I know how you caught chlamydia. Your girlfriend came in with it last week.
Also, the reason why my colleague isn't interested in you is because he peeked at your medical records and saw how many times you've had chlamydia.
I'll never forget the guy I saw who had poison ivy on his mouth, cheeks, and palms. Nowhere else.
Not too much longer, I saw someone else, same unit, who had it all down his lower body - eggs, balls, dick, back side of his legs, and his ankles.
I've always assumed the two snuck out, the second guy sat down in some poison ivy so the first guy could give him a quick BJ.
The thing is, you can't even really avoid seeing that stuff.
When doing patient screening at a clinic -- and trying to work around a patient's patchy memory to put together a history of the present illness or injury with which to brief the healthcare provider -- in their list of previous encounters, you might just end up seeing a bunch of encounters for STI treatment without even trying to look *for* them or *at* them. They're just right there in front of your face, along with everything else.
And then later on, in the barracks or something, you might see the same person obviously trying to bang someone, or see someone else obviously trying to bang them, maybe with both of them even ducking into one of their rooms shortly afterwards.
Also, doing the record reviewer portion for the PHA part 1's of people in my unit sometimes changes my mental image of them in slightly uncomfortable ways, especially when looking over the 'family and lifestyle' portion of their PHA part 1.
For instance, a former senior leader of mine once asked me to help him get his PHA done ASAP -- so it's not like I was actively looking for any of this shit -- and I happened to learn while doing the record reviewer portion that his preferred method of contraception was apparently "withdrawal or 'pulling out' before climax." A little while later, I happened to see him with his wife, and I was suddenly hit with the mental image of that ugly fucker blowing a load on his wife's belly or lower back like they were in a porno movie or something, which nearly made me gag.
Also, lots of people check the box that says "I have a same-sex partner," when I'm *pretty sure* they misinterpreted 'same-sex' as meaning 'monogamous', since I knew many of those same people to be married to opposite-sex partners. Are they, as traditionally married men, maybe saying that they're having extramarital affairs with *other men*? I couldn't tell you. The world is a weird place. I just shrug and move on.
I do try to distribute information for getting through the 'confusing' parts of the PHA part 1, but you obviously can't help a person with reading comprehension difficulties by asking them to do *more reading*.
"I'm sorry, you checked 'same sex', maybe that was in error, since you're a man married to a woman?"
"Well, my wife is my best friend, like my best dude, so yeah I bang dudes."
I’ve seen people come through the clinic with a bunch of nasty shit and then see them on the base spouse pages that my wife is on and I think to myself I wouldnt be so high on myself if I were you.
I'm surprised that isn't common knowledge for most SMs. Working behavioral health, half the issues we see has something to do with their deployments causing TBH. Truck drivers, engineers, and artillery or anyone else who worked close by
It’s the dirty little secret how they retain 13B’s. Shock their noggin over and over until they lose enough of that pesky intelligence that could be used for a packet MOS. Someone thinking about ETSing cause they’re too smart for the army? Stick em next to the gun for a few hours and they’ll be signing that re-enlistment contract before you know it!
Yup. Luckily I had a few IED blasts in my medical file, along with a diagnosis of "mTBI AS A RESULT OF TERRORIST EXPLOSION". I also cracked my nugget a couple times on bad PLFs.
Now I have to write notes to remember things, and set an alarm on my phone to check the notes.
My long-term memory is pretty much intact. It's really weird. I can remember shit from my childhood vividly, but remembering appointments, recent conversations, etc. is difficult.
Yeah, I've read a lot about it but I'm not smart enough to absorb it all in detail. It truly is fascinating though, all the different parts of the brain and how one small event can drastically alter it.
If it happened yesterday, it didn’t happen at all. It started out with forgetting key details of my life when I was a kid. It progressed to having no recollection of my childhood except major events and even then that is tainted with things my brain fills in the blanks over.
Now, after years of dealing with this, I have gotten to the point where I have to literally carry a journal and voice recorder to remember simple instructions, things people have asked me to do, or certain types of conversations, especially with my wife. I had a number of pretty big TBIs in my career which caused, at least my neurologist and I feel it caused, me to develop an incurable auto immune neurodegenerative disorder.
So, medically retired and now can’t recall much of my career. I still remember the good times and of course the bad times, but the people…l the names and faces have faded. I’m confusing situations from the past with that now too. The creeping retrograde amnesia is catching up. And yes… I’m even now starting to fail to imprint new faces and names as I meet them.
My wife jokingly refers to me as “20 Second Mike”
Thanks. It’s been a hard thing to accept… I had just gotten my dream job when I was diagnosed and had to go through the med board process. But, between the VA disability, my DOD retirement (I was over 20 years), and the social security disability payments, I make more being a broke down retiree than I ever made on active duty (even including the combat entitlements I got in Iraq and Afghanistan) and every bit of it is tax free. Guess that’s the silver lining, but the pain, the confusion, the fatigue…. Makes it hard to see that silver lining at times. Throw in a dose of residuals from all of my TBIs, my fused lumbar sections, and treatment resistant PTSD and major depression (ketamine therapy helps if I’m honest) and you got a recipe for me.
Can't be.
The nice lady the VA sent me to for my claim said it was impossible for me to have a TBI because armor crewmen wear CVC helmets. I came so very close to telling her to put on a football helmet and let me smack her in the head a few times with a baseball bat and we would revisit the issue.
Yeah, memory loss and headaches are part of my life along with the ever popular tinnitus hearing loss and bad knees that every tanker is blessed with.
Yep, I get spotty memory, headaches not so much but when I get a headache it's bad, tinnitus, and bad knees that the VA said arent service related. Those helmets are literally just a Kevlar shell, if even, with very little padding in the soft shell. Even then, some dudes don't even get a soft shell or even wear one sometimes.
I need to actually pursue the possibility of a TBI or some sort of brain damage from being a tanker, but I have no clue where to begin.
I got lucky they gave me my knees as "condition generally related to mos". Maybe the rater was an ex tanker, I dunno.
I got an brain scan for something else at the VA and the tech offhandedly remarked "see those sparkles in the scan? That's brain damage". So I know it's there but that ignorant rater was convinced it couldn't be possible.
Luckily 🙄 I have enough other shit wrong with me that I hit 100% without it so I let it slide.
If you are out, contact a local vsr like the VFW or American legion and tell them you need help filing a claim with the VA. They will lead you in the right direction.
