Joining The British Army

[Incongruous]

Recently, I have felt an increasing wish to do something for my country, I realise that it could be done in a manner which did not endanger my life of gave me license to kill other human beings.
But having had four friends joins the infantry in the past couple fo years I fell a need to do the same.

I am looking at the possibility of being a platoon commander, if that is not possible then as a frontline infantryman. I realise that this might seem like a load of bollocks to those old hands in the backroom whom have actuall had the honour of serving in the army, but your advice on what to do, what to expect and such would be greatly appreciated.

[Hooahguy]

we wish you luck, bopa!

[spmetla]

I don't know how the British military compares to the US organizationally but I imagine the standard advice of "take care of Joe private" should suffice.

I suggest you talk with anyone you know that was a veteran or is currently serving, and be sure to visit a base. It's best to see first hand the Garrison conditions you'll be dealing with as well as giving you an opportunity to ask more people about what it's like.

[Incongruous]

I don't know how the British military compares to the US organizationally but I imagine the standard advice of "take care of Joe private" should suffice.

I suggest you talk with anyone you know that was a veteran or is currently serving, and be sure to visit a base. It's best to see first hand the Garrison conditions you'll be dealing with as well as giving you an opportunity to ask more people about what it's like.

Ok, I will try to get in touch with one of my friends in the UK and talk a little more than them, I will take the rest of your advice as well, thanks

[Vladimir]

Be smart. Do your research and don't trust any recruiter. Hopefully if you join you'll remain safe and be spared the nastiness that it can bring. Always remember that you're part of a great army with an overall fine tradition. I'll let others do the criticizing. Remember to take full advantage of every situation. Infantry life can be lousy but there is plenty of opportunity for those who take advantage of it.

[seireikhaan]

I'd just say to really make sure you're all in on it. I'm not in the military, nor do I ever plan to- frankly, I'm a sissy, and scared to death of the realities of war which I can so conveniently ignore over here in Iowa. Just remember- there's little glorious about war when you're actually fighting. Would you end up actually fighting? Who knows? I know some who have come out of the military better for it; others, very much the opposite. Do as much research as possible, visit at least one base while figuring your decision out. And again, make absolutely sure you're 100% in.

[Marshal Murat]

There are some definite upsides to joining the armed forces...
You get a great education essentially free. My uncles worked for AT&T, and then formed their own telephone companies; they learned it all in the Navy. If you take classes that interest you, you could definitely apply it after your term of service is over.

[Incongruous]

Having talked to some friends about Army life I know it's not about glory, I really want if for the sense of personal discipline and knowledge I will gain. It's also to do with a sense of duty, however misplaced, I feel towards my country.

I realise that I may end up going to the front, but if I sign that line, I will do so in the knowledge that I am employed to fight, and possibly die, for HM government. Trust me, I am afraid of death, have been all my life, but I think it is a fear my faith can handle and that I must accept. I suppose I will only know in my first combat situation. I'm no hero, neither am I perticularly brave, most dangerous thing I do is play open grade Rugby Union.

[CountArach]

Having talked to some friends about Army life I know it's not about glory, I really want if for the sense of personal discipline and knowledge I will gain. It's also to do with a sense of duty, however misplaced, I feel towards my country.

I realise that I may end up going to the front, but if I sign that line, I will do so in the knowledge that I am employed to fight, and possibly die, for HM government. Trust me, I am afraid of death, have been all my life, but I think it is a fear my faith can handle and that I must accept. I suppose I will only know in my first combat situation. I'm no hero, neither am I perticularly brave, most dangerous thing I do is play open grade Rugby Union.

Now I am just wondering - is that the sort of Government you would want to kill and die for? If the answer is yes, then join up - if not then stay away from it.

My two cents...

[Strike For The South]

Very honorable brotha.

[Incongruous]

Now I am just wondering - is that the sort of Government you would want to kill and die for? If the answer is yes, then join up - if not then stay away from it.

My two cents...

No I have never held Parliament in high regard.

But I suppose most in the army don't either, yet they still fight.

[KarlXII]

Always, always, read the fine print!

[Banquo's Ghost]

First off, you won't be fighting for a government, but for Her Majesty the Queen. You take your oath to her.

It would be wise to take advice as has been suggested, and I don't think you need to be quite so worried about UK recruiters - they are not targetted in the same way as I understand US recruiters are. Find one who is a colour sergeant if possible - these are genetically incapable of lying.

If you wish to take a commission, you will be required to go through a Regular Commission Board (these have probably changed since my day, when one's father delivered a cellar of recently looted Napoleon cognac to the colonel and one picked up one's spurs and pips at the club) which will assess your fitness and ability for command. If you are a graduate, you will have some advantages (indeed, I'm not sure if nowadays non-graduates can apply).

