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Are there any decent off the market helmet straps? The standard issue ones are terrible and constantly get loose and are a pain in the rear end to adjust. My NODs keep pulling my helmet forward once the straps loosen up. An NCO from another unit was telling me about some kind of neck strap for helmets that pulls backwards so your NODs don't pull it forward but I can't remember what they were called or who made them.
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Jan 2, 2017 01:39
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| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 17:16 |
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Thanks guys, going to order that one off of eBay. Going to be spending a pretty big chunk of this year in the field and I'd rather not be loving with lovely straps the whole time. Going to look into the counterweights too.
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Jan 2, 2017 21:43
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Not yet, whole BDE is in the middle of fielding a bunch of new equipment right now though
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Jan 2, 2017 23:45
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While I was in HHC they ran a range to qualify everyone and I was surprised how many non-combat arms soldiers had poo poo like ACOGs and EOTECHs. While the line platoons have plenty of optics I'm sure the guys left with 68's would prefer an EOTECH or an ACOG.
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Jan 4, 2017 03:00
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I still can't believe how much poo poo costs that the Army buys. The chairs we use are like $450, desks like $4000 and I'm pretty sure the huge table in the classroom costs over S10,0000. Could save so much money just buying poo poo from COSTCO or Ikea, it's not like the stuff the Army buys is high quality material or anything.
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Jan 4, 2017 03:49
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What's wrong with an EOTECH? I've only used one once but it seemed better than a 68.
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Jan 5, 2017 02:13
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I must have the dumbest luck in the Army because my time in so far has been mostly pretty painless. The PL I replaced had a horrible handover with the guy he replaced so he went out of his way to make it as easy as possible for me. One day I was told I was heading to a platoon and to starting doing layouts immediately and when I show up he already has a working property book with shortage annexes and TMs and poo poo for me. I was able to do property for an entire stryker scout platoon in about 3 hours, not counting the time it took for the guys to lay it all out. My commander is probably the best in the unit and offers constructive criticism and teaches you instead of crushing your balls when you make a mistake. I actually worked for him for a few weeks in S3 when I first showed up before he went and took command which is what landed me this platoon in the first place.
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Jan 7, 2017 05:35
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Benning is also a TRADOC post and I can't imagine any of that poo poo happening there. If you were sick/hurt you weren't hosed with at all. If you missed 8 hours of training you were recycled however I never actually saw that enforced. I hated being at Benning but mostly because Columbus was a poo poo heap of a city and should be burned to the ground and erased from the Earth.
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Jan 7, 2017 06:17
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I was born on Bragg and later lived there again while growing up and was determined to never live there again. My dad was SF and his opinion of the 82nd also kind of influenced my own.
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Jan 7, 2017 20:28
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A Bad Poster posted:Tacoma and Olympia aren't bad. I live in Tacoma and love it out here. So much poo poo to do in every direction. I'm sure Lakewood is a shithole but I never do more than drive past it on I-5 so I have no idea what it's actually like. You would have to have some sort of mental disability to be stationed at Lewis and not be able to find something fun to do in your free time. Tinder game is also really good out here.
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Jan 8, 2017 02:34
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cravius posted:Looks like I'm going to ranger school, gently caress me I guess You're probably going to get dropped on push ups like everyone else.... "48, 48, 48, 48....." Hopefully you at least have ARC as well because you won't get a scout platoon without it. Have you found out which BDE you're going to? I guess ARC doesn't matter so much at an ABCT but in an IBCT or an SBCT you will never get a platoon without it.
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Jan 17, 2017 05:36
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cravius posted:Well I'm going to Campbell so gently caress me I guess. Just RSLC for now Well RSLC is more or less treated like ARC in regards to getting a scout Platoon, you just need one or the other. However RSLC is known as the 4th phase of Ranger School. 11 guys from my class went and only 3 passed the course. Most of the guys that failed made it to the last day and didn't find out until then that they didn't pass. So they sat there on graduation day and watched their 3 buddies get their certs and diplomas. They went through a month long course for nothing. I'm sure they learned a lot but as far as the Army is concerned they may as well have never have gone.
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Jan 17, 2017 14:48
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A Bad Poster posted:Hey Mustang, were you around 4-23 this week during their field exercise? I saw some cav trucks rolling around. Nope, must have been one of the other troops, the only thing we used our Strykers for was driving out there and driving back. We were in the southeastern TAs doing dismounted training, so pretty similar, full combat loads patrolling through the woods all night in lovely weather. Or set in a screen and not moving at all in below freezing temperatures. Pretty similar to what we did in the field last week too, only it also snowed on us last week.
