Oh yeah, all the special forces have crazy drop out rates. I’m going to the Navy recruiter in the morning to get info. I’m sitting at about 245 lbs and at 26% body fat. At 6’1’’ I either have to drop 45 pounds or get down to 20% for the air force or 23% for the navy.
Ask the recruiter if they can guarantee you the job you want before you ship to boot camp (answer: they don’t, but ask him anyways, just pay attention to how he words the answer).
I wasn’t AF, I’m retired Navy. From my experience, AF takes care of the people the best (better accomodations, etc.). When I was an E4 living in the barracks, my headmate was AF. Not sure why he was living in our barracks since the AF base was at the other end of the island, but he was and was getting paid partial housing allowance because the Air Force considers every other branch’s lodging to be ‘substandard’ (at least they did in the 90’s).
To echo what has been said above, figure out what you want to do as a job, then compare services and see which offers you the best deal. There’s two ways to look at this, the traditional ‘choose a job the military will train you for that you can do in the civilian world as well’. The other school of thought is this: choose something you CAN’T do in the civilian world. If you’re gonna do the dance, have fun with it. Drive a tank, shoot artillery, jump out of airplanes, blow shit up. Obviously, it depends completely on what you are interested in doing, but you get my point.
As to high attrition rates in SOF jobs, that is what makes them more appealing in my opinion. Shitbags still slip through the cracks, but way less than conventional jobs. Assuming you are interested in SOF (you mentioned PJ), don’t focus on attrition rates, focus on preparing yourself the absolute best you can.
Air Force won’t guarantee you the job you want. If you REALLY want to go PJ, join an Air National Guard unit that has PJ positions (don’t know where you live, but the 123rd Special Tactics Squdron in Louisville, KY is one, and it’s AFSOC instead of Air Combat Command). After joining the unit, you can apply for the pipeline and if accepted then you go into training.
From talking to several pipeline guys (both PJ and CCT) who were in my Airborne and MFF classes, what typically happens to active duty is you sign up for a different job (basically needs of the Air Force) and can apply for ‘re-training’ a couple years down the road - from what I’ve been told, not everyone is allowed to retrain (which is similar in other branches trying out for SOF).
I researched this route several years ago, and would have done it (gotten out of the Navy and switched to Air Guard to go PJ), but I couldn’t afford to with a wife and kids. From talking to a couple of the ‘old-timers’ at the 123rd, the regular Guard guys got first dibs on deployments over the active Guard guys, so you could conceivably be deployed as often as you want (assuming there are deployments available). You can also apply for active Guard positions, which is similar to active duty military (going to work everyday, retirement after 20 instead of after 55 with regular Guard), or even switch to active duty once you have served the Guard however long they require of you after completing the pipeline.
Anyway. Ramble over.
Bottom line, figure out what job you want, research all the branches and see which one fits best. Good luck.
edit - if/when you are pursuing PJ, check out specialtactics.com. It’s a website by and for PJs and other AF special programs (CCT, CRO/STO, I think they even have some stuff for SERE and ‘Combat Weather’ - that one still cracks me up…'Cover me, I gotta get this weather balloon up!) Info on recruiting and packages, as well as some really good PT programs - I used one when I was prepping for SWCC school.