[MIT-Elephant]

I would add: Never underestimate the scope and complexity of the federal bureaucracy. It is like the pop tart, it can be used for good or evil.

It is horrendously petty and political, but at the same time it can be worked like a charm for someone who knows the system. That's one reason officer experience can be so valuable, you learn to navigate those sorts of channels and you might make friends in Washington D.C.

A stint in uniform could go a long way towards revealing whether you would like a career under so much political machinery.

[Rockingham]

Good points. Military service is a much different matter though than federal civilian service. The military is often a harder life, but it can also offer the potential to do much more consequential things than can be done at comparable rank in the civilian bureaucracy.

Take a look at Roger Coram's "Boyd" for an account of how one determined, maverick air force fighter pilot: wrote a seminal rule manual on fighter combat; gave briefings in the Pentagon of legendary length, intensity, and persuasive force; battled Pentagon bureaucrats and generals with no concessions toward rank or to fools, dullards, and slackers; changed the way that the Air Force designs fighters, leading to the F-16 and other superb combat aircraft; and spurred lasting military procurement and chain of command reforms.

In retirement in Florida no less, Boyd: prompted then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney to press for the revision of Schwarzkoff's plan of attack in the 1991 Gulf War to include the devastating "left hook" that Stormin' Norman resisted bitterly but later took credit for with both hands; and changed the way that the US military thinks of combat and fight -- and especially so the Marines, who took Boyd's theories to heart before anyone else did.

Boyd got no higher in rank than colonel, declined a general's commission, and, sadly, neglected his family due to his utter dedication to his work.