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God Bless The Military

Discussion in 'Permanent Threads' started by Diablo, Oct 19, 2009.

  1. Cult

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    HEY! I take offense to that!

    You're right in a way, but each branch has their own shit to deal with, depending on your personality one branch might be better than another. How easy or rough your life will be depends mostly on your job.

    @Slivers - Base what branch you join off of what job / career you are interested in. I've seen too many people say "I wanna join the Air Force / Marines / whatever" but have no real direction as to what they want to do. They don't seem to realize their purpose is going to be doing a job, not just simply being in the military. If two branches have similar or the same job make sure you closely compare what the duties entail and pick which one you think will better suite you. If you're looking up information from military websites beware of what you're reading, they aren't lying to you, but the way they word some of the things on those sights makes some of the jobs sound a lot cooler than they actually are. Trust me, once you get in all of that caring about tradition and history of your branch will disappear, at least it does for 99% of people.
     
  2. Psk

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    This.

    I was lucky in a sense, as my military career started with doing military service (conscription). I was placed into an army unit (Mechanized Infantry) as a Forward Observer. I've been working with (Joint) Fires ever since.

    A couple of years ago, Sweden got rid of conscription, and now new recruits go through standardized Basic, and then apply to whatever job they are interested in. Most are disappointed, from my experience.

    My point is this - I had a whole year to look at different roles/jobs within the military and decide what I wanted to do. I had a whole year to get the feel for how working in the military would be like. There are two sides to this. First of all, you need to talk to as many people as possible and try to narrow down what you want to do, if you're thinking of making it a career. What branch. What type of unit. What role. Which specialization. Maybe you want to be a generalist, and go for being an officer.

    On the other hand, once you start working within a certain area, you tend to grow fond of it, and pride yourself in your competence within your MOS.

    The biggest favour you can do to yourself now is to come to terms whether you are willing to put in the time in an occupation that is underpaid, time consuming and exhausting*. Once you've accepted that, you will find the things that make the occupation rewarding.



    *That is unless you land one of the coveted jobs which are "competitive with civilian employment" meaning you get competitive wages and do less work (I'm assuming you have those in the US military).
     
  3. Omegaham

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    Happens every once in a while. It's not something that people mean to do. If I'm walking in front of the PX and it's nighttime, I'm not looking at everyone's collars to make sure that there aren't any officers. Most of the time the officer is doing something, so he won't actually call you out on it. If he does, then I usually say something like "Sorry sir, didn't see you." I pop to the POA, salute, and go about my business. If he wants to be a douchebag about it, that's on him.

    The only time that an officer should call an enlisted man out on it is when the guy is close, (10 feet) sees the man, and doesn't salute. That's disrespectful, and there's nothing wrong with correcting it.

    The only people I've known to actually make a big deal out of it (i.e. take it personally) have been 2LTs who don't know any better.

    I simply cannot imagine a butter bar pulling that shit with a senior NCO, though.

    [​IMG]

    Shinies in the Marine Corps tend to escape most of the BS that the enlisted have to deal with, so it's not a bad deal at all. Keep in mind, however, that officers don't get as much of a say in their job. It's one of those "You can state your preferences, but you're going to be put where we need you" things.
     
  4. bewildered

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    If anyone has experience using Space A, especially on a trip with multiple legs, can you shoot me a pm? Flights to get back home are around 1k so I am hoping to avoid that, but as I read more and more about Space A I get more and more confused. Thanks in advance!
     
  5. twopy

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    Has anyone heard of, or dealt with theArmy Testing and Evaluation Command? Also, has anyone tried to re enlist for a special assignment duty position? It's re enlistment time and Retention and Branch are of little help.
     
  6. cdite

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    #586 cdite, Jul 25, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 27, 2015
  7. Diablo

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    Here's a few pictures from my heavy lift today. We picked up pieces of a floating bridge and flew them over the water for about 4 miles, then dropped them into the water where the ground guys opened them and arranged them. Each piece was anywhere from 14,500lb-16,000lb and the lift needed two days to complete as there were about 15 difference pieces. This is the first time since the early 90's that a lift of this scale has been done. It was awesome to be a part of it.
    Very large pictures fyi.
     

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  8. M4A1

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    Couldn't fight it anymore. Re-enlisted last week for 6 more years in the CA Army Guard. Kept my rank, time in service etc. I get to Pogue out in some Aviation unit Maint unit(an AVCRAD for anyone who gives a shit).

    Bad news: little or no upward mobility where I am at, and I have to drive to Fresno every month.

    Good news: I'll be at 19 yrs when this one is done, and close to my pension. 1st drill is in a couple weeks, shouldn't be too bad.

    Thing about it was that I tried and tried to get into the CGR and USAFR, with no luck from the recruiters. Oh well.
     
  9. Mantis Toboggan M.D.

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  10. Cult

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    Yeah, I'm only a few years in and I'm already looking into trying to switch branches and from what I've heard it's a massive ass-pain, especially since I'm going to try to go Army and they're downsizing so much. A guy at my last base was trying to go to BUD/S and they wouldn't take him because of color blindness, then he wanted to try going Option 40 (Ranger, I think) but the recruiter he went to told him he wouldn't be able to get in as an E-5. On the other hand, a kid I went to high school with got out of the Navy after a 4 year enlistment and then re-enlisted in the Army with no problems, some people have said it's easier to get out and back in rather than transfer branch to branch but I'm not too sure. The thing is if for some reason I can't get into the Army after getting out I'm fucked, if I do Blue to Green and it doesn't pan out I can always stay in the Air Force and have time to assess my options from then on out.

    I'm not sure how different the process is for reserve units, but I can't imagine it's much easier.
     
  11. Cult

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    Koreans are racist as fuck.
     
