View Full Version : Military service
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
07-18-2007, 15:55
Hey,
anyone here serve in the Military (US or any other one),jsut cuirious?:yes:
The Stranger
07-18-2007, 18:30
i know a few served/serve im not sure though
proletariat
divinus arma
Kralizec
07-18-2007, 19:29
At the moment? Gelatinous Cube, and Proletariat works with rehabilitating disabled soldiers (I think) IrishArmenian is in the Armenian armed forces.
There's a ton of former soldiers over here, though.
HoreTore
07-18-2007, 19:51
Conscript soldier from 12. january to 15. december, 2006. Norwegian Army, in the communications platoon of the intelligence battalion.
I can safely say that I'll never, ever experience such a lousy year ever again.
Remember Patriarch of Constantinople!
Kekvit Irae
07-19-2007, 04:23
Been there, done that, twice. Couldn't complete Army basic training both times because of exercise-induced asthma.
Proletariat
07-19-2007, 04:30
Just ETSed last 6 weeks ago. Army Reserve gal, practicing occupational therapy in the Prosthetic Wing of WRAMC. Now on the civilian side I teach geriatrics how to get out of chairs safely, and believe it or not, it can be fun.
US Army Infantry since 10February 2004 with two vacations on the side to Iraq and a third vacation(they really are like vacations, so much less nonsense to deal with) coming up in a couple of months.
12AUG is my promotion to Seargant. Can't wait.
Snite
Franconicus
07-19-2007, 08:28
I won the Cold War! ~;)
Lorenzo_H
07-19-2007, 16:29
Been there, done that, twice. Couldn't complete Army basic training both times because of exercise-induced asthma.
I have excercise induced asthma, though I hope to get rid of it through cardiovascular training soon. We'll see how it goes when the time for me to enlist in the British Army.
I also need to do something about my eyesight.
Lorenzo_H
07-19-2007, 16:31
Conscript soldier from 12. january to 15. december, 2006. Norwegian Army, in the communications platoon of the intelligence battalion.
I can safely say that I'll never, ever experience such a lousy year ever again.
Norway is the world's most peaceful nation at the moment (as ranked by
Forbes, I think). How do they have conscription? Who would want to invade Norway? (and by that I'm not trying to criticise Norway).
Goofball
07-19-2007, 16:45
Currently training as a reserve infantry officer. See recent photo in this thread: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=1614083#post1614083
Evil_Maniac From Mars
07-19-2007, 16:51
Norway is the world's most peaceful nation at the moment (as ranked by
Forbes, I think). How do they have conscription? Who would want to invade Norway? (and by that I'm not trying to criticise Norway).
This might touch a bit on Backroom material (so we can continue discussion there if you like), but I can think of three reasons why many European countries have conscription.
1. Tradition
2. A manner of serving your country. Generally you have a choice between military and civil service.
3. "Just in case."
4. Your government sees that as the most effective method of defending your country (Switzerland has a complex defense system based on conscription).
5. This is a personal opinion of mine. I believe that army service may help to encourage physical activity in some who would not otherwise do it. At least for a year, you know you'll be fairly fit.
The Stranger
07-19-2007, 17:15
i agree with 5... thats prolly why ill do it... + the discipline i need a lil of that.
Somebody Else
07-19-2007, 18:25
Got my main board coming up at the end of August, so hopefully I'm Sandhurst bound (got a Cat. 1 at the briefing, of course). I am in my UOTC, and therefore have an army number and army pay... does that count?
Samurai Waki
07-19-2007, 19:01
Perhaps the US should start some Conscription type System. Of course that would make us an even more evil empire.
AggonyDuck
07-19-2007, 19:22
Norway is the world's most peaceful nation at the moment (as ranked by
Forbes, I think). How do they have conscription? Who would want to invade Norway? (and by that I'm not trying to criticise Norway).
Norway is a large country with a small population, which means that conscription is the only way to actually uphold a credible army for self-defence. A volunteer or professional army simply wouldn't have the size required to effectively protect Norway. Currently pretty much noone would have any reason to invade Norway, but it is hard to say how international politics evolve. Even if things now are safe, who knows how the world will look like in thirty years. You can't really decrease the size of the army according to current needs, because once an army is decreased, increasing it back to the required strength is both time consuming and expensive. After all an army needs to be trained, equipped, maintained and also needs proper infrastructure. All of this is something you just can't conjure up in weeks, but something that takes years to accomplish.
