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CHICKEN SHOES
Oct 4, 2002
Slippery Tilde
Since apparently we have a bunch of lurkers, I figured we could do a more educational thread or whatever. I know many haven't served so I can totally understand why stuff like the branch threads or DFAC probably aren't appealing, or at least difficult to just kind of jump into anyhow.

We have a wide variety of experience in this forum, and while mostly US military, there is still a lot of representation from other countries. I think we even have a dude that was in the Finnish Army and is now in US Army training so WTF basically.

Ask "dumb" questions about the military and I'm sure you'll get a good answer.

You can ask about dumb acronyms or policy. You can even ask about doctrine and we can divulge all the SECRET OPSEC stuff for you!
You can even ask if you should join, but the answer is NO.

If you still think you might want to join because REASONS, feel free to PM me though for at least Army stuff and I'll try to give you a nuanced but overly negative answer. Maybe other dudes can volunteer for other branches I don't know. This place has gotten pretty negative towards this kind of stuff, and while it's meant with the kindest of intentions, we all know that people gonna join so at least try to get some answers I guess.

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Zeris
Apr 15, 2003

Quality posting direct from my brain to your face holes.
Why is it that one should not allow one's dog tags to dangle in the dirt

CHICKEN SHOES
Oct 4, 2002
Slippery Tilde

Zeris posted:

Why is it that one should not allow one's dog tags to dangle in the dirt

pick up your dog tags and put it in your shirt.

also lol if you wore dog tags and it wasn't a daily inspectable item

redneck nazgul
Apr 25, 2013

I kept mine in my wallet.

beanieson
Sep 25, 2008

I had the opportunity to change literally anything about the world and I used it to get a new av
Is it true only steers and queers come from Texas?

CHICKEN SHOES
Oct 4, 2002
Slippery Tilde
I mean haha new thread lets talk poo poo but I was kind of trying to make a sincere thread :kiddo:

beanieson
Sep 25, 2008

I had the opportunity to change literally anything about the world and I used it to get a new av
Oops sorry hct


How about this, do you feel your time in the military prepared you for a civilian career, like, in the least? You see all these commercials of weekend warriors going back to their medical or IT jobs or whatev and they're doing so well because they went through boot once upon a time. I just don't buy it :shrug:

Mike-o
Dec 25, 2004

Now I'm in your room
And I'm in your bed


Grimey Drawer
Lurkers come out, ask questions you fucks.

HOOAHHHH

CHICKEN SHOES
Oct 4, 2002
Slippery Tilde

Rad Lieutenant posted:

Oops sorry hct


How about this, do you feel your time in the military prepared you for a civilian career, like, in the least? You see all these commercials of weekend warriors going back to their medical or IT jobs or whatev and they're doing so well because they went through boot once upon a time. I just don't buy it :shrug:

When I was a cav scout, absolutely not. To be honest chemical had some cool things in it civ side, but nothing I really want to do, but sometimes think about getting into. A lot of my training for NCO schools and stuff was like industrial chemical clean up poo poo in the SCBA suit. I got the highest rating for HAZMAT response stuff, which came from the Natl Firefighter Association or something. Totally probably could have made a career out firefighting/hazmat response stuff of that or OSHA inspector poo poo I'm sure, but I just never really felt passionate enough to pursue it.

I'm doing an IT program in school now because I'm a goon of course, and I really don't exactly love it to be honest, and I think sometimes that if I had that job in the Army I could probably skip all t his poo poo and just get whatever certs I needed and be great at it.

CHICKEN SHOES
Oct 4, 2002
Slippery Tilde
To further expound on that, I don't think poo poo like THE ARMY VALUES made me a more valuable employee, but I definitely feel a bit more confident in being a manager or whatever. Not necessarily because of Army poo poo, but just because of at least having some experience in dealing with all the dumb drama and poo poo and dealing with peoples concerns and stuff. It probably made me worse in someways because I tend to lean towards an us vs THE ORGANIZATION with my dudes vs ramming whatever bullshit down their throat so in that way, sticking up for subordinates, i'm probably terrible for corporate culture

Nostalgia4Butts
Jun 1, 2006

WHERE MY HOSE DRINKERS AT

honestly it didnt help me out with work but you can totally yell right into my face and i can not give a poo poo

also the army made me a lot more confident in myself. kinda fucks me up sometimes as around here im the only one dumb enough out of my friends to enlist and poo poo, so i missed out on the typical college stuff.