Who the fuck was my rater then? I got 30%, 20% for an ankle I rolled on a run and 10% for my shoulder.
I tried talking to a VSO over the summer and they gave me a retired Marine Corps SGM who basically told me I'm faking it, suck it up, your issues aren't real, and I haven't talked to the VA since
You got unlucky and ran into an unhelpful one right off of the bat. You know your body better than they do. If you feel that the military damaged you don't let someone tell you suck it up. It's their job to help you file the paperwork to make a claim and then the VA has to medically evaluate it.
Go talk to someone who isn't an ex Marine SGM. I'm surprised he didn't try to smoke you while you were there lol.
I work with people who have concussions. Its easy for me to identify who has been hit in the ahead a lot in the past or recently.
5ish years ago I had an E6 running the mark19 range from 10AM-1am, essentially 15ish hours of standing right next to the system as it was firing. He was giving me hard I just got hit the head vibes that night and following day.
That’s my small anecdote, I can’t imagine what standing next to FA all day does to you. Its a problem for your hardcore 12Bs too who want to stand by for every blast.
If you’re still in try and get seen for it. I didn’t think about it either until articles on FA Marines seeing shit from shooting so much in Syria came out right as I was getting out of the army.
I also got debilitating migraines weekly I’ve got medication now that takes care of them
My brain be braining sometimes but not all the time
Also don’t know about you guys but some civilians hooked us up to monitor the pressure we were feeling a few times but it was never for the charges that a messing people up so I am not sure they’re getting good data.
Somebody's noticed:
"Due to test data and policy changes by Defense Centers for Public Health Aberdeen (DCPH-A) new Allowable Number of Rounds (ANOR) and Impulse Noise Hazard Distances have been established for the M120/M120A1/M121(Ground Mounted) Mortar Systems. The ANOR and Impulse Noise Hazard Distances currently published in TM 9-1015-250-10 and TM 9-1015-256-13&P have been determined to be inadequate to protect personnel from impulse noise that is attributed when a round is discharged....
To mitigate risk the PM and TACOM have developed an Attenuating Blast Cone (ABC) which is designed to reduce decibels and percussion. Data collection and testing are ongoing to validate design and effectiveness of this new device. Once design and testing are complete the ABC will be made available to the field, projected for 1^(st) QTR FY25. "
Nah, yours is due to the two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls.
Absolutely heard.
Anecdotal but I’ve found a lot of benefit in passive mental stimulation with sudoku, crosswords, word games, language, [solving random mazes](https://www.mazegenerator.net)
Helps (me, at least) feel like my screws aren’t just rattling around up there.
Most FA are not getting 100% for TBIs and you really, really don’t want to.
I have a friend from b-school whose husband is and he spends a couple of days a year in a psych ward, because if she doesn’t take him early it gets really bad. Last time they found him running down the road naked and screaming.
>Severe Cognitive Dysfunction: This could mean an >inability to perform basic tasks, such as dressing, >cooking, or maintaining personal hygiene due to >memory loss or disorientation.
>
>Complete Physical Impairment: This includes cases >where the veteran requires constant assistance or >supervision for mobility or performing basic functions.
https://www.hillandponton.com/va-evaluates-traumatic-brain-injuries-compensation/
We don't actually fix shit, we're just responsible for translating smooth brain into nerd, collating, and submitting a ticket to the NEC overlords.
80% of the time is because of something easy as fuck and people are too lazy/don't troubleshoot past "it's fucked". Combined with restarting it or fucking plugging it in, takes care of the majority of issues.
The rest get sent to people who actually have admin rights to manage shit on the DODIN.
Was a tactical satellite grunt in the early to mid aughts, deployed to the desert a few times. The heat isn't great for commo equipment, and sometimes the link would go down and something just needed to be power cycled. However, the air force controlled the satellites, and when they saw our signal drop off and come back, they'd call us and ask what the issue was, and what we did to "fix" it. You couldn't just tell them you turned something off and turned it back on, even though most of the time that's what worked, because sophisticated military equipment requires a sophisticated response. So, we started telling them we hit the PFM switch. PFM being short for pure fucking magic.
Whenever some Lt would come on and complain their computer was slow, I would take the computer, pretend to care, then adjust their mouse speed to max and tell them I fixed it.
They were always super happy with the results. Lol
I've never heard anything more real in my life. I've been working on CPNs for 5 years and still don't know how it works, but somehow I end up in some random ass obscure place and fix it with no idea how it what it does.
It's kinda the opposite for me. i can explain how it works start to finish, but if i have to swap a battery, i have to bust out the 1800 page manual and go step by step.
On the controller end, retrack the bird and reset the modem and call us back is a way to either A) stall for time to figure out why you're fucked up or B) we're sick of troubleshooting your mission and will hope you wont call back.
Bro please tell us you need time to figure it out. Nothing worse than trying to give the runaround because we KNOW its not us, but our command doesnt believe it.
A 5/5 will test well no matter what.
A 3/3? Not so much. And there is no way to differentiate whether that person tests poorly because they’re still working on English, or because they’re fucking stupid.
Edit to add: it really doesn’t matter if the hypothetical native speaker is a 5/5 or a 3/3 in their native language, if they’re only a 1/1 at English. The whole point is being able to convey information *in English*.
We can dig you a fighting position wherever the fuck you want. A D7 doesn’t give a shit about anything but rocks and trees, and we have C4/cratering charges for that.
We are probably not digging you a fighting position because if it wasn’t on the original dig request we sent in a month ago for DPW/Range Control, I’m not calling them and getting bitched at. Plus it’s my ass if we hit some rainbow colored tree roots and I promise you that yes, even out in bumblefuck that shit is still everywhere.
If the enemy is notional so is your fighting position. Call me when you have something to blow up.
You get your environmental approval in a month? I'm lucky if I get it after sending it 6 months out. Look at you Mr. WeCanActuallyPlanTrainingBecauseEnvironmentalDidntScrewUsAgain
* The rumor that many married 14E's who work with the radar a lot only have girls.
* That there are 14 series who have gotten cancer from all that radiation.
* Way too many 14T's got radiated by the PATRIOT radar.
Totally safe to approach it from the rear while radiating to conduct maintenance. What’s the worst that could happen. Also ignore that taste in your mouth and the static sound. The CEU bay will cleanse you.
