I'm pretty sure they don't sign you up to kill Iraqis when you join the military. You sign up to do a job, and sometimes that job may or may not involve combat. You have some control over that, in that you can select your job when you join. The higher you score on their tests, the more latitude they give you when selecting your job (or Military Occupational Specialty). The guys who plot and track satellite trajectories and such - they rarely, if ever, see combat. There are many jobs like that too, although you have to be careful because the job names can be deceptive. For example, when I joined, I picked Fixed Station Radio Repair, because 'Fixed Station' sounded like working at a radio station (and in some cases that IS what the job was). What they really mean by 'Fixed Station' though is that it doesn't work while it's in transit, and I ended up working at a 'Fixed Station' during and after the invasion of Grenada, sleeping in a tent for eight months next to a mosquito infested swamp, and listening to the screams of the Cuban POWs right next door to my tent for the first couple of months.

The military does offer quite a lot though: medical and dental covered, meals provided, housing provided, travel discounts, adventure, seeing the world, learning a trade, comraderie, chicks dig uniforms, help with home financing, educational benefits, free CLEP tests, and retirement if you hang in there. The money doesn't seem that great, but if you're single and live in the barracks and don't party it all away, then there's really not a whole lot to spend it on anyway, so you can bankroll some.

Yeah, there are downsides. People shooting at you sucks. And I found the actual act of killing another person to be even harder than having people shooting at you. But if you're smart, and pick the right job, you can get all the benefits and yet greatly decrease the odds of ever even seeing combat. For every person who sees real combat, there are 9 who don't: support personnel, high-tech jobs where the facilities are in the U.S., cooks, whatever. Even if we have a shitty commander in chief now, defending one's ideals and protecting one's loved ones from other countries' aggression is still an honorable job.

If I had to do it all over again, I'd still join the Army. I'd do some things differently (save more money, invest more in the educational opportunities, pick a safer job), but the overall plan wasn't bad, and I don't have any regrets.