Military Service: A Good Place to Start?

Recruitment advertising has suggested that military service is a good place to begin the transition to adult life. Browning, Lopreato, and Poston (1973), in particular, proposed that military service acts as a bridge to adult roles and that minorities, in particular, benefit from military service. A life-course analysis of data from a 1985 survey of 2,566 one-term Army veterans supported this bridging hypothesis with evidence of the subjective impact of military service on women and minorities. Consistent with previous research, results also showed that the timing of military service with respect to age at entry, marital status at entry, and educational level at entry influenced both subjective and objective assessments of the impacts of military service. Type of Army job (combat or noncombat) seemed to have little impact on either subjective or objective outcomes. In-service education positively influenced postservice em- ployment, earnings, and education. Veterans' subjective ratings of the value of Army service were positively related to the ease of finding one's first postservice job, the tendency to be employed full time, higher monthly income, and higher educational achievement. Results are discussed with respect to life-course theory in general and the bridging hypothesis in particular.