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In my old unit, I'd say that would be a very small portion. A lot of that just boils down to trust and experience. If you've deployed with a particular group of guys before and know that they'll perform under pressure, then you don't really worry too much about them. It's the new guys (or ones who otherwise haven't deployed) that I'd be concerned about because you don't yet know how they will react to those kinds of stresses. With good mentoring and training, a lot of folks adapt just fine; the number of guys I saw who just couldn't hack it was pretty small.
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Feb 4, 2017 18:17
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I just have this desire to know what is the fuckups per regiment rate is, probably because the most memorable stories are about useless people who endanger themselves and others. But I suspect that most armies work better than most government beurocracies.
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Feb 4, 2017 18:22
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Everyone fucks up at some point. Just about everyone learns, though.
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Feb 4, 2017 18:24
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In addition to what's been said about idiots: In the U.S., at least, the people who comprise the armed forces actually wind up being a little smarter overall than the general population. That's hard to believe when you see some of the stupidity that goes on daily, but the military does weed out a lot of retards. Some do still slip through, of course. The military is, more or less, a cross section of the American public. Yes, there are even smelly, tree hugger hippy types (and sometimes they wind up as your medics  ).e: thanks, autocorrect Naked Bear fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Feb 4, 2017 |
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Feb 4, 2017 18:32
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There are always people loving up in dumb ways, half the time it's with good intent and poor execution, or you could probably just blame lovely leadership and bad communication. Or it's regular stuff that people are doing anyways like DUIs and drugs type stuff. Most frequent "gently caress up" that I can think of is poo poo like missing morning PT formation, or being a second late to the 10 minutes before the 5 minutes before the 10 minutes before the formation type stuff. A lot of the non criminal gently caress up poo poo is somewhat understandable because it's just volumes and volumes of rules and regulations that are selectively enforced, if at all, until someone decides to gently caress you with it. It's cliche to say this but really the easiest way to stay out of trouble in the army was to just be in the right place, at the right time, in the right uniform, and it was smooth sailing for the most part. I'm a weirdo who did 12 years and never got UCMJ though so I guess I was a good little soldier until they decided I was garbage for whatever reason.
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Feb 4, 2017 18:35
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Well there have been some kick rear end pacifist medics in the US armies.
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Feb 4, 2017 18:35
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Maybe it would be fun to post what you know in a casual, accessible manner in the thread for lurkers!
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Feb 4, 2017 18:38
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Another question: to what degree are civilian contractors involved in the day to day army life? E:VVVV OK, let's say international posting in a somewhat volatile region. By popular demand fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Feb 4, 2017 |
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Feb 4, 2017 18:43
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:Another question: to what degree are civilian contactors involved in the day to day army life? Depends on your job.
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Feb 4, 2017 18:50
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I'll try to answer the UH1Y question in a friendly informative way! The UH-1 Iroquois, from here on out referred to as the Huey, is probably one of the most iconic pieces of US military hardware. The name Huey comes from when it originally supposed to be the HU-1 or Helicopter, Utility - 1. Instead of course it became Utility, Helicopter - 1 as the military kind of redid the numbering system. It was the first turbine helicopter built for widespread use, and was used by every branch in the military! It was a pretty versatile airframe and did about every conceivable mission for a helicopter, from CASEVAC (Casualty evacuation, medical air lift type stuff, and a real huge game changer in life expectancy of US soldiers), fire support, observation, transport, marking targets for other things to come blow poo poo up and so on. While as far as I know every branch in the mil has moved away from the UH-1 in favor of more modern helicopters, specifically the UH-60 blackhawk models, the USMC has continued with the huey over the years, improving it steadily. A lot of it has changed, where the original just had the 2 rotor blades which gave it a very specific sound, the new one has four! As a side note, and referenced in the Billy Joel song "Goodnight Saigon" he mentions counting rotors, which was probably a legit thing the Viet Cong did to know if it was either a huey or something else. Back on topic they (the USMC) updated it to have two turbine engines rather than the one. I'd guess for better range, survivability and payload reasons. They even started making new hueys, which is pretty cool when you think about it, as most of the old hardware like that, the B52, C130s, and so on ceased production FOREVER ago and generally speaking it's usually just as affordable to build a whole drat new helicopter rather than restart old lines. Here is a vintage Army UH1  compared to the more modern UH1Y  Let me know if there are any corrections to make, just kinda pulled that out of my rear end to be honest. CHICKEN SHOES fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Feb 4, 2017 |
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Feb 4, 2017 18:52
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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 I think GIP skews to the left of the military as a whole, but when you compare them against similar groups it's about the same. I can't speak for the enlisted side of it, but the younger officers tend to be a lot more open-minded in general, especially if they went to a real college and not one of the academies. There's kind of a self selection factor to it, as the more liberal minded folks tend to get out after their commitment is up.
