<p>Being the son of a career Air Force man, and having been born and raised on Air Force bases, I naturally view the military as an honorable calling. It certainly lifted my then teenage father out the mire of the Great Depression and provided him with a career.</p>
<p>And I don't think you will be in any way too old at age 22 to undertake college study. You certainly won't have lost any of the mental acuity needed to learn stuff and study for tests. That begins in your 50s, not your 20s.</p>
<p>But, as a general trend, the longer one stays out of school the harder it is to get back in. Life just tends to intervene: You meet a girl when you are in the Air Force. You get married, and next thing you know you are 34 years old and have three kids that need an employed father, and you never managed to go to college. I've seen many examples of this.</p>
<p>So if the military is right for you, by all means go for it. But if you really want to go to college too, you are going to have to remain very disciplined and very focused on your goal.</p>