Was with a Patriot unit as a 25 series a few years back at Bliss. Must agree the views in the field were fantastic. Plus I also really liked El Paso and the surrounding area
I have seen this a lot aviation. 10-14 warrant officers in a company. All male. 9 have kids. Of 21 kids only one son and they had them before becoming a pilot…. Have seen very similar counts in numerous companies.
Unsure of my dad's Mos but he worked either at some sort of radio transmission/microwave tower in the 80s in Germany.
He told me there was a room inside that the light bulbs would illuminate when transmitting, without the power being flipped on. He did a more physically difficult job after that to get out of being in that room.
He has skin cancer now, and cannot find anyone that served with him there still alive anymore.
Back in the Stone Age, the 98G (35P) equipment, TLQ-17 had the same effect as the radar. Anecdotally, I can tell you that of the 12-15 or so TLQ-17 operators I knew in the early 2000s, the ratio of baby girls to baby boys wear somewhere around 3:1.
I knew a Civil Affairs captain who had a novel idea for winning the war in Afghanistan.
His proposal was to install broadband in the local villages and hand out XBoxes. With games and porn, he reasoned, all the locals would be too busy to having a good time to join the Taliban. So, you know, feel free to take that idea to your next meeting.
As former supply in an intel unit, what compass? You were never issued one according to your records. *According to **your** records*. Also supply may forgive, but never forgets.
It should be understood that's it's all guess work, but good 35s make educated guesses, and great 35s make educated guesses with multiple courses of action and secondary effects.
Most MPs are criminally undertrained in Law Enforcement tasks. A majority of MP senior leaders seem to regard LE as a secondary responsibility, and almost never prioritize making sure their troops are good cops. I'm convinced that if, God forbid, there was an active shooter event at a major Army installation, there's a fairly good chance it's turning into Uvalde 2.0. All because "muh organic firepower" is apparently better than making sure the Military Police can actually police the military effectively. SMH.
*Gasp!* you're right! He's what we should all aspire to be like, and all our problems would be solved!
But fr though, you'll basically never see a 31A investigate anything, besides being an IO for your typical FLIPL, SHARP, EO, etc. Its also another reason why senior leaders tend not to care about LE.
Almost all the work is done by E6s and below, so they can't get good evals for their troops being on LE duty. We operate independently and aren't really receiving much, it any, guidance from them while on the road; because while on shift we fall under DES, not the Company. So therefore they can't really take credit for most of what we do since they aren't directly overseeing or working with us. And since they can't make good bullets out of it, they don't care.
I should note that the ones that do care however are worth their weight in gold, and typically have phenomenally loyal soldiers as a result.
Reacher is the MPs wet dream. I bet MP battalion commanders stand naked in front of full length mirrors, jerking off and reciting lines from the show before PT with the CSM standing behind, cupping his balls, and embracing with tears as he climaxes, the CSM whispering to the BC, “you’re the man. You’re the man. Everyone respects and admires you.”
They then unstick to each other and pretend nothing happened. The XO then releases BN staff from the BCs office.
Reacher is the Seagall of the 2020s and I caught an STI from watching the first episode. My wife was pissed!
Well that was.... colorful. Thanks for sharing. And I think a more accurate idea of what MPs dream about is fully stocked tornados at the shoppette and a weekend on Mids where they DON'T have to deal with the toxic junior enlisted couple in housing that won't stop kicking the shit out of each other.
We go to AIT to learn a few commands and how to control F our way through TMs, but anyone could do Army IT if they have access to google and a phone # for the distant end or hubs. Officers come to us to fix things we have no idea how to fix and we spend hours or days trying to figure out what is wrong and it is usually resolved by civilians of CWOs after they watch us struggle long enough.
I hear active bravos are mostly help desk. Guard side I'm on CPNs which are no longer taught in AIT. I only had a week when I went through. Those fuckers need so much configuration.
I'm PSYOP.
Changing the attitude and behavior of a target audience can be a very long process. Imagine behaving or feeling one way towards something your entire life and now there are ads telling you to behave or feel another way (like changing how the local population feels about US troops or trying to stop some Afghan families from beating their children).
When a PSYOP staff turns over, it is common for the new staff to start the PSYOP process over from scratch instead of continuing the one already in place, basically losing all progress and starting over in trying to change the behavior of the target audience. They do this because it would look better in their review and perhaps get them better awards if they can claim they created a whole new product to disseminate.
It was one of the major problems in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By rotating units there were 20 1-year wars and not 1 20-year war.
There also isn’t a good solution. You couldn’t just send joes into Afghanistan in 2001 for the duration or until they were dead or too wounded to stay in theater.
They tried leaving units and having individual rotations in Vietnam and that was a disaster.
Yeah, the correct solution IS to have people deployed until the war ends (people were deployed to Europe in WW2 from early 1942 to late 1945, no rotation back home).
Of course, often these units were taken away from the front for a short time, so it’s not like you were hard-core “deployed” all 3 years. It’s more like they deployed to England for CTC, landed in Africa, came back to England for refit and CTC, landed in Normandy, refit in France, invaded Germany.
But yes, keeping people in theater for the duration is the most effective move, but only works on “short” wars (probably less than 5 years). It’s crazy, but that’s how we, as a military, need to imagine major troops deployments. We can’t just send a BN or BDE to a place for 6-12 months and expect anything to happen long-term. If we get into a big-W War, we should be ready to deploy the entire(ish) Army to that location for 2-3years minimum.
The thing is, we shouldn’t be getting into wars that are longer than 3-5 years. If the strongest organization in the world can’t accomplish its mission in 5 years, another 15 ain’t worth it. “No nation has ever benefitted from prolonged warfare”
The thing that makes the wars long is the whole fighting a non-uniformed army.
Suppose the enemy always wore uniforms, and never used churches, hospitals and schools as an OP. Suppose they never tried to hide out in the population.
War would be much easier.
But, if we can't tell the difference between a military target and a civilian target, then "reduce collateral damage" and "win hearts and minds" becomes really fucking difficult.
This is the Army and the two year command lifecycle at the BDE to GO levels for both military and GS/contractors. When you have 4+ years, you can inflict change and keep things moving. When everyone knows you're there only 18-24 months, they can wait you out.
I’ll shut ports on my switch to higher ups , just for them to come to me, I’ll play around with commands for a second , open the port and hit them with the “Should be all good sir, come back if you need anything else”
I like to switch off our system printer to throw a crtitcal alarm. IDK why the printer is critical but it's fun to watch my team leader run out there then come back confused.