As to the real topic; I'll start my military service at the Finnish Armoured Brigade in January 2008. Pretty much been waiting and preparing for it in three years now, so I hope it will all go well.:2thumbsup:
I have excercise induced asthma, though I hope to get rid of it through cardiovascular training soon. We'll see how it goes when the time for me to enlist in the British Army.
I also need to do something about my eyesight.
Is there a cure for asthma?
Norway is a large country with a small population, which means that conscription is the only way to actually uphold a credible army for self-defence. A volunteer or professional army simply wouldn't have the size required to effectively protect Norway. Currently pretty much noone would have any reason to invade Norway, but it is hard to say how international politics evolve. Even if things now are safe, who knows how the world will look like in thirty years. You can't really decrease the size of the army according to current needs, because once an army is decreased, increasing it back to the required strength is both time consuming and expensive. After all an army needs to be trained, equipped, maintained and also needs proper infrastructure. All of this is something you just can't conjure up in weeks, but something that takes years to accomplish.
I highlighted the reason we didn't have a well organized defence in 1940. We had been 'semi' neutral in the last WW and had outdated equipment.
It's more the attitude of never again shall we be unprepared. And we share a border with Russia.
There is one good thing about conscription. That is, nearly every male in the nation and a good portion of the women knows how to pick up an assault rifle disassemble it and reassemble it within the NATO requirements. A good portion of these men and women have done non-commissioned training with requirements exceeding the NATO requirements.
Good luck trying to invade and keep control of such a nation.
H.Tore might have not enjoyed his time in the Army, but I bet he would pick up a gun if we ever were invaded.
1992 - 1995 Royal Norwegian Navy.
Boot-camp - non commissioned offiser training - chief of MSO - Intelligence - commissioned officer - released from service as ensign (butter bar).
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
07-23-2007, 04:21
anyone went though OCS?
Kekvit Irae
07-23-2007, 06:46
Is there a cure for asthma?
Anything short of a total lung transplant? No.
You can treat it, but it's there for life.
Kadagar_AV
07-23-2007, 10:50
Sergeant in Swedens armed forces (nordic battalion).
Trained sniper with special education in survival and arctic warfare.
Basicly, "I shoot stuff good when hungry and cold"
HoreTore
07-23-2007, 14:39
Sergeant in Swedens armed forces (nordic battalion).
Trained sniper with special education in survival and arctic warfare.
Basicly, "I shoot stuff good when hungry and cold"
Hmmm.... You wouldn't happen to be one of those guys we found hiding in our showers during Cold Response '06, would you...?
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
07-23-2007, 16:22
Perhaps the US should start some Conscription type System. Of course that would make us an even more evil empire.
I think the US is to nice really :yes:
How about me Swiss, they got a Conscroption for their mitlita,right?
Lorenzo_H
07-23-2007, 17:17
Is there a cure for asthma?
Anything short of a total lung transplant? No.
You can treat it, but it's there for life.
Kekvit is right, there is no "cure" in that you can't take an antibiotic and make it go away. However, you can get rid of it permanently, and is especially possible in mild forms of either excercise or allergen induced (as opposed to emotionally induced) asthma. To accomplish this the following steps can be taken:
1. Cardiovascular excercise. The primary way of overcoming asthma is to practice excercise. Since asthma is basically your bodies over-reaction to excercise and or allergens (see below), you can build a kind of immunity to these reactions. If you're lungs can't stand excercise, chances are you need to give it more so they become accustomed to the new state of breathing nessessary in excercise.
2. Immunity to allergens in the air which can bring about asthma attacks, such as dust and dust mites, which I am allergic to, can be brought about by seeing an allergist about taking allergy shots. Allergy shots can be given once it has been established by means of a scratch-test what you are actually allergic to. They are basically injections of the allergen which calm your nervous system when future, larger invasions of the substance arise. Allergies are a result of your immune response being too efficient. By toning it with allergy shots, you can eliminate allergen induced asthma attacks.
Allergy and asthma induced asthma most often come together. The chances are, if you have one, you have the other. They also work in pairs, for instance while you are excercising, you might have to breathe deeper which would result in the allergens having access to more of your lungs, etc.
If you have emotionally induced asthma, sorry, I don't know anything about it.