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Feb 4, 2017 18:59
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I'd say the current crop of junior officers in the Army are a fairly liberal bunch, I can only think of a few in my unit that were Trump supporters.Horrible Lurkbeast posted:Another question: to what degree are civilian contactors involved in the day to day army life? Lots of stuff on post is ran by or with civilians, like the simulators, range control, new equipment fielding, etc Your average soldier probably doesn't interact with them too often though. I'm in a stryker unit though so it's not too uncommon to have civilians from General Dynamics come by and work on our strykers.
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Feb 4, 2017 19:00
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What's the deal with recruiters? My impression is that people wind up assigned in recruitment as sort of a punishment, but I don't know how accurate that is.
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Feb 4, 2017 21:04
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POOL IS CLOSED posted:What's the deal with recruiters? My impression is that people wind up assigned in recruitment as sort of a punishment, but I don't know how accurate that is. In the Army it wasn't really a desirable job, but not a punishment by any means. It is viewed as a "career booster" kind of thing like drill sergeant and so on when it comes to like big army promotion stuff. People sometimes volunteer for it but like 90% of it is just SURPRISE YOU'RE GOING TO RECRUITING SCHOOL, and the poo poo sucks because it's easy to underperform as a recruiter for reasons that are realistically out of your control and then all of sudden recruiting is NOT a career booster, but rather a career ender, or at least not a good thing, depending on your evaluation reports. Recruiting is really hosed up and no one really wants to do it because how bad it sucks, it had a lot of suicide problems in the command for awhile, with lots of high pressure sales tactics poo poo that honestly most people arent interested or necessarily comfortable doing
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Feb 4, 2017 21:07
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Hillary Clintons Thong posted:In the Army it wasn't really a desirable job, but not a punishment by any means. It is viewed as a "career booster" kind of thing like drill sergeant and so on when it comes to like big army promotion stuff. People sometimes volunteer for it but like 90% of it is just SURPRISE YOU'RE GOING TO RECRUITING SCHOOL, and the poo poo sucks because it's easy to underperform as a recruiter for reasons that are realistically out of your control and then all of sudden recruiting is NOT a career booster, but rather a career ender, or at least not a good thing, depending on your evaluation reports. That last bit is particularly surprising. I wouldn't figure recruiting would have a suicide problem, even if it can be unpleasant. Did the higher ups change anything about how the system works (I'm guessing you had quotas?) to address that? Thanks HCT 
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Feb 4, 2017 21:12
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Hillary Clintons Thong posted:Cool Huey info. Thanks! I learn something new every day. I had no idea the Marines outright modded the Huey into a quad-rotor configuration. For its part, the Air Force still uses the classic dual-rotor UH-1N. Squadrons of Hueys are used for cargo and personnel transport, and as part of the ICBM defense quick reaction force. The USAF is supposedly going to replace them in the near future, possibly with the Black Hawk, but they've been saying that for years and years. 
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Feb 4, 2017 21:16
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Mike-o posted:Lurkers come out, ask questions you fucks. seriously dont just lurk, stay a while and ask. it's nice having new posters here
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Feb 4, 2017 21:25
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Here's a really dumb one: do you ever find yourself pining for a new global war? like out of boredom or something?