Once you pass out of Sandhurst, you will be a second-lieutenant of Infantry. (You should give some serious thought to which regiment you wish to join as this will inform your entire journey - it will be your family and your home, for the rest of your life - assuming sundry Prime Ministers don't amalgamate it into oblivion). A 2Lt is the lowest form of life, far less important than something you might wipe off your boot. Since you intend to join the infantry (not the Guards, one assumes) this will matter much less to you, but for any of the cavalry or elite regiments, you need to learn to carry heavy objects at speed, enjoy observation duty on winter's nights, and carry a tin of vaseline with you at all times.

Eventually, some fool will promote you by accident and you will become a real officer. This means you can drink tea all day whilst your sergeant makes you look good. Never fall for the illusion that you are in command. You are there to take the bawling when things go wrong, and to be a body upon which to pin medals when things go right.

I can't really comment on life as an infantryman, as I tried not to converse with them since they were usually wet and muddy.

To be serious for a moment, the Army is a wonderful life for a young man and you will find yourself. You will also make very good friends. However, you should understand that HM Army is significantly over-stretched at the moment, and you will (even in the Pay Corps) see action. You will find yourself tested. It's a long time since the Regular Army meant a few desultory engagements with the mango-wielding pygmies of Umboto Gorge between chandelier-lit dinners. This means that leave is foreshortened much of the time, and the dickless wonders of the MoD Penny-Pinching Corps will determine if you live or die. The military covenant has been severely curtailed since my day, and you may find real difficulty getting medical or psychological help if you are invalided out.

Therefore, make very sure that your reasons are sound for joining. And if you do, may I wish you the very best of British, and have a fantastic, exhilarating, challenging and deeply satisfying time. (And don't touch the Marines, you don't know where they've been).

[Incongruous]

First off, you won't be fighting for a government, but for Her Majesty the Queen. You take your oath to her.

It would be wise to take advice as has been suggested, and I don't think you need to be quite so worried about UK recruiters - they are not targetted in the same way as I understand US recruiters are. Find one who is a colour sergeant if possible - these are genetically incapable of lying.

If you wish to take a commission, you will be required to go through a Regular Commission Board (these have probably changed since my day, when one's father delivered a cellar of recently looted Napoleonic cognac to the colonel and one picked up one's spurs and pips at the club) which will assess your fitness and ability for command. If you are a graduate, you will have some advantages (indeed, I'm not sure if nowadays non-graduates can apply).

Once you pass out of Sandhurst, you will be a second-lieutenant of Infantry. (You should give some serious thought to which regiment you wish to join as this will inform your entire journey - it will be your family and your home, for the rest of your life - assuming sundry Prime Ministers don't amalgamate it into oblivion). A 2Lt is the lowest form of life, far less important than something you might wipe off your boot. Since you intend to join the infantry (not the Guards, one assumes) this will matter much less to you, but for any of the cavalry or elite regiments, you need to learn to carry heavy objects at speed, enjoy observation duty on winter's nights, and carry a tin of vaseline with you at all times.

Eventually, some fool will promote you by accident and you will become a real officer. This means you can drink tea all day whilst your sergeant makes you look good. Never fall for the illusion that you are in command. You are there to take the bawling when things go wrong, and to be a body upon which to pin medals when things go right.

I can't really comment on life as an infantryman, as I tried not to converse with them since they were usually wet and muddy.

To be serious for a moment, the Army is a wonderful life for a young man and you will find yourself. You will also make very good friends. However, you should understand that HM Army is significantly over-stretched at the moment, and you will (even in the Pay Corps) see action. You will find yourself tested. It's a long time since the Regular Army meant a few desultory engagements with the mango-wielding pygmies of Umboto Gorge between chandelier-lit dinners. This means that leave is foreshortened much of the time, and the dickless wonders of the MoD Penny-Pinching Corps will determine if you live or die. The military covenant has been severely curtailed since my day, and you may find real difficulty getting medical or psychological help if you are invalided out.

Therefore, make very sure that your reasons are sound for joining. And if you do, may I wish you the very best of British, and have a fantastic, exhilarating, challenging and deeply satisfying time. (And don't touch the Marines, you don't know where they've been).

and


I am applying for Platoon commander, which does not require you to be a graduate apparently.

I have put considerable thought about the actual fact of fighting and being killed, to be honest it does not help, nothing can prepare me completley for war and death.

I am all too aware that the British Army is being murdered slowly by the gits over at MoD, it makes the Telegraph every week.
As for talking to a sergeant or going to a base, it will have to wait 'till I get back home, but I will use the advice, have it already written down.

[CountArach]

No I have never held Parliament in high regard.