Kadagar_AV
07-23-2007, 19:23
Heh, during cold responce 06 I was in hospital:(
dehydration... not exactly the proudest moment of my life, I kind of should know better than that. Well, in theory. :oops:
Nice Post Lorenzo.
I have exercise induced asthma, and I dont practice too much exercises, and I dont feel I can. I will need to do more exercise
Lorenzo_H
07-24-2007, 09:54
Nice Post Lorenzo.
I have exercise induced asthma, and I dont practice too much exercises, and I dont feel I can. I will need to do more exercise
You also might want to try a few breathing excercises. One which is reccommended as effective at controlling asthma over continued use is called the "controlled pause" which is when you breathe out (not in) of your nose and then hold your breath for as long as you can. You must hold your breath after you have breathed out because it is more difficult, and you must use your nose because you need to train yourself to use your nose always - it is a more efficient way of breathing. Keep doing controlled pauses every day a until you can hold your breathe for about 2 minutes or more. If you can keep this up, it will certainly help your asthma. WARNING: Be careful not to pass out while trying to hold your breath! My friend managed to do it once.
The Military Asthma Service Thread. :army: wheeze...
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/horsesass/GoofyAsthma.jpg
Yep, the old sticky lungs kept me out of the army as well.
That's why we have Goofball. He stands on guard for we. :sunny:
Lorenzo_H
07-24-2007, 12:21
The Isle of Man, where I live, actually has the highest concentration of Asthma in Europe. Everyone has it, practically. It's because the British nuclear waste disposal plant is directly across the Irish sea, in England, from us.
I really hope I can become fit in time for my military service. They say that if you haven't used an inhaler for 4 years prior to enlistment, you are OK. I am working on being less dependent on my inhalers. I practically never use them anyway.
I really hope I can become fit in time for my military service. They say that if you haven't used an inhaler for 4 years prior to enlistment, you are OK. I am working on being less dependent on my inhalers. I practically never use them anyway.
I dont use one, but I have to, sometimes, I cant breathe correctly.
US Army Infantry since 10February 2004 with two vacations on the side to Iraq and a third vacation(they really are like vacations, so much less nonsense to deal with) coming up in a couple of months.
12AUG is my promotion to Seargant. Can't wait.
Snite
CONGRATS SARGE !
Hmmm.... You wouldn't happen to be one of those guys we found hiding in our showers during Cold Response '06, would you...?
LMFAO!
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
09-27-2007, 16:04
:laugh4: Yea, how did this topci get derail somewhat into talking about asthma? :inquisitive:
Who's CAV in Iraq, here ?
Been in the Army National Guard for 5 years now. Gonna go active as an officer once I finish my schooling.
What's the Guard like? I've been thinking about joining the National Guard (in California) but haven't had the time do really look into it or talk to recruiters(never seen any at my school yet anyways) so I haven't the slightest idea of what it's about.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
09-28-2007, 18:05
Guard duty is a very variable experience. Some units train well and morale is high while others kill weekend drill time thinking up training tasks at last minute. I've seen and experienced both and being in the former makes you happy to go and do something different once a month while the later makes you feel like you're just throwing another weekend away. It's nice in a way because you really only see the guys there once a month so most everyone is happy to work together and try and accomplish something.
Right now my guard unit has switched from infantry to cav scout and that caused a lot of peole to not reenlist, so where my platoon used to be a full strength infantry platoon now we're happy to have maybe seven or eight guys in formation.
If you're considering it for the college money, it is a good help. Tuition assistance and the GI Bill help a lot when it comes to paying for schooling. You need to bear in mind though that all guard units are very likely to get deployed, my unit went to Iraq in 2005 and rumor has it we're gonna get called up end of next year to go back to Iraq in 2009.
If you talk to the recruiter be sure to ask when the next weekend drill is that way you can come by and see the unit doing stuff. Be sure to ask a few people what it's like, from lowly privates to the CO.
Also, if you do decide to sign up, try and pick a good MOS (military occupational specialty) and one that is still being used. If you pick something like air defense, while it's an important job in a conventional war, it's just not being used the way it's supposed to be used right now so you'd end up guarding towers or manning gates. Much better to get technical job that can help on the civilian side or to get a combat job that gets you off your butt and doing something.
Last thing, if you sign up, the recruiter has all sorts of perks to give out and with recruiting the way it is there should be no excuse for you not to get them. Ask about the different schools such as air assault, airborne, scuba etc..