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Feb 4, 2017 21:37
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POOL IS CLOSED posted:That last bit is particularly surprising. I wouldn't figure recruiting would have a suicide problem, even if it can be unpleasant. Did the higher ups change anything about how the system works (I'm guessing you had quotas?) to address that? I got to USAREC (US Army Recruiting Command) about a year or two after the high profile suicide epidemic thing. One Battalion located in Houston area had like 4 recruiters kill themselves in a week or even maybe it was a matter of days. poo poo like that apparently had been going on like that for years, but this time it hit the news so the Army had to pretend to care because they got embarrassed. Major General Mann came in to fix this poo poo and made a lot of policy changes that most reasonable person would say was good. Instituted work hour policies, mandating that work day, unless specifically approved on an case by case basis by a Colonel, ended at 1700hrs. Of course people willingly violated this all the time, I did, it just happens that you get stuck in traffic driving some kid somewhere, or it's just in the best interest of the applicant that you do all his paperwork at 6pm because of his school activities or work and so on. Eventually that general left the command for usual reasons after doing his 3-4 years, and the new guy came in and said gently caress all that poo poo, everything is up to unit commander discretion. Our commander said "well basically you guys are working to 1800-1900 hours anyway, so now thats mandatory! Hooray!" and poo poo like that and it got shittier and shittier. Morale goes down and as a result quotas start getting missed, so more dumb poo poo comes down because of the numbers, morale goes further down and it's just this downward spiral of bullshit. Regarding quotas, the one thing that did change is MG Mann changed it from being individual quotas for each recruiter, and instead made it per recruiting station as a group effort kind of thing. A lot of old timers grumbled about this because "BACK IN MY DAY" poo poo but while USAREC as a whole was still massively toxic (almost primarily because of "BACK IN MY DAY" senior enlisted) it made the stations a lot more cohesive, and I'd imagine more tolerable. You could take leave without worrying about some other guy stealing all your contracts while you were gone and totally getting you hosed up for missing quota and poo poo. When I left people were still day dreaming about bringing back individual quotas and stuff like tracking every recruiters every movement 24/7 via smartphones and poo poo. gently caress all that poo poo.
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Feb 4, 2017 21:39
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I'd like to hear some stories about motards who came in bragging about how they were going to be Delta/SEALs/etc only to flame out hilariously. How long would it usually take before that happened?
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Feb 4, 2017 21:45
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Arc Light posted:Thanks! I learn something new every day. I had no idea the Marines outright modded the Huey into a quad-rotor configuration. Yeah the army still has some around too, I should have specified as a frontline type chopper suboptimal posted:I'd like to hear some stories about motards who came in bragging about how they were going to be Delta/SEALs/etc only to flame out hilariously. How long would it usually take before that happened? About day 2 of reception to basic training usually
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Feb 4, 2017 21:46
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suboptimal posted:I'd like to hear some stories about motards who came in bragging about how they were going to be Delta/SEALs/etc only to flame out hilariously. How long would it usually take before that happened? usually a couple weeks. in basic out of a group of about 150 people maybe 5 or 10 got recycled/kicked out. In medic school we had about 50% of the class recycle to a different company due to failing tests and poo poo. Also had a dude die from going AWOL and falling down a cliff
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Feb 4, 2017 21:47
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Hillary Clintons Thong posted:stuff like tracking every recruiters every movement 24/7 via smartphones and poo poo. That is extremely hosed up. I'm sure that being stalked constantly will not in any way harm morale or contribute to more self-harm among recruiters.
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Feb 4, 2017 21:50
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POOL IS CLOSED posted:I'm sure that __________ will not in any way harm morale or contribute to more self-harm among __________.
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Feb 4, 2017 22:23
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Nostalgia4Butts posted:seriously dont just lurk, stay a while and ask. it's nice having new posters here OK, since you asked nicely... How are the people who fly drones treated on domestic bases? IIRC they have to be qualified pilots for that gig. They've never been in a firefight or in true personal danger, but they have probably pushed buttons that killed people. Is that even PTSD, for them? Do other folks on-base treat them any differently from someone that came back from a deployment with a serious case of sadbrains?
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Feb 4, 2017 23:33
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Tiny posted:OK, since you asked nicely... Depends on the service, and who you ask. In the AF, they're officers. Army-wise, it's a bunch of enlisted dudes doing the same job. Both get left out of the cool kids club, on account of never really leaving the ground. The army guys also get poo poo on for never leaving the compound to be "real" soldiers, usually by idiots. Personally, I always appreciated that they were watching the route ahead for things that would turn my rig inside-out. As said before, PTSD depends heavily on the individual. For some, being stuck inside a tiny metal fart-box and only being able to watch poo poo happen ground them down. Others never got more than a headache from watching the monitors. Again, the people that talk poo poo are almost always the ones that know the least. E: not a UAV dude
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Feb 5, 2017 01:33
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Hi! I saw this on the front page. Has the relationship between the military and civil service improved since the 70s?
