Unemployment Line”

  1. I hope it works out well for this guy. However, making life so miserable for the middle and lower classes so that they have no choice but to join the military in order to basically fight to protect the riches of the upper class sounds very frightening.
    It almost feels like we’re becoming feudalistic. The wealthiest are saved by the government, and give huge donations to in return, while the “peasants and serfs” are left out in the cold, forced to give more and more to the rich.
    Suckola

  2. Well, as everyone knows, the rich are blessed by God for, um, being rich, while the rest of us Godless sinners are being punished for – uh, not being rich.

    Hey, it must be true, because – er, a rich preacher said so.

  4. @1 thats our socioeconomic power structure taking a cue from the Romans. @ everyone else, don’t believe the hype-this has gotta be a military recruiter posting, hmmm?

  6. Probably, hm? My best friend’s husband joined the National Guard in 2002 (pre-Iraq) to help pay for college. He was part of the band instead of part of an armed unit. He served 2 years active and was inactive reserve until last month. He was supposed to be done this month. Now he’s being stop-lossed– pulled from his job teaching middle school music and sent into training. He’ll be driving convoys from Kuwait to Baghdad for 9 months. What you expect and what happens won’t always be similar.

  7. To quote Marc Maron, from his stand-up act in which he describes the military recruitment ads that result from years of war and republican rule:

    “Hungry? Need a place to sleep? Want to eat three square meals a day? We have a place for you in the army.”

    I thought it was hilarious at the time, now not so much.

  8. The conspiracy theorest in me believes that this whole economic “crisis” is being engineered and exaggerated by a cadre of evil master manipulators whose end goals are still hazy…but one of them is to boost recruitment for the armed services.

    Think about it: With Iraq and Afghanistan going down the toilet, the military was way down in recruitment and manpower. More soldiers are needed for the security of the country. But renewing the draft was politically impossible.

    So the evil cadre whips up a “credit crisis,” panics the market, and encourages media plants to enflame the storyline and maximize consumer anxiety. Voila! Suddenly people are lining up just for the promise of 3 squares a day and a bed to sleep on. The immediate goal of staying off the street trumps the sorta-kinda-maybe possibility of getting shot at.

    If they could fake 9/11 (which they damn well did!), they can fake this.

  9. The military is awesome as long as you’re not a faggot or lezbo.

    The military COULD be great for all of us, if some of the higher-ups had brass balls rather than brass stars.

  10. (Adjusting my tinfoil hat)

    The goal of the unholy Star Chamber–composed of wealthy oligarchical families, Mussolini-style corporate fascists and psychopathic religious fanatics–that run this country isn’t a mystery at all: Just look who’s stolen all the money.

    And the soldiers aren’t needed for our nation’s security–they’re needed to kill the poor people in the Third World who object to having their oil “liberated.” No one has died defending our country’s freedoms since WWII; they’ve died due to the imperialistic hubris, right-wing nationalism, greed and incompetence of both our civilian and military leaders.

    At least this guy’s joining the military for the money and not some imbecilic, hackneyed notion that he’s protecting our nation.

  11. What you expect and what happens won’t always be similar.

    If this guy isn’t a recruiter himself, there are good odds that he was lied to by recruiters about his chances of being sent into combat.

  12. This was the Bush plan. Destroy the economy so more people would join the military, who would be the only one hiring. There is no guarantee that this guy won’t get transferred into the Marines and sent into a war zone. My Dad was in the Navy and the government transferred him to the Marines and sent him to Vietnam.

  13. @ keshmeshi,

    True dat. My brother–desperate for any job that would pay him enough to support his two kids–joined the National Guard two years ago after being told he’d get a desk job and only have to be active a few weekends during the year.

    Guess where he’s spent the last thirteen grueling months? He’s a convoy gunner in Iraq getting shot at almost everyday. We’ll be lucky if he isn’t too fucked up from the PTSD to take a civilian job when his enlistment is over.

  14. You’d have to be a fucking idiot (or really, really desperate) to join the National Guard two years ago in 2006/2007.

    You’d have to be an even bigger fucking idiot to assume you’d get a desk job in then.

    Let me remind everyone about 2006 and 2007:
    1. Bush is still President
    2. National Guard units are in Irag.

    Gimme a fucking break.

  15. @ 14,

    Wow. That’s an original observation.

    Yes, my brother was a fucking idiot to join the Guard. I did everything I could to talk him out of it, but he joined anyway. He lives in a very economically depressed area, he has two kids and can’t afford to move. Even jobs that paid $8/hour were nowhere to be found, forget about benefits. In short, he was at the end of his rope, and he’s not the only one by far.

    He’s been home twice for visits since he was deployed. My sister in law says that he flips out if she and the kids leave him alone even for a minute, and that he wakes up sobbing in the middle of the night. Thanks for your concern.

  17. Original Andrew…please ignore #14…that’s not only the number of their post, but I’m guessing that’s also their emotional and intellectual age.

  18. @ michael strangeways,

    It’s OK. I’m pissed as hell about our military and I understand @ 14s POV.

    It’s not easy to write about how the military brutally fucks up our families and our country when the public is so seemingly mindlessly jingoistic. People need to know what they’re getting into when they sign up with no bullshit, and not be misled by some fucking recruiter under pressue to meet his numbers.

    Sure 2/3 of the people will come back from the wars fine, but I’d say about a third, including my brother, are gonna have serious problems for years.

  20. This is not new. The economy has been crap for months if not years. In my old home town, there has been no jobs for college grads for the past 5 years at least. Previously they had the option of leaving Arizona and getting work out of state. My female friends opted to become stay-at-home moms instead of taking $10.00/hr job and putting their kids in daycare that costs $10.00+ per hour. This past year though has been really bad ‘though, and there aren’t jobs anywhere in any sector. A local news channel ran a story about how the only company hiring was the armed forces. If you get that desperate, I recommend the Navy or the Coast Guard. The young man is right, you are less likely to get killed. That’s how my uncle survived Vietnam, he signed up with the Navy before the Army could draft him.

  21. Will in Seattle @ 19,

    Sorry, but no. A friend from college is in the Navy and he’s stationed in freaking Afghanistan. Something about the CO for Afghanistan also being in charge of the Navy, I dunno. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter what branch you’re in as far as where you end up.

  22. Maybe WW2 was defending the FBI’s J.Edgar Hoover’s right to start a Red Scare. But I’ll need to be reminded what other freedom’s the US was in imminent danger of losing.

  23. @17,18

    OK, so he was desperate. Why didn’t he sign up for the chAir Force or the Navy? My guess is because he had kids and wanted to be around. How about being a police officer? Border patrol? Coast Guard? Firefighter?

    The suffering sucks, and I’m sorry about that (and all these suicides among Iraq family-man veterans– thanks, family values Republicunts), but that’s a separate issue.

    But just because he’s suffering now doesn’t mean I should excuse his dumb decision that led to the suffering.

    My fiance has a younger brother who is 19 years old, in college, but bored and aimless as a Poli Sci major. He’s thinking Air Force, but still… Ugh.

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