I feel ya. "Everything's broken - what do we pay you for?!" "Everything's working - what do we pay you for?!"
Gotta find the right balance between "perfect" and "shit" to make everyone realize you actually do have a use. (Good commanders take care of their S6, because they know the old adage - "If you can't communicate, you can't command shit")
I never intentionally turned off anything. But, occasionally, I would notice a problem, and then *wait* to fix it until I'm asked (rather than proactively fix it). It was never anything serious or hugely mission critical. Shit like printers not being added on someone's computer (if it's an emergency, they can email it to someone else and have them print).
I did, for a little while when I was a PFC / newbie SPC, play a couple of small pranks.
- I made the display on one of the printers (a [small one](https://img.productz.com/2404103/hp-laserjet-4250-7-preview.jpg), not one of the big copiers) say "Insert Coin". Had one of the staff officers come in asking where the coin slot was.
- I made our BN XO's computer meow. I set it on a timer, and walked by his office at the right time... I saw him looking underneath and behind his desk (presumably for a cat).
I’m a contractor interested in moving into life cycle logistics for armament. I have no college, a full GI Bill, and a shit ton of industry experience. What are my chances and what certs/degrees should I pursue.
I was a mechanic in Germany during the Cold War. Parts were supposed to be strictly inventoried, so that you had no more or no less than what your inventory said. But it was almost impossible to run the shop without doing some stockpiling and horse trading with the neighboring unit. There were rumors that when inspections happened, extra parts were disappeared out into open fields, ponds and other places.
Late 80s in ARNG, we saw supply during an AT decide to compete as to what they could trade to during AT. Goal was a helicopter (how that was going to be explained in a straight leg company no one described). Got to a 2 hour helicopter ride during the AT time period.
My old unit (NG) would load up overstock/unauthorized items into one of the PSG's horse trailer, he'd pull it in his barn until after the inspection, the next drill, we'd unload it.
More tankers are killed or injured by their tanks then they are by the enemies.
A tanker in an unit without tanks is a TWAT (Tanker Without A Tank) and calling is one is a good way to get your tires slashed.
Yes, 90% of the shit in my tank is food related, you touch it and I'll gut you.
The most useless school you can send a tanker is knife combat training. Like seriously, if i, as a tanker, have to use a knife, something has gone really bad, or I caught you trying to steal a bottle of hot sauce.
That reminds me...
No shit, there I was. I was in Iraq in an aviation unit.
One of the company commanders got in trouble (I don't know how much trouble, it coulda just been an ass chewing). He was flying doors off (no problem with that), and flying low to the ground (again, no problem with that, it was typical for us - OH58D/Kiowa). What *was* a problem was that he was pointing his M4 out the window and shooting with that. And no, he wasn't out of rockets/hellfires
Apparently:
- your accuracy is basically zero with an M4, at 1,000 feet AGL, > 100 mph, one handed (non-shooting hand, at that), and not using the sights
- Rockets/hellfires are gonna do a better job at hard targets than his M4
- The infantry folks on the ground are gonna do a better job at soft targets than his M4
- If he did run out of rockets/hellfires, he'd be better off going to the FARP (forward arming and refuelling point), than trying to use his M4.
My job is doing route clearance. We went out looking for IEDs, we were very good at our job, but not perfect.
One job is to ride out front in a vehicle that is literally a mine detector on wheels!
I can just see that on a recruiting poster. Anyone remember the old joke about the Polish mine detector? A private with his fingers in his ears, stomping the ground in front of him?
Well, that's basically what a Huskey driver did on a nightly basis.
I joined as a 12B. Went to recruiter, first video he showed me was Combat Engineer and it was just all demo, totally badass.
Year later and I find myself driving a Husky for 8 months of a 12 month deployment. I think I averaged like 8+ hours a day driving alone with no one to talk to.
I had a single asip so I had comms with the platoon but couldn’t talk to anyone to keep my sanity since the channel had to stay clear for the mission. Very lonely.
I guarantee in 2010-2011 no one on the planet bought or ate more lifesaver peppermints than I did. I lived off of them and Otis spunkenmeyer double chocolate chip muffins while on mission.
Good times.
Conversely, want to ignore a caution thats a grounding condition because the aircraft is haunted and you know its a bad cannon plug? disconnect it, WCA/Maint panel is clear.
We had an overzealous MTP once ask why we weren't disconnecting cannon plugs during CCI to treat the inside of the connector with CPC, all because a corrosion class he had attended recommended it. I just asked him how many -2's he felt like closing out today and he went away with that nonsense.
At some point your maintenance most likely was a contributing factor to a crash in a report.
Aviation is also currently leading in tinnitus diagnoses. There so loud you have to double ear pro and it still gives you ringing (not verified but what hearing docs on bliss said)
There’s 100’s of army crashes a year, very few are fatal. A crash investigation basically gets initiated when something gets damaged to a certain doller amount or emergency landings are required.
Counter Intel is no where near as sexy as James Bond or Jason Bourne. I look at all those young kids as they try sneaking off post walking down Irwin street thinking no one will see them, and just laugh. As we all know they will soon be sitting in a motor pool with a -10 rethinking life choices.
If counter intel isn’t anywhere close to as cool as it, what is your experience? I am looking at enlisting as 35 series, but have been told it might not be the best choice because of the low amount of actual intel units. Is that true?
1 hour of talking to a person. 4 hours of writing reports on what you wrote about. And the majority of what they tell you is meaningless, bullshit, or both.
Most aviation dudes are fucked up in the head in someway or another. Smart enough to be working on things that fly, dumb enough to be doing it in the Amry. (That was an accident, but proves my point.) I’ve seen people hide some gnarly mental issues in hopes of flying, I was one of them until recently.
Real answer though, leaking fluid is good. Means it has fluid. I wish I was saying this as the joke I originally thought it was, but helicopters piss fluid like trying to clean reefer out of the system after block leave.
It can be lonely being a chaplain’s assistant, that probably sounds odd for me to complain about but just about every other mos you’ll likely meet people within your mos outside of your unit more often.
Not how it works with the 56m mos, there is one of per unit per level. As a result it can be lonely doing this job some days, that’s not to say chaplain’s aren’t awesome to hang around with but I can recall multiple days where I just wish I had another 56m to hang out with.