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Feb 5, 2017 01:48
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To a civilian, the Marines and the Army's purview and fighting profile look really goddamn similar with a lot of overlap. Besides being part of the Navy (and ostensibly/presumably involved in some water-based training/fighting), what's really the difference between them operationally?
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Feb 5, 2017 05:09
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mercenarynuker posted:To a civilian, the Marines and the Army's purview and fighting profile look really goddamn similar with a lot of overlap. Besides being part of the Navy (and ostensibly/presumably involved in some water-based training/fighting), what's really the difference between them operationally? Not much. Marines exist solely today because America loves marines.
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Feb 5, 2017 06:04
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The Army exists to fill roles that a military needs. The Marines need to find roles to justify their existence. The Navy's Army.
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Feb 5, 2017 06:06
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What organization, posting, or whatever decides what a certain unit does in the Army for a certain day? I used to work as a volunteer at a Soldier Family Activity center for a few years at Ft. Meade and I always wondered how far advance a schedule was made up in general for a unit, especially they seem to do so much different stuff day per day.
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Feb 5, 2017 06:31
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Arc Light posted:Thanks! I learn something new every day. I had no idea the Marines outright modded the Huey into a quad-rotor configuration. I remember being stationed in Cheyenne and watching those fly out every day to different silos. There is an Army Guard unit here I. Gerogia that still flies older Huey's as well.
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Feb 5, 2017 06:40
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mercenarynuker posted:To a civilian, the Marines and the Army's purview and fighting profile look really goddamn similar with a lot of overlap. Besides being part of the Navy (and ostensibly/presumably involved in some water-based training/fighting), what's really the difference between them operationally? Ideally size and mobility, something about a QRF that can be anywhere in 24 hours or less ready to fight. So basically they can be somewhere drawing dicks on everything a little faster than the army and sometimes in more loving detail. By faster than I mean the entire army, not specialized units so forth and so on. What began as naval infantry centuries ago has had its role expanded and revised so often they now fight to be the first to draw dicks on things in new conflicts. A little redundancy in the service can be a good thing since it means you've got enough people to go around and make sure you get some variety in dicks drawn on poo poo. Parachute dicks, swimming dicks with rifles assaulting the shore, dicks disembarking a helicopter and getting security, dicks on boats, dicks building fobs and bridges, dicks lobbing bombs, dick unicorns, purple opsec dick dragons with nutsack wings, a cannon cock manned by smaller dicks...
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Feb 5, 2017 07:25
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Rad Lieutenant posted:Oops sorry hct I joined the guard after having a few years of my bachelors complete and picked an MOS that seemed to relate the most (25B). I learned more in the 19 weeks of AIT than I did in all four years of college, although I did go to a poo poo campus (satellite campus for USC). However my degree is what got me through HR at my job, not my military service. The guard did pay for my security+ cert since it is a DoD requirement for this MOS and the current position im in on this deployment but getting any other cert paid for by the state is a miracle. During predeployment I was sent to an A+ class for shits and giggles and met active duty 25Bs who are doing a 3 year contract and already got a few certs thanks to the military. Plus the GI Bill and those guys made out like bandits for their time.