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Jan 21, 2017 19:01
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By the way, how much time are you guys spending at YTC before NTC this year? We've got at least like 3 months of YTC in the next 6 months.
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Jan 21, 2017 20:02
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cravius posted:Alternatively the army is cool and sometimes good Being a scout platoon leader is by far the most fun job I've ever had also helps that I have really good soldiers and NCO's that make my life a lot easier
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Jan 26, 2017 05:19
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What the gently caress, 3 late calls in a row. One for getting back from the field really late, one for bad weather and one for super bowl recovery.
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Feb 3, 2017 05:24
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We had a command climate survey for my company recently and the worst thing anyone had to say was that its hosed up we don't have our own printer and have to use BNs. The civilian dude that put together the results said that he usually only see's that in the SOF units on post. Not that we're super high speed or anything just that morale is pretty high. Me and my 3 section leaders are all the same age, my PSG only a couple years older so we all get along really well. I only have one troublesome soldier and he's not even really that much trouble. Seriously the most fun I've ever had at a job.
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Feb 3, 2017 05:38
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Haha, that isn't even remotely anything like me. If I was a LTC there would be no BN runs and I wouldn't micromanage what people do for PT. I actually think group PT is a waste of time. regardless, I won't be in the Army long enough to make LTC anyway, the stuff in between being a commander blows
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Feb 3, 2017 05:46
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Not yet, I'm a PL for now and I'd like it to stay that way as long as possible. You should have been notified by now about tomorrows late call, it's from the BDE commander
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Feb 3, 2017 07:55
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I was in S3 for half a year before I went down to a platoon. Here's to hoping for a specialty platoon next before becoming an XO
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Feb 6, 2017 01:44
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McNally posted:While we were in Iraq, our XO got promoted to 1LT. I congratulated him, paused, then said "sir, your rank is on upside down." He actually stopped to check. You had a 2LT as an XO?
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Feb 6, 2017 17:56
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Throughout OCS and ABOLC the NG guys all wished they could be active duty. Honestly wasn't all that impressed with NG OCS candidates. Some states send anyone with a degree and a pulse to OCS and they only manage to commission by the skin of their teeth. Most of my NG OCS classmates went home to either no job or something less than what they would make as an active duty officer. I definitely don't regret being active duty, I'm in a good unit and legit enjoying being a PL. The pay is pretty good too.
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Feb 7, 2017 04:41
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I'm obviously biased but I'd say my active duty OCS classmates are some of the best LTs I know. But I also went through when it was difficult to get an active duty OCS contract, not during the surge.
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Feb 7, 2017 05:39
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Nope, but there was a history exam that was essay only. It was one of the major causes of people recycling. Like 2 weeks of history classes lead up to the history exam. I think it has been changed to multiple choice now though. Only about 30 of the 66 I commissioned with were active duty. We had a total of 106 candidates that had been in our company at any given time, counting people that recycled and recycled into our company and then back out again. The recycles were almost exclusively NG. Only 2 active duty candidates recycled and it was from the history test in week 9 or so and they graduated with the next class.
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Feb 7, 2017 06:27
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We usually had 80 at any given time but people were getting recycled all the way up to the end. There were 4 companies. I was in Delta which was down with the airborne barracks so it had its own weird culture being so far away from the rest of OCS. About halfway through we moved the whole company up the hill to the "new" barracks with the rest of OCS.
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Feb 7, 2017 07:12
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Plus being airborne qualified means you might go to the 82nd
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Feb 11, 2017 19:54
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Direct commision folks go through OCS in their own special company but live in the same barracks. While the candidates more or less live in an almost basic training environment the direct commision folks are already officers, wear civies after 1700 or whenever their day ends and hang out outside on their cell phones and get to eat at the DFAC like normal people. They looked ridiculous the few times they actually did 'real' army training. They looked like they were about to die after rucking like 4 miles. edit: also overheard a group of them being excited about getting to try MREs for the first time the next day for their one day out in the field or whatever
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Feb 11, 2017 22:34
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OCS. It just changed then because I definitely had a direct commision company in class while I was going through. I mean maybe they call it OBC or something but it's part of 3-11 IN, the OCS BN and housed in the same barracks.
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Feb 11, 2017 22:44
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It's to teach the direct commision people the basics of being in the Army without sending them through BCT. The E-7 you're talking about obviously doesn't need to go because he's been in the Army for a while. They aren't officer candidates, they're already LTs and CPTs.
