Misconceptions of Military Service

Status
Not open for further replies.
That during WWII, the Marine Corps. had a corner on the amphibious landing market. And that the Marine Corps. did all the hard fighting and then the Army came in to act as an occupying force.
When I hear this BS I birng up the little landing that occured on June 6, 1944. And all the events in the Europeon theatre after that.
 
Vietnam after effects for some

Some parents in my age group are still anti-military citing their experience (or lack of) with the Vietnam War. Mind you NOT ONE served in the military and have first hand experience, they just view the military and government as untrustworthy.
 
Anything involving military intelligence (my old job).

Half the people crack jokes about "military intelligence" being an oxymoron.

Half the people think you are claiming to be James Bond.

And the third half :D have NO idea what you are talking about ("is that some kind of psychiatric job?").
 
That it is important to train the way you fight, just so you can go to war and find out that you do everything differently
Click to expand...
Reminds me of a couple things I heard when I was stationed in (West) Germany a few years back. A German general said the reason the U.S. does so well in wartime is because war is chaos, and the U.S. military practices chaos on a daily basis. A Russian general said it was hard to prepare to fight the U.S. because its rank-and-file military members see no need to follow their doctrine in wartime and throw their training manuals away and do what they want. Contrast that last statement with the fact that the Russians would only entrust their officers with maps. Enlisted personnel weren't trained to read maps; I wonder why.
 
They told her..."...and see the world."

After completing a year of college, my tomboy, gun shooting cousin decided to join the Army and see the world. Well, about the time they found out she was National Honor Society in H.S. and knew about computers, they gave her a big old security clearance and a job at this big communications post in northern Maryland a number of miles up the road from D.C.
Gee, she got to move from Virginia to Maryland.

From the Army she went to work for the Navy as a civilian programmer back in VA and now appears to be working for the government somewhere west of D.C. - at least she says she's working and seems to be getting paid.

I've heard rumors from other sources, probably unreliable, that in case of emergency they'll all have to leave the mountain and go outside to make room for the VIPs who are coming by tunnel from D.C. (My friends in the same town seem to know a lot about the place :) )

See the world sounds like false advertising.

John
 
My greatest disappointment was the realization that even the US Army doesn't trust its personnel with weapons. Near as I can tell, soldiers are actually unarmed most of the time, not even a sidearm. That might change once at war, but that's how it seems to be while intraining or on bases. Anyone verify this impression?
 
In the US Army, arms are kept in arms rooms unless they are being used for training or when soldiers are deployed in a combat zone or similar mission. I won't debate the reasons just affirming your observation.
 
There are not too many Army personnel operating under the delusion that they will see the more desireable parts of the world. Join the Army and see the world? I don't think so.

Reasons I joined the Navy in 1984 with a deferred enlistment beginning in 1985:

1) I wasn't ready for college. I was by the time I ended my hitch.

2) The Navy actually has bases in exotic locales. I was stationed in Pearl Harbor, but even San Diego would've been preferable to most of the mainland Army and Air Force bases I have seen.

3) Most of the Navy runs one or two times a year and I hate jogging.

4) Most of the Navy lives in air conditioning of varying effectiveness.

5) Three hots and a real cot almost everyday. My only time in the mud was voluntary.

Now to maximize my chances of travel, I chose to become an unrated seaman and strike into a rating OTJ aboard ship, rather than get an instacrow rating as a Fire Control Technician or something else requiring a six year hitch, A and C, schools though I was offered this track by a very eager recruiter based on my ASVAB scores. Once you get over the idea of learning a "civilian marketable skill," :scrutiny: especially since I only wanted some seasoning and the college money, the "dream sheet" for assignments opens up wonderfully. I went to Pearl after choosing Hawaii with my detailer after I had graduated boot and basic seamanship training as an E-2. I found that I was appreciated in the deck division of my destroyer by my division officer, Chief Boatswain's Mate and the weapons officer, because they considered me pretty sharp, so I struck to become a Boatswain's Mate myself and I became an E-5 with almost a year left in my enlistment because the rating was wide open for advancement compared to others.

I went to Canada, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego, Maui, Hawaii, Kauai, Guam, The Phillipines, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Diego Garcia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kenya, India, Sri Lanka, Austrailia, Tonga, Western Samoa, and American Samoa. I explored extending my enlistment, but the only billets available in Hawaii were in supply ships or the minesweepers and those vessels do not interest me to this day. I got out.

All of the places I went in the Navy beat the $%&* out of Fort Hood, Texas where I visited my brother the 21st Cav helo mechanic once. Of course my best friend in high school joined the Navy around the same time I did and got to see RTC San Diego, the Philly Naval Shipyard, and Keflavik, Iceland. It sucks to be a Yeoman, YMMV!
 
