Is there a benefit to enlisting in the Army? Just something I wrote in response to someone saying there wasn't.

See, I have to disagree. Enlisting does -lots- of people good. It does good for the person who now has a steady job. A steady job in a field where you are trained, continually. Where you are pushed to better yourself, continually. Where you are taught to strive to accomplish more and achieve more. A steady job that provides full medical, full dental, all your clothes, all your food, where you live, that provides for your education. Where you go out into the worst parts of the world, where terrible things happen, where Red Cross and International Aid are never seen. Places where they can -not- be seen, because they would just be killed. And you provide security, which allows for rebuilding.
If it is good to help people when there is a disaster, if it is morally just to help people in Japan and Haiti and New Orleans, why do we not help people when the disaster occurs in a dangerous place? Well we do. We send people to help them who are not afraid of being shot at. And when the place has been quieted down, then we provide the aid they so desperately need.
Your vision of what the military does is narrow, shallow, and not very accurate. Imagine: take the Red Cross. Take the Peace Corps. Take the Police Department. Merge them. Now give them armor so they don't get shot, and weapons, to keep people from shooting at them. That is about 50% of todays military. Th other 50% more actively provide security and safety for that group, but there is NO OTHER GROUP IN THE WORLD who provides the service we do. NO ONE can provide aid in a country where there is shooting, where there are mass executions, where there are "night letters" and bombs. It is military or abandonment. And I, for one, am not willing to abandon the poor, desperate people, just because it's a little dangerous where they live.