<p>I thought this was pretty obvious, but maybe not, so here goes.</p>
<p>If you’d like a career in the military and want to be an officer, there are a couple of routes you can pursue straight out of high school. Great benefits, but it involves a HUGE commitment. Make sure you want to do it before you sign on the dotted line. (Back in the Stone Age, I had one of these, but ultimately turned it down, as it just wasn’t me. I thought about it long and hard, but haven’t regretted not doing it. It was the wise decision - for me.)</p>
<p>You can apply to the service academies: West Point, Annapolis, Air Force Academy. (The Coast Guard Academy may be the same thing, I’m not sure.) Unless your father is a Medal of Honor winner, you’ll need a Congressional nomination. (There are a few other options for children of members of the military.) It’s all explained here for West Point:
[West</a> Point Admissions - Apply_Nominations](<a href=“http://www.westpoint.edu/admissions/SitePages/Apply_Nominations.aspx]West”>http://www.westpoint.edu/admissions/SitePages/Apply_Nominations.aspx)</p>
<p>If you get admitted, you get a four-year degree completely free, room and board included (The Academies are ranked very highly.) At the end, you’re commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant (or equivalent) and you have to serve 5 years active duty, 3 years inactive.</p>
<p>The other route is ROTC scholarships. They pay for full tuition, fees, and books, plus give you a monthly stipend in exchange for some form of eight year service commitment as an officer. (Room and board are on your own.) What’s interesting about these is, you can go to ANY college that has an ROTC program or is affiliated with one, you just have to get in. So you can go to colleges like WashU, Harvard, Penn, MIT, and Cornell for free, you just have to cover room and board. Pretty sweet deal IF you can handle the service commitment.</p>
<p>Applications are due shortly for Fall 2014, so you’ll want to get on that right away. For the service academies, it’s not to early to start applying for nominations for Fall 2015.</p>