Military service

[Lorenzo_H]

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.

[Caius]

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.

[Shahed]

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]

Yea, how did this topci get derail somewhat into talking about asthma?

[Shahed]

Who's CAV in Iraq, here ?

[Decker]

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.

[spmetla]

Erasing the past...

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

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?

[spmetla]

Erasing the past...

[Decker]

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]

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.

[spmetla]

Erasing the past...

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

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?

[spmetla]

Erasing the past...