CHICKEN SHOES
Oct 4, 2002
Slippery Tilde

Nostalgia4Butts posted:

honestly it didnt help me out with work but you can totally yell right into my face and i can not give a poo poo

also the army made me a lot more confident in myself. kinda fucks me up sometimes as around here im the only one dumb enough out of my friends to enlist and poo poo, so i missed out on the typical college stuff.

yeah same, I regret missing my 20s.

Nostalgia4Butts
Jun 1, 2006

WHERE MY HOSE DRINKERS AT

its weird that the stuff that's so hilarious to me is kinda unreachable for a lot of my friends, re: military stuff

the dick book was kind of a Rosetta stone for me, to show them where our priorities lie, and how much humor can be squeeze out of the dick-shaped joke sponge

Nostalgia4Butts
Jun 1, 2006

WHERE MY HOSE DRINKERS AT

drew carey's book dirty jokes and beer had a chapter about him joining the marine reserves and what it did for him that rang especially true

edit: drew carey would probably love the poo poo out of the dick book

CHICKEN SHOES
Oct 4, 2002
Slippery Tilde
It's just the gallows humor.

In my recruiting office like our most quoted line was "KILLLLL MEEEEEE" basically from Aliens poo poo


also "Let's burn this motherfucker to the ground"

Nostalgia4Butts
Jun 1, 2006

WHERE MY HOSE DRINKERS AT

Hillary Clintons Thong posted:

It's just the gallows humor.

In my recruiting office like our most quoted line was "KILLLLL MEEEEEE" basically from Aliens poo poo


also "Let's burn this motherfucker to the ground"

our deployment was 13 months of us repeating the rick james sketch from chappelles show

beanieson
Sep 25, 2008

I had the opportunity to change literally anything about the world and I used it to get a new av

Nostalgia4Butts posted:

our deployment was 13 months of us repeating the rick james sketch from chappelles show

This was pretty much my experience in the academy

CHICKEN SHOES
Oct 4, 2002
Slippery Tilde

Nostalgia4Butts posted:

our deployment was 13 months of us repeating the rick james sketch from chappelles show

yeah same really lol. I forgot about that.

I"M RICH BITCH

CHICKEN SHOES
Oct 4, 2002
Slippery Tilde
I'm thinking of the Lil Jon one but really chappelle in general was huge

beanieson
Sep 25, 2008

I had the opportunity to change literally anything about the world and I used it to get a new av
gently caress YO COUCH was a common battle cry

Mustang
Jun 18, 2006

“We don’t really know where this goes — and I’m not sure we really care.”
HCT you were a cav scout? Seems like there's a strangely high number of scouts and Pacific North Westerners here in GIP

CHICKEN SHOES
Oct 4, 2002
Slippery Tilde

Mustang posted:

HCT you were a cav scout? Seems like there's a strangely high number of scouts and Pacific North Westerners here in GIP

I was 19d for my first enlistment. Like 6 months after AIT I had a grand mal seizure and they took me off the line and put me as a brigade mail clerk lol. I deployed as basically a brigade s1 and gtfo after that. I Came back in and didin't want to come back in as an E4 cav scout with 0 experience and the MOS's they offered me were like 18x, 11x, truck driver, cook and chemical. I took chemical.

Yes I'm a dumb rear end who got out and came back in

Pikehead
Dec 3, 2006

Looking for WMDs, PM if you have A+ grade stuff
Fun Shoe
Why do helicopters nowadys have miniguns as door guns rather than the machineguns they had back in the vietnam era?

