Funny military memes, B.S., and shotgun club!

i know that none of my responses are solicited, i'm just some dude on the internet
but you got me thinking, what was the best school i did?

not a selection process, a school. ranger school, pretty good for learning how much dumb shit you can put up with, but the actual technical aspects of the school... it's shit any line-animal in a decent unit would get over time

the most fun would be a dirt driving school in New Hampshire, that was just... fun. during classroom instruction we all had to act like this wasn't shit we already didn't know how to do. and then out on the course we're just having a blast spinning each other out

mountain rifleman? it was jericho 2.0, add an inclinometer and some suck and it's just a big angled-fire class

evasive driving, leonard wood is just a fucking hole. i can't say much more about it. i'll take offensive driving over evasive driving any day of the week and twice on sunday. especially if it's not in the middle of Cold Nowhere, Missouri

i'd have to say the best overall course i took was as an ROTC instructor.
it was a pilot course to accredit ROTC instructors, make them more valid and credible in the eyes of the students, the institutions where they served, and the instructors themselves. Fort Knox, while they were taking it apart, after the armor school left. even the tanks were leaving the museum to go to benning

in a nutshell, it was four months of shoving 90+ semester hours of information with sober classwork, world-class educators from serious research universities, and some hard-core academic timelines. it was like doing a marathon at sprinting speeds while a team of professors waterboard you.

it was cool, they paired us up in fully-furnished housing, top-of-the-line technical support, shit-hot per diem, and they even provided text books. the best part: if you wanted to (and qualified) you could path directly into the graduate version of the course
i was already working on a different degree at the time, so i didn't go the grad route.
but to think that someone in the big green machine would think of a MACOM like Cadet Command with such import, it was optimistic and really re-centered the thinking of some officers and senior enlisted. it kinda lets you know that real institutional change is possible. but more importantly, that people still gave a shit enough to keep trying to make those important changes.
i know, after all the shit that some cat like me has done, you'd probably think it was something sexier, and i apologize if it's a disappointment

the rest of that stuff is cute and it briefs well, but if you really look at those tactical schools... they're things you can teach any able body.
to be in a position where you're trusted with real tools to change things for the better? it's amazing and wonderful and it's just really hopeful

i wasn't invited to any after-action stuff, so i don't know if it survived or if it wasn't diluted to oblivion

anyhow, that was the best school i went to in the army. no draeger, no oxygen mask, no camouflage. just books.

and if you ask me, books are a real force multiplier

 

Sounds good. Nicest thing about the CG side is that you DO get to change the world, on a practical level. Rulemaking and policy writing and working with regional agency partners (and interface with the senior leaders to get them to buy into your ideas) might not be tactical or cool, but it definitely touches a lot of lives. Even the day to day regulatory stuff, you're still being part of the machine that holds companies accountable to the public. Beats the heck out of a FTX for sure, no matter how cool the toys you were playing with.

 

I would agree with this. I mean I got to do some pretty cool stuff. Planning and setting explosives (1750 lbs) to blow a two story insurgent house was pretty cool. Making my PL do the interview with Geraldo Rivera, even better. We took away a primary attack and observation point for insurgents that day. I think I have a pretty decent level of experience and even made some changes to big army doctrine that school house agreed should be part of the newest revision. Let’s be honest though, any civilian demo company would laugh me out their door, especially without a masters or PhD in thermodynamics. I only say all that to emphasize that the cool guy stuff doesn’t translate outside of military life with the exception of a very limited list.

I like to give Coast Guard guys shit just like any other branch but I’d be at a loss in that life. Knowing which of the 10,000 shipping containers need to be searched or let through? Knowing missing one might mean drugs or weapons on the streets or human trafficking. No thank you. Bravery is all relative. Clearing mines, bracing for IEDs as you clear the route by “taking the first hit.” Yup did that. The high seas to rescue a fishing boat, yeah seriously fuck that. I probably don’t even know half the shit they do. Just clarifying my stance on those silly homeland security fellas.

The Air Force though... yeah those guys suck.

 

lol Actually I did... almost went that route but at the time only the army and marine recruiters actually offered job choices.

 

Licing near an Air Force bass I hear that from time to time and mostly from the security forces types. They are always confused when I reply with “apparently you didn’t either.”

 

I'm going to Thailand next month...

 

Non citizens only got a few choices, and CBRN was just about the only choice I had for the more technical stuff.

 

CBRN to me was always NoBodyCares (NBC).

Some of our Mechanics were Non-Citizen's, so I understand. Timing and "needs of the service" always played a factor on career choices.

I could have started out as a pilot (high ASVAB), but chose not to and worked my way from the bottom. To this day, I'm convinced that becoming a mechanic first, help me with my flying career.

 

Yeah I'm using the modern acronym since 54 no longer exists and 74 is now chem vs computers... Rolling with the times.

As for ASVAB, pretty sure I qualified for any MOS.

 

Yeah, they're jerks, with their larger newer housing, paid education and books, (relatively) less sucky deployments (usually), and skills that are very translatable to the non-military job market. Those guys suck!

Security Forces are usually idiots with low ASVAB scores or fools who believed their recruiters when they signed up "open general." Usually they're both. On the rare occasion that one of them actually WANTED to be Security Forces, that's a closet Ranger wannabe who was too scared to actually join the Army. They're easy to spot, and tend to catch desk jobs because no one wants to be near them when they're armed.

 

Hey I resemble that remark! Our college is paid while on active duty too! Very few happen to take advantage of the benefit though. Dem colleging classes are hard.

Jobs are transferable but where’s the fun? I might be a bit fucked up, but at least I had fun doing it.

 

i never understood that. they're throwing money at you, and all you have to do accept it.

it's college work, and that means it is (quite literally) only as difficult as you decide.

"using tuition assistance is probably a huge hassle" it's a single sheet of paper.

the same goes for the GI Bill. it's a single sheet of paper, and maybe a small computer form depending on your school

if you haven't used the GI Bill or tuition assistance then you're a fucking idiot

 

I've used both and it's easy, it's just the bullshit that is college that I can't stand.

 

I don't think the Army is paying on active time anymore. One of my lodge brother's kids is Army, and they're making him use his GI Bill on active duty. We got away with a lot.

Watching the new right now, I'm so happy that I'm too old to be called back for WWIII...

 

That or he's very misinformed. I've seen that happen over and over again during my 26 years in the Army.

Bottom line, never listen to the "pronoun" people, actually read and understand the regs or policies.

 

I got B.S. Degree...I never was a good grades person...Oh sure I'd like to had have good grades but my brain works better as a mechanic or making something. English--blah...math I get but Im slow, but thats what calculators are for(math teacher lied about that $hit not having calculators ) Science is cool. Takes me too much effort to remember stuff to pass tests...LOL