Last edited:
Most people have a hard time understanding why a Navy unit is stationed Arizona, as 99% of them have never heard the term Seabee. They don't know what a combat engineer is either. I tell them we get to build stuff and shoot anyone who messes with our bulldozers.

When they hear that I weld, they assume it is underwater welding.

When somone finds out that I have a military background, they think that's all I have to talk about. Sailors/marines/soldiers are just one-dimensional caricatures. They don't know that Socrates was a soldier, and only know the military from the teevee, where they are either sadistic bullies or unimaginative cannon-fodder.

Right now, every single person I meet asks if I'll get recalled to active duty for Iraq. How the hell should I know? Doesn't bother me too much, but drives my girlfriend crazy.
 
Boats-

Reasons to join the various branches:


  • Navy- to travel and see the world.
    Army- for the great advancement potential
    Air Force- for the nice accomodations
    Marines- to break things and kill people

:D
 
I remember a TV crew interviewing some anti-war college army reserves during Desert Storm, and the college kids were saying, "I joined the military for the scholarship money, not to fight. I'm not going to fight."
Click to expand...
Runt, I was at Stanford during the Gulf War. One of those clowns was a student at Stanford. But get this, her reserve job was as a medic. Her tortured logic was that she was a conscientious objector because if she went to the Gulf, she'd be patching up soldiers who would then go back to fighting.

Contrast her behavior with that of my wife's colleague. This fellow was brought up as a Quaker. When he was drafted during the Vietnam war, he went to the draft board and told them he was a Quaker. They told him that as a CO, he would not have to serve. He insisted that he serve in some way, because if he didn't serve, someone else would have to serve in his place, but that he wouldn't serve in a combat role. He ended up in Vietnam mapping rock formations to help site drinking water wells. He was unarmed and was shot at on more than one occasion.

I just can't understand why in the world we let them get away with that kind of crap. We should have sent several very large MPs to collect that particular young lady (and any others like her), put her in handcuffs, throw her into a GI car, and tell her she can choose between two destinations: Leavenworth or the Gulf, and she's got 1 minute to decide.

When you sign on the line with Uncle Sam, you get all of the benefits -- tuition, salary, health care, etc. But the flip side is that Uncle Sam owns yer butt. If he wants you to go to some nasty place, kill some people, and maybe get killed in the process, that's what you do. If you don't like that, then don't sign up.

M1911
 
Last edited:
Oleg, weapons in the U.S Army are very strictly controlled.

I don't know how it is done now, but when I was in a weapons card and an identification card and a signature were required to draw a weapon.

And that was only if the weapons room had been opened by previous arrangment from higher up.

The weapons card had to be surrendered before receipt of the weapon. You never had both in your possesion at the same time.

The issuing of live ammunition, other than periodically for training purposes , is an extremely rare event.

There are at least two reasons for the above state of affairs, but that would be a subject for another thread.
 
My greatest disappointment was the realization that even the US Army doesn't trust its personnel with weapons. Near as I can tell, soldiers are actually unarmed most of the time, not even a sidearm. That might change once at war, but that's how it seems to be while intraining or on bases. Anyone verify this impression?
Click to expand...
In Vietnam, I was armed 24/7, but it may have been up to the commander to set the policy. Of course, those on firebases were armed 24/7. Even so, I heard about some areas where weapons were kept locked in the armory.

As said in other posts, weapons were "not availabel" except in special circumstances in stateside postings.

Come to think of it, the only thing that makes sense is for weapons policy to be commander's option, even stateside.
 
Destroyer Tender - Vietnam War. Carried a 45 as Petty Officer of the watch. Training consisted of firing a couple of mags from the fantail of the ship. Just had to be able to make it go bang not hit anything.

Security detail for some of the weapons we carried. Received some serious training with M1 Carbine and 45 ACP. Had to requalify every quarter with both weapons so we got a fair amount of range time. Funny thing is that my regular job was a computer jockey but I got more weapons training than most of the guys on the tender. To this day, I love to shoot my old M1 Carbine.

Once in Subic Bay we were moving weapons so the security detail was called out. My station was on an upper deck overlooking the pier. A local civilian worker was walking by and it was obvious he was noticing armed sailors on the ship. Next day we were told to stay out of sight when on security detail.

Whoever said that a ships company consisted of firefighters sure got it right. We got some intensive firefighting training. Put my whole company into a bunker with some fuel oil in a shallow tank in the center and then they lit it off..I was blowing black junk out of my nose for days but sure learned how to fight a fire in a confined space.
 
The issuing of live ammunition, other than periodically for training purposes , is an extremely rare event.
Click to expand...