Then I suppose the next question is - do you trust them enough to only start wars you would be willing to fight and die for?

First off, you won't be fighting for a government, but for Her Majesty the Queen. You take your oath to her.

I thought you knew better than that Banquo - Who pays you? The Government. Who declares war and makes peace? The Government. Who determines military funding? The Government. The queen is merely the figurehead of that Government.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Then I suppose the next question is - do you trust them enough to only start wars you would be willing to fight and die for?

I thought you knew better than that Banquo - Who pays you? The Government. Who declares war and makes peace? The Government. Who determines military funding? The Government. The queen is merely the figurehead of that Government.

Both points are irrelevant. Governments and their priorities change. One does not sign on with the caveat that if the Tories get in, you will take a sabbatical until the forces of socialism regain power and invade innocent countries with gay abandon once again.

One's service and one's oath is to Her Majesty as head of state. Her government may set the objectives, and these may change through one's career. I served under Mrs Thatcher's governments, the majority of whose policies I had personal political issues with - but the military is not a democracy. I passed out at a time when we were advised that war would entail a four-minute soiling of the uniform before being reduced to constituent atoms as thousands of Red Army tanks flooded Germany while nuclear death rained down like confetti. Personally, I thought that was unlikely, so a few years tea-drinking and dancing with impressionable debutants seemed quite the career choice. I did expect to be dodging spit on the Falls Road, occasionally - but the sudden trip to freeze my bits off in the sheep-infested south Atlantic was a real surprise - and a real, dangerous shooting war. Most unfair - but I don't recall being asked if I had any problems with the policy. It was not for me to question the politics of my duty. (Except in the mess, where the soldier's ancient right to grumble is honoured in the keeping ).

Had I been a serving officer when the Iraq invasion was announced, I would have led my men to my best capacity despite my own convictions that it was a wrong-headed war. No-one could have imagined at the time that a Labour government would have supported a US neo-con invasion. Tough. One doesn't get to pick and choose.

As a civilian, I have the luxury of questioning and protesting. As an officer, one has one's duty to the Queen and one's regiment.

[CountArach]

Then I guess we are very different in that way Banquo. I would refuse to act as a pawn for anything that I am opposed to, especially in military matters. If my country was under attack would I sign up? Yes, of course, but when the military is so consistently used as a tool for a Hawkish foreign policy that does not benefit anyone - I could not in good conscience join up.

[JR-]

then i guess you could not take the oath in good conscience, and would thus never have joined HM Forces in the first place..............

[CountArach]

then i guess you could not take the oath in good conscience, and would thus never have joined HM Forces in the first place..............

Which is what I just said...

[Banquo's Ghost]

Then I guess we are very different in that way Banquo. I would refuse to act as a pawn for anything that I am opposed to, especially in military matters. If my country was under attack would I sign up? Yes, of course, but when the military is so consistently used as a tool for a Hawkish foreign policy that does not benefit anyone - I could not in good conscience join up.

And I would be entirely respectful of that stance, and consider it a fine and ethical position.

[Jolt]

and


I am applying for Platoon commander, which does not require you to be a graduate apparently.

I have put considerable thought about the actual fact of fighting and being killed, to be honest it does not help, nothing can prepare me completley for war and death.

I would definitely advise you to read one of the Masterpieces of XX's century. The Tartar Steppe, before applying, it might help you (Or not. :P) decide.


http://www.amazon.com/Desert-Tartars.../dp/B000CCD24W

Has anyone ever read the said book?

I think it might be appropriate in deciding whether you should join or not, since it speaks about the life of a young officer and his desire for glory and war, when he is stationed in a Fort where nothing has happened and nothing will probably happen.

On first thought, this is a overwhelmingly desolate book. It is the life of Giovanni Drogo who, after graduation as military officer, is sent to Fort Bastiani, located on "the Northern frontier", and beyond which the Tartar steppe lies for miles and miles. At Fort Bastiani, nothing ever happens. Holding the absurd hope that some day something will happen that will bring him military glory, Drogo consumes his life amidst the boredom and the rutine of the site. But his hope never dies: as another reviewer correctly noted, it acts like a drug on him. I haven't spoiled anything about the plot: some day, something will happen.

This novel is pure literary magic, and it is a shame and a pity that it is so ignored, especially in English-speaking countries. Note: Enlgish-language literature is certainly one of the best corpus of literature in the world, but their ignorance of many other literatures is in their own detriment, unfortunately.

"The Tartar steppe" is a masterpiece which, with an ironic and subtle sense of humor, talks about the desolation, the apparent uselessness of living, the futility of existence. It talks about it, but in a subtle yet powerful manner contradicts those theses: Drogo will show the reader that, no matter how dull and empty your life is, there is ALWAYS something about life that makes it worth living. Fort Bastiani and the Tartar Steppe are both real and symbolic: they may be an office, a shop, a house or a city.