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Feb 11, 2017 23:23
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Yeah it seemed like they were mostly nurses and lawyers
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Feb 11, 2017 23:56
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psydude posted:You're confusing the Direct Commission Officers Course with OCS. No, I'm not. Its literally in the same barracks as OCS and under 3-11 IN. It's Echo company, I'm not imagining nurses and lawyers with LT and CPT rank running around. I never said they were officer candidates but they are definitely under OCS for the month or however long they're there for.
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Feb 12, 2017 02:21
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West Pointers also have a much better social network and safety net than their ROTC and OCS peers. I have some good friends that are West Pointers and they're good officers but the West Point Protective Association definitely exists.
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Feb 12, 2017 02:46
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I wonder what it was like in the Army before cell phones. While they're a great tool it's really loving irritating how it easily enables higher to micromanage everyone below them. We get told that while we're in the field we won't be hosed with and that's usually the case. Every once in awhile though I'll get dumb loving phone calls about poo poo I don't care about while we're out training. Fortunately my commander feels the same way and has our backs whenever we tell people to more or less go gently caress themselves. I can't loving stand all the good idea fairies BDE and higher seems to be full of, those people should be lined up outside and shot.
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Feb 20, 2017 21:58
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The junior enlisted/NCO side of the Army definitely seems to deal with afterwork texts way more than the officer side. Since becoming a PL I'm in various squad leader/PSG/1SG and whatnot group texts that aren't really directed at me but for my own situational awareness. Most of it seems to be driven by the CSM making up as many dumb things as possible for the enlisted in the unit to waste their time on. Honestly CSM seems like one of the most useless positions in the Army.
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Feb 21, 2017 00:37
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You mean like a battalion commander? They do have an adjutant, a lieutenant, basically a secretary.
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Feb 21, 2017 00:58
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While I do think a CSM is a mostly useless position, I think a PSG and 1SG are important roles for NCOs. Both PLs and COs are pretty junior as far as officers are concerned and that experience their PSG/1SG can impart are invaluable. A CSM is barely more senior in years than the LTC/COL or whatever they work for, and pretty far removed from the troops. Not having a PSG would make my life 1000x more difficult. I'm also fortunate enough to have great squad leaders so I can basically trust everything that needs to be done, to get done. I can't imagine being a PL and not having a PSG.
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Feb 21, 2017 01:47
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Well, I am an idiot so don't care too much about that. Just trying to get what needs done, done and not wasting the guys in my platoons time any more than necessary. I have no desire to make a career of the Army so I don't have any concerns about getting amazing OER bullet points or anything like that.
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Feb 21, 2017 02:01
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Justin Tyme posted:Please for your troopers' sake keep in mind there are tons and tons of fuckfuck poo poo that happens under your radar in your platoon that you won't be aware of unless you specifically ask about what sort of fuckfuck goes on. Little stuff that over time snowballs into making a lovely work environment, and it's stuff that's hard to quantify. Little things like constantly losing out on 30 minutes of lunch time (or any sort of personal time) for stupid bullshit, asinine decisions on how to do basic day to day stuff, etc I try to keep aware of stuff like this but myself, my PSG and squad leaders all try to get the guys out as soon as everything is done for the day. Our 1SG is also pretty keen on getting people out by 1700 at the latest. Kind of worried what our new 1SG is going to be like when we get a new one later in the year. My platoon is so ridiculously stacked with good NCO's that I'm honestly surprised I haven't had any of them taken to another platoon. I'm feel like I'm the luckiest LT in my unit. I'm sure it will all come crashing down around me someday though. Icon Of Sin posted:When I describe being a staff officer, I tell people to imagine everyone in Office Space wearing camo and being legally obligated to do what your boss says, and your boss has the worst aspects of both Milton and Lumberg rolled into one foul package. Even when you have a good working environment it still sucks balls being on staff
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Feb 21, 2017 05:57
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Spending the majority of the next 2 months in Yakima is really lame. All my lifting gains.... I'm going to be so weak when I can start lifting again. Then a month after that I get to go back out to Yakima again for 3 weeks.
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Feb 28, 2017 04:48
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| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 17:16 |
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Probably possible during gunnery but I doubt I'll have the time to during PLT and CO force on force/live fire. Can definitely do some squats, overhead presses and curls with a tow bar though. Most annoying thing would be strapping it back onto the stryker and doing the loop things so it looks all neat and squared away because this is the Army and if it's not all dress right dress I should go kill myself
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Feb 28, 2017 04:56
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