He looks after a huge number of workers (it can be as many as 190), and is ultimately responsible for their health and safety. There’s no doubt that Martin Lloyd Sanders has one of the most responsible positions in the military, while the fact he is an officer in the US Public Health Service and Director of the Environmental Health Services Division for Occupational Health speaks volumes as well.
However, his position of authority has meant that he has come across umpteen misconceptions about military life. These can revolve around anything from health to safety, and through the course of this post we will take a look at some of the biggest ones which CAPT Martin Lloyd Sanders feels a need to clarify.
Myth #1 – Your military job doesn’t have any similarities with the real world
Let’s cast this first myth to the scrap heap as a matter of urgency.
There are two elements to this myth. Let’s firstly talk about the personal attributes that you will develop in the military. This is one job in which your leadership skills will be developed significantly. For example, CAPT Martin Lloyd Sanders has to exert immense leadership on a daily basis, just to make sure that his workers health is preserved, and their safety is completely protected. This involves leadership that can’t be compared to any other line of work – and this is something that any corporation looking to bolster their ranks is going to need.
A secondary point is that there are a lot of military positions that have roles which fit in with so-called “normal” jobs. A lot of military positions might entail engineering training, or another highly specialised skill that will be fawned over in the outside world. In other words, there are great similarities between military personnel and normal workers.
Myth #2 – There’s no chance of college education
Something that a lot of people think they are giving up on as soon as they join the military is their education. Fortunately, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
For example, for those individuals on active duty, the military will pay all of their college tuition. Not only that, but for ten years after leaving the service, you are entitled to money towards college.
Ultimately, it could be argued that you have even more educational opportunities if you join the military.
Myth #3 – There are no opportunities for women
Fortunately, this is something that is no longer the case. It’s something that has been in the news a lot over recent times, but if we were to reveal that around 95% of jobs in the military are open to females, it puts to bed the claim that they just can’t apply for anything.
The above figure should not come as a surprise either; there are double the amount of women serving in the military now as there were back in the late 1970s.