Read this novel and you will love it forever, not only for its content but for Buzzati's excellent handling of words. He showed he was a great writer. But beyond the style, you'll remember it every other time, when you feel you are Giovanni Drogo, eager for something to happen.

[King Henry V]

I wish you the best of luck, Bopa, with whatever you decide to do. I'm sure you'll make a fine soldier, as long as you're not posted anywhere near Israel that is, after all, you don't want to cause an international incident, do you?

[InsaneApache]

the dickless wonders of the MoD Penny-Pinching Corps will determine if you live or die. The military covenant has been severely curtailed since my day, and you may find real difficulty getting medical or psychological help if you are invalided out.

I was going to put a laughing smilie there but it is a bit too close to the bone for levity.

(And don't touch the Marines, you don't know where they've been).

Ahh a life on the ocean wave. I do believe the Royals think very highly of the army as well. Whats that? Did I hear the word craphat!

I never joined the regulars but I spent a few years as a cadet and I loved it. I know it's nowhere near the same but you do get a taste of it.

Anything I say will be waaaay out of date as I left in 1976, good god man we trained on the Lee Enfeild MK IV and it was ancient even in those days.

What I will say is this. The corperals are bastards.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Bopa, I think you ought to disregard several comments here and ought to consider me the best source on this subject since I, unlike people like Banquo or IA, am amongst the ones who know what it is like to never have been in any British army branch. And let me tell you, it is fantastic. You'll never regret it. Beer, girls, fun, books, travel, everything a man could desire.

I would refuse to act as a pawn for anything that I am opposed to, especially in military matters.

One thing though - one can disagree with soldiers following orders that go against their common sense or political preference. However, count yourself very lucky that you live in a country were the military does follow the instructions of whomever holds democratically elected power. For this is the other side of the medal.
Case in point, in 1982, the British military obeyed the political power, while the Argentine political power obeyed the military.

[rory_20_uk]

Join at preferably the level of Captain or above. Generally those below that level are the ones that die.

Next your if I were to join I'd be a Major (still don't think it's worth it).

[JR-]

good luck Bopa, all you really need to do is make yourself thoroughly acquainted with ARRSEPedia:
http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/ARRSEPedia_Intro

I recommend the articles on France, Germany, and Nepal for starters.

[Kagemusha]

Bopa,what is your formal education? If you have uni education, its no problem for you to get yourself in officer school and to become a career officer, if you are mentally balanced person and physically fit, but think hard before signing in as ordinary soldier or NCO, because it might map very much your career for the rest of your life, when you will spend your normal studying years as a grunt. Joining army should never happen based on a whim, but after serious consideration.

[naut]

Be safe. Keep your wits about you. Although I've never served and have no intentions of serving in either of my countries' militaries. But, from what my dad has told me about his time in the army, it can be dangerous whether you are in a war zone or not. My dad served in the South African Army in the 70s. And saw active duty in the South African Border War. Although he never actually fired a shot he could well have died there when an infantryman accidentally pulled a grenade pin in their barracks. The staff sergeant dived on it and killed himself to protect his squad. So be ready for anything.

Another thing to remember is that a lot of the time you'll be bored out of your mind. Being on guard duty, running for miles, etc. Be prepared for that.

But, if you do, you have my respect, protecting the Kingdom I love.

[Louis VI the Fat]

good luck Bopa, all you really need to do is make yourself thoroughly acquainted with ARRSEPedia:
http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/ARRSEPedia_Intro

I recommend the articles on France, Germany, and Nepal for starters.

Nice site. 'Army Rumour Service is the premier British Army community on the internet.'

Lovely entry about France indeed. Thoroughly recommended. More refined, highly recommended amusement from Britain's 'finest' to be found everywhere, like the entry on the US:

Simply means the United States of America, a country which is particularly hard to miss ... especially if you are flying a hi-jacked airliner!

I bet that one raises lots of laughs in Britain's army baracks.
'Oi lads, did you see that yank jump from the top floor!' 'Hahaha!' 'Hey, rewind that bit! Mate, I swear he was burning all the way to the ground!' 'Hahaha!'


What of 'China':

Large vaguely communist country full of chinese people who according to MP "only come up to your knees and are ready to please"

Endless entertainment indeed, for those who are into this sort of stuff.


I could get wound up about the entry for France. Write a page long essay about the vulgarity of it all. A quicker way is to show the mental thoughtworld of people who think jokes about collaborating surrender monkeys and hairy women are fresh and amusing.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Louis, when encountering the mores of the common soldiery, it is best to bear in mind the words of His Grace the Duke of Wellington.

"I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they terrify me."