Very Interesting. What Rank are you, spmetla?
Guard duty is a very variable experience. Some units train well and morale is high while others kill weekend drill time thinking up training tasks at last minute. I've seen and experienced both and being in the former makes you happy to go and do something different once a month while the later makes you feel like you're just throwing another weekend away. It's nice in a way because you really only see the guys there once a month so most everyone is happy to work together and try and accomplish something.
Right now my guard unit has switched from infantry to cav scout and that caused a lot of peole to not reenlist, so where my platoon used to be a full strength infantry platoon now we're happy to have maybe seven or eight guys in formation.
If you're considering it for the college money, it is a good help. Tuition assistance and the GI Bill help a lot when it comes to paying for schooling. You need to bear in mind though that all guard units are very likely to get deployed, my unit went to Iraq in 2005 and rumor has it we're gonna get called up end of next year to go back to Iraq in 2009.
If you talk to the recruiter be sure to ask when the next weekend drill is that way you can come by and see the unit doing stuff. Be sure to ask a few people what it's like, from lowly privates to the CO.
Also, if you do decide to sign up, try and pick a good MOS (military occupational specialty) and one that is still being used. If you pick something like air defense, while it's an important job in a conventional war, it's just not being used the way it's supposed to be used right now so you'd end up guarding towers or manning gates. Much better to get technical job that can help on the civilian side or to get a combat job that gets you off your butt and doing something.
Last thing, if you sign up, the recruiter has all sorts of perks to give out and with recruiting the way it is there should be no excuse for you not to get them. Ask about the different schools such as air assault, airborne, scuba etc..
By the way, I'm an E4 Specialist with a 19D (Cavalry Scout) MOS.
Awesome thanks for the advice. Do you guys dress out and everything when you go out once a month? And I do know that they will probably get deployed to Iraq(you guys just do guard duty the bases and outposts right? Or do you go and actually do missions like the regular army and marines?)
What's the difference between Cav and Infantry?
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
09-28-2007, 21:25
Awesome thanks for the advice. Do you guys dress out and everything when you go out once a month? And I do know that they will probably get deployed to Iraq(you guys just do guard duty the bases and outposts right? Or do you go and actually do missions like the regular army and marines?)
What's the difference between Cav and Infantry?
Cav is Tanks and other Armour like APC's and that I guess, I'm not sure ethier.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
09-29-2007, 03:09
Our unit just switched over from Infantry to Cav so our training for our new scout job is not really up there yet. We don't have enough humvees for our whole troop so we go up to Schofield barracks and practice call for fire or other training things. When we were infantry we'd don our full kits and go and "play army" for the weekend which was always fun.
Of course we also have administrative drills during which we just do paper work, evaluations, classes, and things like that.
In Iraq our brigade (29th BCT) was in charge of security for FOB Anaconda (base at Balad, N. of Baghdad) and our battalion was attacked to "Task Force Dragon" which was in charge of security for BIAP (Baghdad International Airport). While security is in part towers and gates it also includes patrols and raids in the area surrounding the base. My platoon switched between patroling, towers, and gate duty as did many other units.
National Guard units certainly do missions such as the regular Army and Marines do. I personally think that the regular Army and Marines are far better trained then us (for obvious reasons) and assume that they get more dangerous missions but reservists and guardsmen get killed just as much as anyone else and are exposed to essentially the same hazards. DO NOT ASSUME THAT YOU'LL GET A SAFER JOB IF DEPLOYED WITH A NG UNIT.
Infantry is walking around, driving Humvees or using Strykers or Bradley fighting vehicles. Seeing as it's always a small force of Americans trying to patrol large areas we bump around in vehicles to get around, though there is still plenty of walking in rural areas.
Cavalry is Armor which means big bad Abrams MBTs. The OH-58 Kiowas (recon helicopters) are also cav. It also means mechanized/motorized recon which consists of Strkyers, Bradleys, or in our case humvees. Of course armor always works with infantry and infantry tries to usually get armor to help them. There is rivalry between the two branches which is why a lot of our guys prefered getting out of the guard than converting to cavalry.
In practical terms our job hasn't really changed for what we'll be doing in Iraq but we get slightly different equipment but a lot less people.
The old M113 APCs are still being used by some units though not in the quantities as before.
Big Bad Abrams. I always wanted to be a tank driver, but must be danergous.
Hey Spm, How long was Boot Camp when you went in?
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