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Feb 5, 2017 12:05
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Steezo posted:Ideally size and mobility, something about a QRF that can be anywhere in 24 hours or less ready to fight. So basically they can be somewhere drawing dicks on everything a little faster than the army and sometimes in more loving detail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqZNPPpFSkM
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Feb 5, 2017 18:28
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AmyL posted:What organization, posting, or whatever decides what a certain unit does in the Army for a certain day? I used to work as a volunteer at a Soldier Family Activity center for a few years at Ft. Meade and I always wondered how far advance a schedule was made up in general for a unit, especially they seem to do so much different stuff day per day. It's not one singular organization other than the collective bureaucracy of the Army. You get tasks from Department of the Army (Have "Please don't be racist and also please don't rape people, with a seasonal class on how not to die while BBQing" classes quarterly or whatever) Then maybe your division has events and stuff that gets pushed down. After division you have your brigade (BDE) demanding stuff, then battalion (BN) and finally company (CO) A bulk of your schedule is, ideally anyway, coming from your BN and CO commanders. That usually includes the implementation of the DA and DIV stuff. CO commander makes a training schedule, and I think it has to be signed off by the BN commander, but I wouldn't be suprised if in some units it doesn't go higher, depending on the amount of micromanagement each level demands. Training schedule, which is just the term for basically your units complete day to day calendar, such as allowing time for soldiers to bathe and stuff, is usually published maybe 3 months out IIRC. It's almost never placed somewhere accessible to junior enlisted people, so a lot of times no one knows what the gently caress is actually going on. Also most units that I've been in only loosely follow it anyway, because often times you're reacting to last minute orders from higher echelons for usually a bunch of dumb poo poo. Tl;dr, honestly it's almost 90% made up as we go along it seems like
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Feb 5, 2017 19:27
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AmyL posted:What organization, posting, or whatever decides what a certain unit does in the Army for a certain day? I used to work as a volunteer at a Soldier Family Activity center for a few years at Ft. Meade and I always wondered how far advance a schedule was made up in general for a unit, especially they seem to do so much different stuff day per day. POTUS (commander in chief): we need to maintain a military force that can fight two wars in two separate regions of the globe at once Secretary of Defense: Ok army, navy, air force, etc. give me your requested budget and plans and reasons for why/how these taxpayer resources will provide you the troops and firepower necessary to meet our country's defense/peacekeeping needs Department of the Army/navy/AF/etc: Ok here's our figures, and our training schedules, and stuff Army training command (TRADOC): okay, we're gonna churn out x troops per cycle, which takes y months, and costs z dollars; Army forces command (FORSCOM): okay, assuming TRADOC gives us x troops to replace y troops leaving positions due to promotion/retirement/separation, we will have A armies, consisting of B divisions consisting of C battalions spread across bases on six continents, all ready to do the thing. Division commander of any given division: okay, one of my brigades just got home from desert X, the next brigade just arrived at desert X, and the next next of my brigades is currently training to go afterwards. Brigade that just got home: take thirty days off! woohoo! don't kill your self Brigade that just got to desert: gently caress, it's hot and we thought we knew what we were doing, but we didn't. brigade that is training: training sucks, and we have to go to JRTC (louisiana) next month, and when we get back we have to keep certifying in our METL (mission essential task list) assignments per the brigade commander's directive for preparing for the desert coming up! company in the brigade that is training: we gotta keep training on our rifles! off to the range! another company in the brigade: we gotta keep training on paperwork and human resources! off to the office! another company in the brigade: we gotta get ready to dismantle WMDs in desert! off to the gas chamber! etc
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Feb 5, 2017 19:37
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AmyL posted:What organization, posting, or whatever decides what a certain unit does in the Army for a certain day? I used to work as a volunteer at a Soldier Family Activity center for a few years at Ft. Meade and I always wondered how far advance a schedule was made up in general for a unit, especially they seem to do so much different stuff day per day. At battalion level and higher units have staff sections, one of them being Operations or S3. A units S3 shop will have a future operations (FUOPs) cell that plans things further than a month or so out. Once it's about a month out the Current Operations (CUOPs) cell will take it over. Corps will push its requirements down onto the divisions, the divisions onto the brigades and the brigades onto the battalions. Most stuff platoon level and lower is planned out by the companies themselves, though what they're doing is frequently blocked off on the calendar by BN. Like say BN tells the companies they have between X and Y date to do team and squad live fire training. In the white space in between the stuff dictated from higher units will schedule specific things they want to do, like land nav or call for fire training. However while poo poo might be planned out months in advance, there's always last minute changes or additional tasks to deal with on a daily basis.
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Feb 5, 2017 19:50
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Even the most meticulously planned training schedules go out the window when a bunch of dudes from Group swipe your .50 range time slot the day of. Come on, man, really?
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Feb 5, 2017 21:33
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My dad did his basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood. Is it the worst place in the US or the worst place in the galaxy? Because the old man can't mention his time in the military without appending, "And gently caress Missouri" to every story.
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Feb 5, 2017 21:42
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