  12. cdite

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  13. monkey0726

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    I'm strongly considering participating in a goruck challenge in Boston.

    Has anybody done one/know about these guys? I've heard nothing but praise for them but I'm curious about any other opinions. Seems awesome.
     
  14. BrianH

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    They are good dudes.

    Their logo causes a stir, though (your avatar). The flag should never be displayed backwards, unless on uniform so the stars are always forward.
     
  15. monkey0726

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    Huh, never knew that. Thanks for the heads up.

    A buddy and I signed up for the November one to give me a little time to brush up on my rucking. I'll give it a write-up when I finish.
     
  16. Cult

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    Fighter pilots are some of the dumbest people on the planet, I think I need not elaborate on this statement to anyone who has met one, but dammit if I'm not envious of what they get to do.
     
  17. Omegaham

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    It takes a college education to wreck something and a high school education to fix it.

    On-topic: Went up for meritorious sergeant and COMPLETELY fucked up. Oh God. I've never done sword manual before, thanks to never going to Corporal's Course. I walk into the room, and there's a sword on the table. OH SHIT, I think. I'm FUCKED!

    Due to having an awesome recall of random crap, I answered every trivia question correctly. Then the sergeant major motioned to the sword.

    "Corporal Omegaham, pick up the sword."
    GODDAMN IT
    "Aye aye, sergeant major."

    (pause as I stand at attention)

    "PARADE..." Whew. Something I actually know.
    "REST!" (I lower the sword at "Parade," then stand at parade rest and lower the point to the floor at "Rest")

    "CARRY... SWORD."
    (I go back to the standard position of the sword at my shoulder. You're actually supposed to raise the sword off the floor at "carry," but I didn't know this. It's also a minor detail)

    "PRESENT..." (You're supposed to raise the sword in a salute. I didn't know how to do it, so I just stood there. All I know is that you raise the sword up)

    (awkward silence as they expect me to raise the sword. The sergeant major realizes that I don't know it and gives me a chance)

    "SWORD!"

    Nervous as fuck, I bring the sword up HARD. And high. Waaaay too high. I bury the sword in the ceiling tile. I stare up at the ceiling, looking at the impaled ceiling tile with a mixture of astonishment and horror. I then gingerly bring it back to "Carry Sword" and say, "Sergeant major, I don't know this drill movement."

    "IT IS APPARENT THAT YOU DON'T, CORPORAL."

    I kept my bearing the whole time afterward and dismissed myself with some dignity. The guy after me goes, "DID YOU JUST STAB THE FUCKING CEILING?"
    "...yeah..."
    "BAHAHAHAHA, YOU FUCKING RETARD. THUUUNDDEERCAAATTS, HOOOOOOOOO"

    Word got around very quickly that a certain dumbshit corporal buried an NCO sword in the ceiling during a meritorious board. People now yell "THUNDERCATS, HOOOOO" whenever I walk into a room. The sergeant major now thinks I'm a complete moron.

    Oops.
     
  18. Cult

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    God damn that's pretty funny.

    I guess in a sense I'm lucky to be a part of a branch that doesn't demand us to know stuff like sword drill for promotions. On the other hand in the Air Force it's all about how we look on paper. I was awarded Senior Airman below the zone and literally all I had to do was was hand my supervisor a list of things I did over the last year. Fortunately I volunteered for a lot of stuff that was for espirit de corps and I CLEP'd a metric dick ton of classes and the chiefs eat that shit right up. They don't even factor in our physical fitness scores, unless you don't pass your PT test in which case you're automatically disqualified. They didn't even have the E-3's who were eligible go in front of the board, although that might possibly be because there were so many people put up for consideration the chiefs would have been holding the board for days.

    I'm not the best mechanic, but I think I was the most technically proficient at my job out of the people who I went up against in my squadron, but I've seen a lot of good people lose that promotion to someone incompetent because they have a family and don't have all the time in the world to take classes or volunteer. Or worse yet, they have a supervisor who believes that for any airman's first performance report they are arbitrarily not deserving of a 5 under any circumstancesand give them a 3 or a 4 essentially labeling them as a s.hit bag and screwing them out of promotion points, and pretty much any meritorious award for several years.
     
  19. Cult

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    People in the military are hilariously bad at math and reading measurements. I'd honestly be terrified if I was a pilot and I knew how precise some of the work has to be done and how retarded some of the people are. My instructor in my class today kept on mixing up the formulas to find certain values. The worst part was it was extremely basic stuff, like he mixed values for simple addition and subtraction twice.

    Or when I was in a back shop and people would just completely read micrometers wrong. Some E-4 or E5 would be showing me a procedure, read the measurement wrong, and then proceed to do the math wrong too and then wonder why the assembly we just put together was no where near close to the value we needed. How the fuck have you done this procedure before but don't know how to do the math? We're talking like simple multiplication and division at the worst. Fortunately most people realize they're terrible at math and won't argue with people who know more about math, but one hillbilly was adamant that you could not use a foot pound torque wrench to hit an inch pound value, his claim was you had to use an inch pound torque wrench and that simply dividing the desired value by 12 would most certainly not convert inch pounds to foot pounds.

    I suppose this should have gone in the rant/rave thread, but fuck the police.
     
  20. bewildered

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    For anyone who has flown space A, I have a couple questions.

    -I know that I have to sign up for the place I am flying out of for both my outbound trip and my return. Do I have to sign up at intermediate destinations?
    -I have seen it mentioned that there may be a way in certain locations to take a commercial flight from an AFB. How do I figure out if this is possible at a specific place? I am having a hard time getting a real person on the phone. All I can get is a number with an automatic message with info, but my question isn't covered.

    Thanks in advance.