I'm talking the difference between today:



and back in the vietnam era:


I would have thought that a machine gun has less moving parts (and more reliable) and that the rate of fire wouldn't matter as much (or be good enough).

Zeris
Apr 15, 2003

Quality posting direct from my brain to your face holes.
That's probably air force CSAR. Army medevac UH60s have a much lower weight, no refuel probe, and no guns at all. Miniguns on a blackhawk come with 160th and airforce CSAR. This concludes the briefing what are your questions

Time Crisis Actor
Apr 28, 2002

by Hand Knit
Marine UH-1Y's are now being equipped with miniguns

Suntan Boy
May 27, 2005
Stained, dirty, smells like weed, possibly a relic from the sixties.



Pikehead posted:

Why do helicopters nowadys have miniguns as door guns rather than the machineguns they had back in the vietnam era?

I'm talking the difference between today:



and back in the vietnam era:


I would have thought that a machine gun has less moving parts (and more reliable) and that the rate of fire wouldn't matter as much (or be good enough).

Because miniguns are loving badass, that's why.

Also because the whole goal of a machine gun isn't so much to accurately poke holes in people/goats/shitwagons, but to throw a wall of lead in the general direction of all those things at once, which the minigun excels at.

Real talk though, I've only ever seen one on a helicopter. The rest were whatever 240 variant they stick in there. poo poo's expensive.

Zeris
Apr 15, 2003

Quality posting direct from my brain to your face holes.

Deathy McDeath posted:

Marine UH-1Y's are now being equipped with miniguns

What is a UH-1Y and what does it do for the marines for us who do not know?

shovelbum
Oct 21, 2010

Fun Shoe
I hear a lot of stories where people get basically treated like idiot children, also where they act like idiot children, which is the cause and which is the effect? In civilian life I think a lot of those shenanigans lead to summary firings which obviously aren't a thing for the military.

Time Crisis Actor
Apr 28, 2002

by Hand Knit

Zeris posted:

What is a UH-1Y and what does it do for the marines for us who do not know?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=UH-1Y

Nostalgia4Butts
Jun 1, 2006

WHERE MY HOSE DRINKERS AT

i mean if you cast a large enough net, theres gonna be some loving literally retarded people who escaped basic.

Kung Fu Fist Fuck
Aug 9, 2009
you have to be pretty retarded to join the military, and most people do so right out of high school. the senior leadership are just those same retarded high schoolers whos entire adult life has been in this weird loving lord of the flies bullshit so they dont know how to act like real people. its a big nasty retarded vicious cycle basically

Comrade Blyatlov
Aug 4, 2007


should have picked four fingers





Yo navy guys question more toward the engineering side of things.

My job requires me to be able to maintain/operate basically all of the machinery on a vessel.
How does it work in military? I'm guessing everything would have to be pretty compartmentalized for damage control purposes?
Is there a general degree of skill or is it very much specialised?

Fo3
Feb 14, 2004

RAAAAARGH!!!! GIFT CARDS ARE FUCKING RETARDED!!!!

(I need a hug)
I used to be a civvy fridgey and I've been on Anzac frigates and collins subs fixing their poo poo.
Prior to working for that marine refrig specialist company I worked for the government maintenance, spending 5 years at RAAF Pearce, 2 years at HMAS Stirling, and 1 year at Campbell fixing their fridges and air cons.
So in short the aussie forces don't fix poo poo outside of arms or when not on base.
From memory just before leaving RAAF Pearce they were bringing in contractors to work on the aircraft too.

E: Though we had lots of commercial cargo ships where the engineer is supposed to know everything (like you say you're supposed to) also get us to fix stuff. Maybe they just wanted to go on leave and hire contractors?
I guess the navy and commercial ships just really really needed to know the engines, and for the navy the weapons systems - critical stuff. And you're SOL if your galley fridge or icecream machine is dead - get the contractors to do that when back to shore.
But HMAS Stirling was full of mechanics and engineers working on their cars full time and contractors doing everything on base...

Fo3 fucked around with this message at 11:09 on Feb 4, 2017

Naked Bear
Apr 15, 2007

Boners was recorded before a studio audience that was alive!

