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You boys like stop loss?
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Oct 24, 2023 18:40
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spacetoaster posted:You boys like stop loss? Wait, there's still people in the Army?
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Oct 24, 2023 20:18
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psydude posted:Wait, there's still people in the Army? Jokes on them I guess. Dunno who they are but I'll point and laugh.
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Oct 24, 2023 20:21
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Even I've been out for years at this point. Not even in the IRR anymore.
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Oct 24, 2023 21:10
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I’ve been out for 11 years as of last month 
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Oct 24, 2023 21:54
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Icon Of Sin posted:I’ve been out for 11 years as of last month I'm at 8 years, 6 months of freedom.
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Oct 24, 2023 22:07
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I'm out of the Army. My payfile isn't. Ask me why the USAF can't pay me before they get the full pay records from the Army. Did I essentially get caught by an unsecured ruck strap?
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Oct 24, 2023 22:12
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Vahakyla posted:I'm out of the Army. Isn’t this like… the third military organization you join?
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Oct 24, 2023 22:36
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He's got an abuse kink, clearly
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Oct 24, 2023 22:39
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I hit 27 years in August.
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Oct 24, 2023 22:48
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Vahakyla posted:I'm out of the Army. Summadat grunt poo poo
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Oct 24, 2023 23:15
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Over 11 years for me and now my body has more titanium parts than an F-35
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Oct 25, 2023 00:03
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I am now one week from retirement. I'm gonna get buddy copped, aren't I?
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Oct 25, 2023 13:55
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Suntan Boy posted:I am now one week from retirement. No you'll just get PCS orders for Fort Cavazos
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Oct 25, 2023 14:23
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Mustang posted:Even I've been out for years at this point. Not even in the IRR anymore. Did you resign your commission? Unless you're 62 I've got some bad news for you.
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Oct 25, 2023 18:41
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spacetoaster posted:Did you resign your commission? The letter I got said it would automatically be assumed that I had resigned my commission if I didn't reply. Funnily enough, I actually did send back the paper saying I wanted to keep my commission, but they never processed it and I got discharged from the IRR. Not too beaten up about it.
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Oct 25, 2023 20:17
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They never sent me any letters like that, just constantly asking me to verify my address. But those have stopped since I passed the 8 year mark from joining the Army.
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Oct 25, 2023 22:59
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I've been retired longer than I was in.
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Oct 26, 2023 14:19
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Cat Army
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I wish I could find the Army PT jacket for sale somewhere that doesn't have all the Army stuff on it. It's still by far the best windbreaker type of running jacket I've ever used. Every windbreaker I've tried has sucked in comparison. Honestly same goes for the Army PT pants that have the mesh liner on the inside. I've ordered so many different varieties of both off of Amazon and they've all disappointed me. Don't want to be That Guy that still wears his Army pt poo poo as a civilian.
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Oct 27, 2023 22:29
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Mustang posted:I wish I could find the Army PT jacket for sale somewhere that doesn't have all the Army stuff on it. It's still by far the best windbreaker type of running jacket I've ever used. Every windbreaker I've tried has sucked in comparison. Honestly same goes for the Army PT pants that have the mesh liner on the inside. You could just sew a patch over the word "ARMY".
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Oct 27, 2023 22:40
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Haha true, I guess the big yellow stripe also just screams ARMY to me.
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Oct 27, 2023 22:54
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Mustang posted:I wish I could find the Army PT jacket for sale somewhere that doesn't have all the Army stuff on it. It's still by far the best windbreaker type of running jacket I've ever used. Every windbreaker I've tried has sucked in comparison. Honestly same goes for the Army PT pants that have the mesh liner on the inside. https://provizsports.com/products/reflect360-mens-outdoor-jacket?country=GB
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Oct 27, 2023 23:02
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Mustang posted:Haha true, I guess the big yellow stripe also just screams ARMY to me. Or you could sew on a patch that says "Homest" right in front of ARMY. You have to ask yourself 'Do you has the 5 bucks' before you do it, though.
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Oct 27, 2023 23:15
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Mustang posted:Haha true, I guess the big yellow stripe also just screams ARMY to me. Oh, I thought you were talking about the grey ones. I have a box in the shed full of those.
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Oct 27, 2023 23:22
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I think I got rid of the grey one while I was still in the Army because in basic all of the gear I was issued was comically too big for me.
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Oct 27, 2023 23:31
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Mustang posted:I think I got rid of the grey one while I was still in the Army because in basic all of the gear I was issued was comically too big for me. loving XL body armor the whole god drat time I'M 5'10" LIKE THE EXACT AVERAGE THAT poo poo NEVER FIT ME RIGHT RAAAARGH.
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Oct 28, 2023 04:20
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We all got medium IBA before we went to OIF- I now know how lucky we were to get IBA and 2 Plates. I was 6'3" and was around 180 at the time. The medium stopped 2/3 the way down my back.
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Oct 28, 2023 04:39
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Did your armor have the built in A/C?
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Oct 28, 2023 05:39
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spacetoaster posted:Did your armor have the built in A/C? That got added on by the local Tourism Bureau.
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Oct 28, 2023 06:33
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... ...I mean, do we have to paint the rocks or anything before the Marines paint them all pink or whatever they do to the crap they get?
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Nov 20, 2023 14:49
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I guess I'll be nice and hide some crayons in fun places for them to find.
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Nov 20, 2023 14:54
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ASAPI posted:
The Marines aren't going to get this thread until 2030 at the earliest.
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Nov 20, 2023 16:00
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McNally posted:The Marines aren't going to get this thread until 2030 at the earliest. That's fine , crayons don't get moldy like cheese.
