A friend was recently talking to me about how he is a machinery technician for the coast guard. He fixes up boat engines and takes them apart and all. I'm a mechanical engineer and what he's doing sounds awesomely interesting and is making me want to join some sort of armed forces as a tech/engineer. I'm only worried about my career path after working for such a service.duty for about 4 to 6 years. I would like to go on to invent things afterward, but I feel mechanics don't really do that and after doing that kind of work for 4 to 6 years I might forget a lot of my college stuff. Anyone with any advice or tips?