Nostalgia4Butts posted:

i mean if you cast a large enough net, theres gonna be some loving literally retarded people who escaped basic.
A dude in my basic platoon was homeless in post-Katrina NOLA and a meth head. He was twelve different flavors of retarded ("permission to slay zombies, Drill Sergeant"). On top of having the IQ of a side of beef, he was criminally lazy and had a habit of antagonizing the very people trying to help him, and thus kept digging his hole ever deeper. I don't know how the gently caress he made it into basic in the first place, let alone made it out the other end.

Basically, "that guy" turned up to 11.

Naked Bear fucked around with this message at 10:55 on Feb 4, 2017

Burt
Sep 23, 2007

Poke.



How did you react to seeing your first dead casualty? Were you trained to deal with it at all?

Background: I was never in the armed forces but I used to work in all the "fun" places and the first death I saw was a man hacked to death in front of our compound gates over an argument about pigs. It was surreal and just seemed like I was watching a film rather than a man spilling his brains, and it never disturbed me in the slightest, and I always wondered if it should have.

LtCol J. Krusinski
May 7, 2013
Not every horrifying sight gives someone PTSD. Seeing lots of death and destruction over a long period of time, and some of those deaths being your friends or civilian casualties usually drives some people to the PTSD train.

Though I know people who claim PTSD from the rocket and mortar attacks that I usually just slept through.

Every person is different I guess- some are more likely than others to develop PTSD. That's why they're pushing resiliency training- try to give guys the tools to deal with combat stresses before they even happen.

PTSD is weird.

666
Jun 27, 2002

Carrion Fairy
am i correct in my assessment that gippers are more articulate and more progressive than the majority of military personnel and in general not representative of the culture of the us armed forces


and if i so how the hell did you guys stay in for so long

ManMythLegend
Aug 18, 2003

I don't believe in anything, I'm just here for the violence.

Two Finger posted:

Yo navy guys question more toward the engineering side of things.

My job requires me to be able to maintain/operate basically all of the machinery on a vessel.
How does it work in military? I'm guessing everything would have to be pretty compartmentalized for damage control purposes?
Is there a general degree of skill or is it very much specialised?

Speaking from the conventional side of the house.

1) Yes, everything down in the plant is compartmentalized for DC purposes. There is also a ton of redundancy built into the plant. The big down side is that even generally simple things are over engineered and can be hard/expensive to maintain.

2) Sailors are relatively specialized in their training and responsibilities, however there is definitely a general baseline of knowledge on how things work which is also further built through watch standing qualifications. As a general rule of thumb, the larger the ship the more specialized sailors can because their are enough people onboard that they can stay in their own little worlds. On smaller ships there's a lot more of a requirement for guys to be involved in everything onboard and not be as stovepiped.

ManMythLegend
Aug 18, 2003

I don't believe in anything, I'm just here for the violence.

666 posted:

am i correct in my assessment that gippers are more articulate and more progressive than the majority of military personnel and in general not representative of the culture of the us armed forces

Speaking from the Navy side of the house, I think GiP is pretty representative actually. I know that the typical stereotype is that it's a bunch of poor dumb kids and fuckups, but in general we're pretty representative of the US populace (for good and for ill). I've met guys who could barely walk and breath at the same time, and there are other guys who I've had in depth discussions about some of Don Delilo's works. It all depends.

666 posted:

and if i so how the hell did you guys stay in for so long

Well, as an officer I've stayed in for mostly mercenary reasons. I've got a decent set of pay and benefits as well as being able to get Uncle Sam to pay for 100% of my undergrad and graduate degrees, as well as a significant portion of one of my kids' degrees, and a great deal of stability which was huge during economic crisis of the last decade or so. Of course I don't really like me job very much, but I've also gotten to do some pretty cool stuff on occasion and I enjoy working with a lot of the people I've served with.

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By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 5 hours!
When and if poo poo hits the fan, what percentage of fellow soldiers and officers that you know would you not count on to perform.

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