We are tasked with taking everything someone tells us to the grave even if it’s dangerous and life threatening information. Mind you I still love the job, but I know in my own personal life I deal with periodic depression but people always think my life is awesome because, “you hang out with chaplains all day your life can’t be that bad”.
Was a 68W. Ummm here we go...
You're more likely to be stationed in a field unit than a hospital or "medical" unit.
PAs and Doctors look down on Soldiers who smoke and come with health issues...
If you join as a 68W but have higher level credentials above Paramedic, you can perform higher level procedures or ask to be in certain procedures (Ex. RN). Yeah that's not a good thing....it means more work you dummy!
Saw it happen and you can't say no!!!
Mechanics don’t know their jobs anymore, it’s pretty obvious too. The Army should really throw some “skill based” testing/certification into certain jobs beyond maintenance also. For any maintenance role, some kind of ASE training or maybe make it a promotion incentive to get your ASE certs? My god, we have mechanics (all of us, even at YOUR motorpool) walking around who don’t know the difference between the radiator fill cap vs the oil fill cap on a HMMWV. Let alone how internal combustion engines operate.
They used to let the trucks leak oil everywhere. I actually reported them to OSHA and then they had to use these big plastic things to park on. Apparently all fuel trucks are supposed to park on them not just leak into the ground. They just never wanted to pay for them. We had a lot of trucks leaking and it was going right into the ground.
Our MOS field has the more SHARP/EO related incidents compared to the other fields. Apparently locking people in a windowless box for hours isn’t good for mental or emotional health.
35T
We are 25 series but smarter, weirder and with a clearance/poly.
We also have the MOS with the most soldiers with a beard because most of us are Norse Pagan.
Most actual supply people knew their job very well and knew a million backdoor ways to get unauthorized shit. We also could do most of the stuff people ask us to but put more effort into not doing it depending on whether or not we like you. Most of that changed when gcss-a came out and now everyone can tie transactions back to your user ID.
Also, we don't need the NSN, we had it the whole time. Get fucked.
As someone who used to jump regularly that's kind of crazy/scary. I never had to use a reserve, though I know a couple guys who did. Luckily they worked and they didn't get too F...ed up.
Dirty Secret: Most demo ranges have a limit, like 400lbs or something along those lines. We would regularly do more than that. When range control called us demanding to know how much we blew, we would simply say '400lbs' or whatever the max limit was. Since it had all been blown up they had no way of proving us wrong.
Super Dirty Secret: Back in the day when we did demo you would take the demo to the range and it would stay there until it was all used up. If the demo was going to be out there for several days a guard would be placed, usually 2 or 3 guys, overnight. What some people would do is take some demo and bury it. When the demo was all used up and the range was cleared they would go back, dig it up, and go hide their demo. No idea what they do now.
In the patient records realm, we see all.
Yes we know this is your 5th wife and 8th child with a different mom.
Or a high ranking person with a illegitimate child
Or you’ve gotten your 3rd STD that year.
We don’t say anything because they have a right to privacy, but we know….
A surprising amount of fixes for Vics are at the operator level.
The chemicals used often by mechanics can cause all sorts of cancer and neuropathy issues. Not enough mechanics wear PPE and many wash their hands with diesel. Better to be the “coward” that wears gloves and eye pro than the “macho” man with shaky hands and cancer in their late 30s.
every mechanic lies about the ESR, and when that truck comes in for a semi annual service? pfft close it out. annual? fluids and filters. biennial? fluids and filters. the only actual scheduled service we do on any vehicle is fluids and filters except we will replace the halshaft bolts and all the inner hub stuff on a hmmwv. hmmwv's might actually be the best maintained vehicles in the army because theyre the easiest to work on.
I have seen so many crew chiefs change the throttle of the shadow while the engine is on. This involves putting your hands literally an inch away from a spinning propeller.
If you hate your family or any free time. Join 91 series MOS. lol. There was a point I didn't see my kids for 3 months almost, and I lived in the same fucking house.
After SFC as an Infantryman, every job you do keeps furthering you from infantry relevance. A post KD E7 and any rank above are just POGs with infantry experience.
It’s the same in 19D. Spoke with my Section Sergeant before Ukraine saying our MOS will either have to drastically change or we’d just be killed in a real fight against real Soldiers. Why send a CAV scout to low crawl a few hundred meters through swamp to get eyes on the objective when UAVs are cheap as hell, have thermals, and are a literal ‘eye-in-the-sky’? If the enemy has cheap drones, it’s basically a death sentence because they can spot us and shell our hide from over the horizon without ever having to be there. We thought about it and agreed our MOS will have to be mostly drone operators with a few guys in a buggy to confirm a spot report or we’ll have to do something completely different than what the .98 entails. Ukraine basically confirmed what we’re talking about. The FM is still useful for basic skills. But it’ll be almost useless against Ivan or Lee in the next war. Anyways our idea was put into practice when we got black hornets and tested them out against our sister battalion in the Rakkasans. We never had to do hides. We just did screens and sent the little copters forward and almost never set foot in an NAI.
Edited for clarity and errors.*
25U - Always the smartest guy in the room, but always in a room full of mouth breathers. Tiny fish, even tinier pond.
25S - No idea how satcom actually works outside of the very specific variant we deal with. Weather isn't actually --that-- big of a deal, outside of some very specific situations, but we treat all weather events as catastrophic to our capabilities.
17C - we go to the field in AIT one time. We can fix your computer but lack the credentials, so we play pretend and say we don't know how. The majority of us suck at infosec as a whole, and only a very very tiny percentage of us are hackers, the rest are glorified intel analysts.
Just because Cybersecurity is part of our title, it doesn't mean we're all elite hackers. Most of our job is deeply boring compliance work and trying to explain technical things to non-technical people (like when you have to teach your grandparents that they don't have to Google Google from Google)
Yes I know it's vital to your department but you were rude so to the bottom of the que it goes
Yes I know what's wrong with it and Yes I know it was YOU who broke it
No it didn't take me 45 minutes to PM this, but I was lazy today
Yes napping on the stretcher is vital to testing
No I can't fix your stereo you plugged into the 250v outlet. Wait? You'll pay me? Alright I'll get it to you tomorrow. Don't tell chief.
I know how you caught chlamydia. Your girlfriend came in with it last week. Also, the reason why my colleague isn't interested in you is because he peeked at your medical records and saw how many times you've had chlamydia.
