(Canadian) Naval officer checking in. Definitely the best decision I ever made after not being able to find a job post-university in 2010. A decade in and I'm still loving it, have had an absolutely astonishing amount of cool experiences and seen so much of the world it's not funny.
My last tour on ship was 2.5 years as the ship's navigator, drove our ship into probably 3 dozen cities/ports in a dozen or so countries on both sides of the Atlantic. Been to all three coasts of Canada, have lived in 4 provinces, visited 7 plus a territory, make very good money, have received professional certifications that transfer to the civilian world in ship driving, navigation, project management and meteorology. Can definitely pursue a sponsored masters within the next 5 years if I want to, get second language training, visit another dozen countries or more around the pacific (only been Atlantic so far, except for a few stops in Washington - Everett, Seattle and Friday Harbour - during a training course).
Visited Europe, the Caribbean, have been in helicopters, driven through 6metre/20 foot seas for days on end, been up into glaciers and sailed around icebergs, driven up rivers and across oceans. I've watched missiles and large guns fire, launched drones, crawled around inside of giant engines and boilers the size of a small house, sailed on 5 different kinds of ships from oilers to destroyers to small coastal patrol vessels (and toured a couple different kinds of submarines) directed high speed transits of a frigate in pitch black through fjords at high speed, boarded other ships to do cargo search and seizure in support of counter narcotics efforts, and the list just goes on and on.
Sure, sometimes it sucks. There's a lot of nonsense, there's a lot of stress, you sometimes run on little sleep for days or even weeks on end, work can be physically demanding and your entire house can sometimes just rock 45 degrees in every direction continuously for hours, you'll do mindless shit for far too long and wonder if there's even any reason behind whatever the task is (probably, but maybe it's just busy work). But all that said, it's fucking awesome and I'm glad I get to keep doing it.
10 years down, probably got at least another 10-15 in me. And no, I've never had to shoot somebody nor been shot at. My closest approximation of anything resembling "combat" was the single time that I had to use an asp baton to hit a guy's arm once when he was threatening to hit myself and a member of my boarding team with a shovel or oar or something of that nature. He dropped it, we zip tied his hands, and that is the entire extent of aggression I've experienced in 10 years.
Again, Canadian, not American, but it has been amazing and I wish more people would consider it as an option available to them. There's a ton of cool jobs available that will give great benefits, good salary and let you experience a bunch of awesome stuff. Definitely don't just write it off immediately as not an option, it could be the best decision you ever make. Of course, it could also be one of the worst decisions you ever make, so know what you're getting yourself into and do some research about what exactly it is that you want to do.