That's surprising. We used to have Repel Boarders and Nuclear Weapons Security Drills all the time and we would head to the small arms locker and get handed a M16, 870 or 1911 and several loaded magazines or a handfull of shotgun shells. Then we're go tearing off through the boat in search of someone to shoot. We even had them while the boat was high and dry in drydock with a few hundred yard workers aboard. It was always fun watching their eye bulge out at us.

All our normal guards carried firearms and any time we handled nukes outside the boat, we had an armed perimeter with permission to use deadly force if ANYONE crossed the designated line.
 
...see the world

Of course my best friend in high school joined the Navy around the same time I did and got to see RTC San Diego, the Philly Naval Shipyard, and Keflavik, Iceland. It sucks to be a Yeoman, YMMV!
Click to expand...

I joined out of high school in '78. High asvabs, was told that I could basically have anything but nukes (bad math) so joined with no set job in mind. Halfway through boot I was called to review dreamsheet, select job... when interviewer heard I was colorblind, he circled about 5 jobs in the corner of the sheet; store keeper, aviation store keeper, and three other varieties. So I became a ****kicker and ended up in New London, CT, about 80 miles from where I grew up. Lived on "Building 11" on State Pier; the ship left the pier once while I was on board, steamed around long island sound for a day or two, then came home. When I asked about getting transfered elsewhere if I re-upped, was told that they needed SKs right there in NLON, but I might get a chance to move on my second re-up... eight years in New London I would have been in an asylum. I saw... Great Lakes, Meridian MS, and NLON... some world. As we sang in boot camp, "raisin, raisin, don't be blue... my recruiter screwed me too...


-J.

PS: I actually did get a couple jobs with my hard-earned Store Keeper Skills, and I surely grew up fast in those two years I was in the Nav... I just wonder -now- if that interviewer in Boot was told... listen, we need SKs... get 50 of them out of the current crop...
 
I just wonder -now- if that interviewer in Boot was told... listen, we need SKs... get 50 of them out of the current crop...
Click to expand...
That's exactly how the military works -- you make what you have fill the needs you have. People can adapt and be trained. "I need 5 volunteers, you, you, you, you, and you" isn't a joke, it's SOP.
 
I served in the US Navy. Most people think I was on a ship....I never seen a US Navy ship during my entire hitch. I was strickly land duty in isolated places.:cool:
 
Ever heard that "the ones who have/had security clearences are part of the vast government conspiracies" ? :rolleyes:
 
Any multi-service people here? My first hitch out of high school was the USAF - three and a half years at Tyndall AFB, 115 miles from home. Was gonna re-enlist and go elsewhere, but was told (after being out for eight months!) that my job was critical - I'd go back to Tynadall as if I'd been on extended leave. I wanted to travel . . .
So I re-upped into the Navy. "Join the Navy and see the world!" Well, the world is 3/4 water and I saw alot of it. :D
Actually, it wasn't bad duty on a frigate - I spent three years getting paid to take carribean cruises! Lot's of beach partys! ;)
Being bored with quarter deck duty, I joined the Reaction Force/Asroc Guard Force/Roving Security - with a small crew and no Marines, we did all that. I trained with the Colt .45, Rem 870 and the M14. Liked 'em so much I have my own Colt and 870 now - the M1A is still a bit too steep.
Our best training was during Refresher Training in Gitmo (with weekends at Ft. Lauderdale - loved Spring Break!). I got to draw down on a Senior Chief who popped his head up a hatch in the Exclusion Area - looking up the 870's barrel, he told me "Good job, Petty Officer!" then beat a hasty retreat. :eek:
We did donuts off the coast of Beirut in '83, but didn't get to shoot anything. The fireworks started three days after we left the AO.
My ET and Crypto experience was a factor in my eventual job in the computer field. I was one of the few operators/programmers who could actually fix hardware problems. :cool:

I still detest those people who find out I'm ex-military - "did you ever kill anyone?" they ask. :fire:
 
That Reservists are not real Soldiers. Huh! I had D Battery, 2d Battalion, 14th Marines with my unit in DS.
Click to expand...

Bob A,

I was in that unit up until shortly before DS. We didn't seem all that organized but I guess we were after all.

GT
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

D
  • Locked
Military Standards for Accuracy
2 3
Replies
50
Views
4K
AZTOY
A
I
  • Locked
Military service ribbons and weapons
Replies
22
Views
2K
ARGarrison
A
B
  • Locked
gangs serving in the military, using tactics after service
2 3 4
Replies
89
Views
4K
trinydex
T
D
  • Locked
A really GOOD news story
Replies
10
Views
1K
Obiwan
O
K
  • Locked
Will this work for a militia?
2
Replies
25
Views
2K
Devonai
Devonai
Back
Top