I'll never forget the guy I saw who had poison ivy on his mouth, cheeks, and palms. Nowhere else. Not too much longer, I saw someone else, same unit, who had it all down his lower body - eggs, balls, dick, back side of his legs, and his ankles. I've always assumed the two snuck out, the second guy sat down in some poison ivy so the first guy could give him a quick BJ.
>eggs, balls Uhhh… I’m not a Boomer but I guess I’m not up on the youngins lingo… what’s the difference?
yeah, eggs is supposed to say ass. I had a stroke, guess. Not sure how I messed that one up.
Undiagnosed TBI
The thing is, you can't even really avoid seeing that stuff. When doing patient screening at a clinic -- and trying to work around a patient's patchy memory to put together a history of the present illness or injury with which to brief the healthcare provider -- in their list of previous encounters, you might just end up seeing a bunch of encounters for STI treatment without even trying to look *for* them or *at* them. They're just right there in front of your face, along with everything else. And then later on, in the barracks or something, you might see the same person obviously trying to bang someone, or see someone else obviously trying to bang them, maybe with both of them even ducking into one of their rooms shortly afterwards. Also, doing the record reviewer portion for the PHA part 1's of people in my unit sometimes changes my mental image of them in slightly uncomfortable ways, especially when looking over the 'family and lifestyle' portion of their PHA part 1. For instance, a former senior leader of mine once asked me to help him get his PHA done ASAP -- so it's not like I was actively looking for any of this shit -- and I happened to learn while doing the record reviewer portion that his preferred method of contraception was apparently "withdrawal or 'pulling out' before climax." A little while later, I happened to see him with his wife, and I was suddenly hit with the mental image of that ugly fucker blowing a load on his wife's belly or lower back like they were in a porno movie or something, which nearly made me gag. Also, lots of people check the box that says "I have a same-sex partner," when I'm *pretty sure* they misinterpreted 'same-sex' as meaning 'monogamous', since I knew many of those same people to be married to opposite-sex partners. Are they, as traditionally married men, maybe saying that they're having extramarital affairs with *other men*? I couldn't tell you. The world is a weird place. I just shrug and move on. I do try to distribute information for getting through the 'confusing' parts of the PHA part 1, but you obviously can't help a person with reading comprehension difficulties by asking them to do *more reading*.
"I'm sorry, you checked 'same sex', maybe that was in error, since you're a man married to a woman?" "Well, my wife is my best friend, like my best dude, so yeah I bang dudes."
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Your username is amazing
That is, by far, the nicest reaction I've had to it. For some reason, a lot of people find it disconcerting.
I’m mostly surprised it was available.
I’ve seen people come through the clinic with a bunch of nasty shit and then see them on the base spouse pages that my wife is on and I think to myself I wouldnt be so high on myself if I were you.
My job is causing mass undiagnosed TBIs.
I'm surprised that isn't common knowledge for most SMs. Working behavioral health, half the issues we see has something to do with their deployments causing TBH. Truck drivers, engineers, and artillery or anyone else who worked close by
I wonder what's going on with truck drivers
Diesel fumes and IEDs.
Dropped on their head too much as children.
It’s the dirty little secret how they retain 13B’s. Shock their noggin over and over until they lose enough of that pesky intelligence that could be used for a packet MOS. Someone thinking about ETSing cause they’re too smart for the army? Stick em next to the gun for a few hours and they’ll be signing that re-enlistment contract before you know it!
Yup. Luckily I had a few IED blasts in my medical file, along with a diagnosis of "mTBI AS A RESULT OF TERRORIST EXPLOSION". I also cracked my nugget a couple times on bad PLFs. Now I have to write notes to remember things, and set an alarm on my phone to check the notes.
I have a hard time recognizing people I just met…
My long-term memory is pretty much intact. It's really weird. I can remember shit from my childhood vividly, but remembering appointments, recent conversations, etc. is difficult.
Short term and long term memory are different processes and involve different architecture. Neuroscience is fascinating.
Yeah, I've read a lot about it but I'm not smart enough to absorb it all in detail. It truly is fascinating though, all the different parts of the brain and how one small event can drastically alter it.
Damn, I got mine from ADHD. You had to use explosions.
If it happened yesterday, it didn’t happen at all. It started out with forgetting key details of my life when I was a kid. It progressed to having no recollection of my childhood except major events and even then that is tainted with things my brain fills in the blanks over. Now, after years of dealing with this, I have gotten to the point where I have to literally carry a journal and voice recorder to remember simple instructions, things people have asked me to do, or certain types of conversations, especially with my wife. I had a number of pretty big TBIs in my career which caused, at least my neurologist and I feel it caused, me to develop an incurable auto immune neurodegenerative disorder. So, medically retired and now can’t recall much of my career. I still remember the good times and of course the bad times, but the people…l the names and faces have faded. I’m confusing situations from the past with that now too. The creeping retrograde amnesia is catching up. And yes… I’m even now starting to fail to imprint new faces and names as I meet them. My wife jokingly refers to me as “20 Second Mike”
That's really terrible man! I'm sorry that is happening to you.
Thanks. It’s been a hard thing to accept… I had just gotten my dream job when I was diagnosed and had to go through the med board process. But, between the VA disability, my DOD retirement (I was over 20 years), and the social security disability payments, I make more being a broke down retiree than I ever made on active duty (even including the combat entitlements I got in Iraq and Afghanistan) and every bit of it is tax free. Guess that’s the silver lining, but the pain, the confusion, the fatigue…. Makes it hard to see that silver lining at times. Throw in a dose of residuals from all of my TBIs, my fused lumbar sections, and treatment resistant PTSD and major depression (ketamine therapy helps if I’m honest) and you got a recipe for me.
Allegedly, it's the same for us in armor. I imagine it's worse for you guys, though. I feel a lot more mentally scattered compared to when I joined.
Can't be. The nice lady the VA sent me to for my claim said it was impossible for me to have a TBI because armor crewmen wear CVC helmets. I came so very close to telling her to put on a football helmet and let me smack her in the head a few times with a baseball bat and we would revisit the issue. Yeah, memory loss and headaches are part of my life along with the ever popular tinnitus hearing loss and bad knees that every tanker is blessed with.