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Nov 20, 2023 22:23
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McNally posted:The Marines aren't going to get this thread until 2030 at the earliest. We can festoon it with dicks all we want, but they’ll sniff out all the places we missed and decorate accordingly.
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Nov 21, 2023 01:41
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I was talking to someone who posed an interesting question that I didn't have an answer to and thought perhaps someone here might. I'll try to summarize it as best I can. They were in Ghazni in 2009 and had something like twenty firefights while they were there. They said that nineteen of the twenty firefights were all pretty similar and the people they were fighting weren't particularly skilled. Missed close range shots with RPGs on MRAPS, 7.62 going wide etc etc. But they had one firefight where the opposition seemed comparable in skill. The person said that all of their dismounts had a close call that day. The person theorized that some fighters other than locals were called in to try and get a win, maybe for PR / propaganda purposes due to how unsuccessful previous engagements had been for them. Does that theory hold water? If so who could the more skilled opposition possibly have been? Thank you.
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Mar 29, 2024 04:00
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Theories I have that I can elaborate if you want, but it's conjecture because I didn't serve in AFG, and am only passing on what I've learned from studies, buddies, and memories of old AAR type reports spread around through the Army. It could be those guys knew they had a better chance than usual; maybe they knew air or fire support wasn't available. Maybe they just got bold. Other possibilities- someone important was in the area, and it could have been their personal troops, who tended to be better trained. This is my uneducated guess. It could have been a specialized Taliban unit- if they are operating in the ways they did historically, they have more elite troops and teams operate through an area, not unlike the West uses special forces. There is a chance they were foreign fighters, who tended to be more likely to stand and fight. There were some reports of suspected Iranian Republican Guard equipped and trained units, but that always sounded like boogeyman bullshit to me.
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Mar 29, 2024 04:50
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Sadistic Hamster posted:I was talking to someone who posed an interesting question that I didn't have an answer to and thought perhaps someone here might. I'll try to summarize it as best I can. Ghazni sits at the intersection of major routes between Afghanistan and Pakistan and Route 1, which goes all the way to Kabul. Throughout history, it was a major trade route (it was part of the Silk Road) as well as a key transit point for invading armies (including Alexander the Great, The Mongolians, and the British Army). Suffice it to say, it was also a major artery for insurgent groups to bring manpower and materiel into Afghanistan. When I was at Ghazni, we had a few groups operating in the area: The Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HIG), the Afghan Taliban, and some remnants of Al Qaeda. The HIG were smaller and really enjoyed poo poo like kidnappings and suicide bombings - traditional terrorist activities. The Taliban participated in their fair share of that as well, but they also engaged in a lot of direct action against ISAF and the ANA. Like any good guerilla force, they needed to keep constant pressure on the central government and the coalition forces without exhausting their manpower and supplies. To do this, they employed an interesting model which generally involved using local auxiliaries that were paid or coerced to do stuff like shoot mortars and rockets, plant IEDs, and occasionally engage patrols and checkpoints with small arms. The seasoned fighters that constituted the bulk of their offensive capabilities tended to move back and forth between refuges in Pakistan and operating bases in-country. This was largely seasonal: they would winter over in Pakistan while depending upon the aforementioned local auxiliaries to harass ISAF and the ANA. In the spring through fall, they would move back to Afghanistan for fighting season (this is literally what it was called, and it had an official start date that was established by the Taliban leadership). So it's possible that your buddy was engaging with the skeleton crew during the winter months and early spring and then suddenly ran into the seasoned fighters once fighting season kicked off. It's also possible that they were sent on a specific operation to attack a major Taliban force. Or maybe it just so happened that the Taliban were emphasizing operations in that area at that time. psydude fucked around with this message at 11:24 on Mar 29, 2024 |
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Mar 29, 2024 11:12
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Thank you both for the responses. It's weird how all this information doesn't seem to reach the average person on the front lines. The firefights took place during fighting season, the one against the particularly skilled people was, he thinks, in the later part of the season, possibly even outside of the typical fighting season period. The guy I know said he wished he had asked for the serious incident reports about all this stuff. Adrenaline is like laser-etching for memory but who looks at their watch for time and date when under fire?
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Mar 30, 2024 14:10
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Sadistic Hamster posted:Thank you both for the responses. It's weird how all this information doesn't seem to reach the average person on the front lines. The firefights took place during fighting season, the one against the particularly skilled people was, he thinks, in the later part of the season, possibly even outside of the typical fighting season period. The guy I know said he wished he had asked for the serious incident reports about all this stuff. Adrenaline is like laser-etching for memory but who looks at their watch for time and date when under fire? To be fair, it is entirely possible it was mentioned in a briefing before or after the convoy and the information was ignored/forgotten. Soldiers are really good at letting information go through one ear and out the other. If we actually paid attention, the idiots thread wouldn't exist.
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Mar 30, 2024 17:01
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Sadistic Hamster posted:Thank you both for the responses. It's weird how all this information doesn't seem to reach the average person on the front lines. The firefights took place during fighting season, the one against the particularly skilled people was, he thinks, in the later part of the season, possibly even outside of the typical fighting season period. The guy I know said he wished he had asked for the serious incident reports about all this stuff. Adrenaline is like laser-etching for memory but who looks at their watch for time and date when under fire? It runs both ways. Providing constant reports is hammered in to officers and NCOs because it's impossible for decisionmakers at the top to get a view of what's happening at the operational or strategic level without the inputs from small units. To take your buddy's example, assuming he's right and he ran into a group of seasoned Taliban fighters outside of fighting season, that information would have been extremely useful for building a complete picture of the enemy's posture. Particularly since it would have represented a major deviation from their standard MO.
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Mar 30, 2024 17:59
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