Hello everyone, I am from Greece, I am posting here because there are no similar subreddits in my country and the only forum that is military related in my country is filled with crazies. The military here is 9 months mandatory for all Greek males that are not in the military for life, as in a military school. I have three options. One is to go to regular infantry which is hell. They do not do anything military related, they sit in their asses all day, are forbidden of doing any exercise and they are fed crap. They are always sleep deprived picking cigarette butts of the ground and other similar bullshit tasks. The pay is 8 euros per month. I am not doing this.

Second is to go for special forces. I have to pass some fitness tests and from there I have two choices. Either to go to regular special forces where the pay is still 8 euros per month. Or to go to airborne where I will get a jump pay of 1250 or so euros. Special forces do actual training which is more in par with regular army training abroad. The airborne unit does 5 jumps in total from a c-130 and a chinook helicopter. No night jumps or anything crazy, just regular jumps. If I pick this and pass the physical I will be stationed in Crete probably which I have never been to so it will probably be a new experience.

Last option is to go to regular infantry in Crete as a volunteer. Crete is a peculiar situation because it is split in half with the one half being greek and the other turkish occupied territory. The army there is much more better fed and they do actual exercises. Pay is better too at 250 euros per month instead of the 8 euros in the regular infantry, food is really good and we will practice our guns, maybe more than the special forces because all bases in cyprus have a lot of money because they are next to turkish occupied soil. The downsides are obvious, if god forbid a war breaks between cyprus and turkey I will be fucked because our political leadership is really shady and sneaky and in the previous conflits in Crete they localised the incidents and followed a controversial plan where many innocent soldiers died in vain ( it would be too long to analyse but the public opinion is really suspicious towards our political leadership and dont want to get too deep into this). Also, I will be stationed near the capital and I will have many days free.

There is also a special forces unit in Cyprus that pays 250 euros per month but in my opinion it is not worth it, because I heard rumors about the commander there , they do lots of organised PT expecially in the beginning and I heard there are a lot of injuries PT related. I am athletic but I understand that the military exercise regime is not very healthy, correct me if I am wrong. The special forces generally attract crazies and nationalists and recently very few people who actually want a more military experience or to ''push themselves'' and many other inspirational mumbo jumbo.

In the end I am between the two, airborne or regular military in cyprus. My main question is , what are the chances of me being injured in airborne and is it worth it in your opinion? After the 9 months I will be done with the army and I will have no bonus points or benefits, nothing. I am not that scared about the parachute not opening, but more about the landings and not breaking my feet. To be quite honest the only thing that attracts me to airborne more than cyprus is the experience of jumping from the plane, the fear and all, but I am worried that If I break something serious and can't walk for life that I will feel really fucking stupid on top of that. Our airborne school has a good reputation overall however.

So, sorry for the long post and that I am from Greece and not the us but I believe that you must have some advice for me especially for airborne. Will it be such an interesting experience worthy of taking the risk, and how much of a real risk is there?

Regards