MatthewVanitas
Member
I'll be taking the Foreign Service exam soon, hoping for a slot in the State Department after I finish gradschool. I think it would be a great chance to use my foreign language skills, and my six years of active-duty military will give me preference hiring points and a few steps of seniority up the GS payscale.
One definite downside: the shooting hobby will be hard to maintain in many parts of the world. Unless I'm stationed in somewhere exceptionally corrupt or chaotic, I'd assume that it's likely that the local authorities won't be keen on me buying a 22 and going out plinking.
For those who have been in similar positions in the past, be it gov't or private sector, did you just give up entirely on shooting while overseas, find alternate ballistic hobbies (airgun, archery), or other?
If airguns are less/un-restricted in wherever I'm stationed, those could be fun. Read a great article in an old Gun Digest about European colonists in Sub-Saharran Africa in the 1970s (Angola? Rhodesia? Congo?), who built a miniature landscape in their backyard, and would hold weekly "sniping" matches on plastic toy soldiers hidden in the landscape. Probably some friends of Preacherman *grin*.
Archery could be fun too, if not frowned on in that part of the world. I'll drop by the UT Archery Club this semester, give that a try.
Thanks for any info from those shooters who've found themselves trying to keep up skills while overseas. Take care,
-MV
One definite downside: the shooting hobby will be hard to maintain in many parts of the world. Unless I'm stationed in somewhere exceptionally corrupt or chaotic, I'd assume that it's likely that the local authorities won't be keen on me buying a 22 and going out plinking.
For those who have been in similar positions in the past, be it gov't or private sector, did you just give up entirely on shooting while overseas, find alternate ballistic hobbies (airgun, archery), or other?
If airguns are less/un-restricted in wherever I'm stationed, those could be fun. Read a great article in an old Gun Digest about European colonists in Sub-Saharran Africa in the 1970s (Angola? Rhodesia? Congo?), who built a miniature landscape in their backyard, and would hold weekly "sniping" matches on plastic toy soldiers hidden in the landscape. Probably some friends of Preacherman *grin*.
Archery could be fun too, if not frowned on in that part of the world. I'll drop by the UT Archery Club this semester, give that a try.
Thanks for any info from those shooters who've found themselves trying to keep up skills while overseas. Take care,
-MV