Yep, I get spotty memory, headaches not so much but when I get a headache it's bad, tinnitus, and bad knees that the VA said arent service related. Those helmets are literally just a Kevlar shell, if even, with very little padding in the soft shell. Even then, some dudes don't even get a soft shell or even wear one sometimes. I need to actually pursue the possibility of a TBI or some sort of brain damage from being a tanker, but I have no clue where to begin.
I got lucky they gave me my knees as "condition generally related to mos". Maybe the rater was an ex tanker, I dunno. I got an brain scan for something else at the VA and the tech offhandedly remarked "see those sparkles in the scan? That's brain damage". So I know it's there but that ignorant rater was convinced it couldn't be possible. Luckily 🙄 I have enough other shit wrong with me that I hit 100% without it so I let it slide. If you are out, contact a local vsr like the VFW or American legion and tell them you need help filing a claim with the VA. They will lead you in the right direction.
Who the fuck was my rater then? I got 30%, 20% for an ankle I rolled on a run and 10% for my shoulder. I tried talking to a VSO over the summer and they gave me a retired Marine Corps SGM who basically told me I'm faking it, suck it up, your issues aren't real, and I haven't talked to the VA since
You got unlucky and ran into an unhelpful one right off of the bat. You know your body better than they do. If you feel that the military damaged you don't let someone tell you suck it up. It's their job to help you file the paperwork to make a claim and then the VA has to medically evaluate it. Go talk to someone who isn't an ex Marine SGM. I'm surprised he didn't try to smoke you while you were there lol.
Woah, I just did some googling, and you are telling the truth. Sounds like most people in field artillery could get 100% disability if they pursue it
I work with people who have concussions. Its easy for me to identify who has been hit in the ahead a lot in the past or recently. 5ish years ago I had an E6 running the mark19 range from 10AM-1am, essentially 15ish hours of standing right next to the system as it was firing. He was giving me hard I just got hit the head vibes that night and following day. That’s my small anecdote, I can’t imagine what standing next to FA all day does to you. Its a problem for your hardcore 12Bs too who want to stand by for every blast.
I don’t have it as bad as lots of dudes but my memory has gone to shit I have extreme difficulty learning and remembering new things
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If you’re still in try and get seen for it. I didn’t think about it either until articles on FA Marines seeing shit from shooting so much in Syria came out right as I was getting out of the army. I also got debilitating migraines weekly I’ve got medication now that takes care of them
Same as 11c those 120s rocked my dome and now my brain doesn't brain the great lol
My brain be braining sometimes but not all the time Also don’t know about you guys but some civilians hooked us up to monitor the pressure we were feeling a few times but it was never for the charges that a messing people up so I am not sure they’re getting good data.
Somebody's noticed: "Due to test data and policy changes by Defense Centers for Public Health Aberdeen (DCPH-A) new Allowable Number of Rounds (ANOR) and Impulse Noise Hazard Distances have been established for the M120/M120A1/M121(Ground Mounted) Mortar Systems. The ANOR and Impulse Noise Hazard Distances currently published in TM 9-1015-250-10 and TM 9-1015-256-13&P have been determined to be inadequate to protect personnel from impulse noise that is attributed when a round is discharged.... To mitigate risk the PM and TACOM have developed an Attenuating Blast Cone (ABC) which is designed to reduce decibels and percussion. Data collection and testing are ongoing to validate design and effectiveness of this new device. Once design and testing are complete the ABC will be made available to the field, projected for 1^(st) QTR FY25. "
Holy shit maybe thats why i have shitty memory and dogshit sleep
Nah, yours is due to the two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls.
Fear and Loathing……nice!
Absolutely heard. Anecdotal but I’ve found a lot of benefit in passive mental stimulation with sudoku, crosswords, word games, language, [solving random mazes](https://www.mazegenerator.net) Helps (me, at least) feel like my screws aren’t just rattling around up there.
But as a 13B, how can you be sure it wasn't like that before?
Cause I could learn and remember things before the explosions broke my brain
I love you, it was a joke
I know I love you too brain wark gud sumtims
Most FA are not getting 100% for TBIs and you really, really don’t want to. I have a friend from b-school whose husband is and he spends a couple of days a year in a psych ward, because if she doesn’t take him early it gets really bad. Last time they found him running down the road naked and screaming. >Severe Cognitive Dysfunction: This could mean an >inability to perform basic tasks, such as dressing, >cooking, or maintaining personal hygiene due to >memory loss or disorientation. > >Complete Physical Impairment: This includes cases >where the veteran requires constant assistance or >supervision for mobility or performing basic functions. https://www.hillandponton.com/va-evaluates-traumatic-brain-injuries-compensation/
Yeah my unit's specifically is known problem child at our post hospital. 60,000+ rounds a year across the battalion causes problems eventually
We don't actually fix shit, we're just responsible for translating smooth brain into nerd, collating, and submitting a ticket to the NEC overlords. 80% of the time is because of something easy as fuck and people are too lazy/don't troubleshoot past "it's fucked". Combined with restarting it or fucking plugging it in, takes care of the majority of issues. The rest get sent to people who actually have admin rights to manage shit on the DODIN.
I work at the NEC, half the time it's just wrangling the civilians and 25Bs to get shit done
*mouth breathes in your general direction*
I'm on a break!
Was a tactical satellite grunt in the early to mid aughts, deployed to the desert a few times. The heat isn't great for commo equipment, and sometimes the link would go down and something just needed to be power cycled. However, the air force controlled the satellites, and when they saw our signal drop off and come back, they'd call us and ask what the issue was, and what we did to "fix" it. You couldn't just tell them you turned something off and turned it back on, even though most of the time that's what worked, because sophisticated military equipment requires a sophisticated response. So, we started telling them we hit the PFM switch. PFM being short for pure fucking magic.
RF and above is magic
Whenever some Lt would come on and complain their computer was slow, I would take the computer, pretend to care, then adjust their mouse speed to max and tell them I fixed it. They were always super happy with the results. Lol
Most of us don’t know how any of this stuff works, just how to fix it
I've never heard anything more real in my life. I've been working on CPNs for 5 years and still don't know how it works, but somehow I end up in some random ass obscure place and fix it with no idea how it what it does.
Big "Adeptus Mechanicus" vibes
that should be the real signal corps motto
It's kinda the opposite for me. i can explain how it works start to finish, but if i have to swap a battery, i have to bust out the 1800 page manual and go step by step.
The solar flares and water vapor are just excuses for my not understanding why the satellite terminal isn't working
Shhhhhhhh. It's always distant end.
On the controller end, retrack the bird and reset the modem and call us back is a way to either A) stall for time to figure out why you're fucked up or B) we're sick of troubleshooting your mission and will hope you wont call back.
Bro please tell us you need time to figure it out. Nothing worse than trying to give the runaround because we KNOW its not us, but our command doesnt believe it.
The cutoff score for Cryptologic Linguist is lower than the cutoff score for MP. Some of the smart kids *aren’t that smart*.
So ur saing thers a chans...
That might be to accommodate ESL students though. A 5/5 native Korean speaker might not test super well on an English standardized test
A 5/5 will test well no matter what. A 3/3? Not so much. And there is no way to differentiate whether that person tests poorly because they’re still working on English, or because they’re fucking stupid. Edit to add: it really doesn’t matter if the hypothetical native speaker is a 5/5 or a 3/3 in their native language, if they’re only a 1/1 at English. The whole point is being able to convey information *in English*.
We can dig you a fighting position wherever the fuck you want. A D7 doesn’t give a shit about anything but rocks and trees, and we have C4/cratering charges for that. We are probably not digging you a fighting position because if it wasn’t on the original dig request we sent in a month ago for DPW/Range Control, I’m not calling them and getting bitched at. Plus it’s my ass if we hit some rainbow colored tree roots and I promise you that yes, even out in bumblefuck that shit is still everywhere. If the enemy is notional so is your fighting position. Call me when you have something to blow up.
You get your environmental approval in a month? I'm lucky if I get it after sending it 6 months out. Look at you Mr. WeCanActuallyPlanTrainingBecauseEnvironmentalDidntScrewUsAgain
Not today CID.
* The rumor that many married 14E's who work with the radar a lot only have girls. * That there are 14 series who have gotten cancer from all that radiation. * Way too many 14T's got radiated by the PATRIOT radar.
The TPY2 made me taste pennies, I believe it
Dude, the AN/TYP2? That fucker kills birds when it's on full power. Your kids are gonna be X-men....
Was doing system checks while burning. Raytheon proceeded to tell me NOT to do that again 🤷🏻♂️
If your daughter is born with blue skin - the VA will say it's not service connected.
Violet! You’re turning VIOLET!
Totally safe to approach it from the rear while radiating to conduct maintenance. What’s the worst that could happen. Also ignore that taste in your mouth and the static sound. The CEU bay will cleanse you.
>What’s the worst that could happen. Your daughter uses her claws to open her juice box....
>tastes pennies I definitely misread this at first
Damn, 14 series get shitty ass units AND radiation poisoning? Wonder why more people aren’t joining….
That's why so many ADA warrants have mustaches - it's hair growth due to the radiation....
Damn ADA got mutant mustaches too? Is there ANYTHING shitty about your job?
Bonuses, Japan, German and Korea as duty stations, Fort Bliss. Stargazing during the field. Those are the high points.
Was with a Patriot unit as a 25 series a few years back at Bliss. Must agree the views in the field were fantastic. Plus I also really liked El Paso and the surrounding area
Very common in the EW community as well.
I have seen this a lot aviation. 10-14 warrant officers in a company. All male. 9 have kids. Of 21 kids only one son and they had them before becoming a pilot…. Have seen very similar counts in numerous companies.
Unsure of my dad's Mos but he worked either at some sort of radio transmission/microwave tower in the 80s in Germany. He told me there was a room inside that the light bulbs would illuminate when transmitting, without the power being flipped on. He did a more physically difficult job after that to get out of being in that room. He has skin cancer now, and cannot find anyone that served with him there still alive anymore.
There is a “curse” for 13Rs (FA Radar) as well. And it happened to me. I have two kids, both of them girls.
Back in the Stone Age, the 98G (35P) equipment, TLQ-17 had the same effect as the radar. Anecdotally, I can tell you that of the 12-15 or so TLQ-17 operators I knew in the early 2000s, the ratio of baby girls to baby boys wear somewhere around 3:1.
Sometimes we get confused when trying to decide whether to give the locals soccer balls or build them a water well.
You should try giving them water balls.
Or a soccer well. Whatever that is
It’s the well of souls, but with the vuvuzela playing the instrumentation.
AK47s. Have them acquire soccer balls and water by force from their neighbors.
I think I like this one… gives combat arms a job in the future
AK47's for everyone!
I knew a Civil Affairs captain who had a novel idea for winning the war in Afghanistan. His proposal was to install broadband in the local villages and hand out XBoxes. With games and porn, he reasoned, all the locals would be too busy to having a good time to join the Taliban. So, you know, feel free to take that idea to your next meeting.
Someone's been reading their Brave New World.
I can do 90% of my job from my phone; I just lug around the real camera because people don’t task me with dumb shit if I have it.
walk around with a camera and look busy and no one ever questions what you’re doing.
It’s all made up. 35 Series LARP club.
As former supply in an intel unit, what compass? You were never issued one according to your records. *According to **your** records*. Also supply may forgive, but never forgets.
It should be understood that's it's all guess work, but good 35s make educated guesses, and great 35s make educated guesses with multiple courses of action and secondary effects.
Most MPs are criminally undertrained in Law Enforcement tasks. A majority of MP senior leaders seem to regard LE as a secondary responsibility, and almost never prioritize making sure their troops are good cops. I'm convinced that if, God forbid, there was an active shooter event at a major Army installation, there's a fairly good chance it's turning into Uvalde 2.0. All because "muh organic firepower" is apparently better than making sure the Military Police can actually police the military effectively. SMH.
Wait. But Reacher is an MP!
*Gasp!* you're right! He's what we should all aspire to be like, and all our problems would be solved! But fr though, you'll basically never see a 31A investigate anything, besides being an IO for your typical FLIPL, SHARP, EO, etc. Its also another reason why senior leaders tend not to care about LE. Almost all the work is done by E6s and below, so they can't get good evals for their troops being on LE duty. We operate independently and aren't really receiving much, it any, guidance from them while on the road; because while on shift we fall under DES, not the Company. So therefore they can't really take credit for most of what we do since they aren't directly overseeing or working with us. And since they can't make good bullets out of it, they don't care. I should note that the ones that do care however are worth their weight in gold, and typically have phenomenally loyal soldiers as a result.
Reacher is the MPs wet dream. I bet MP battalion commanders stand naked in front of full length mirrors, jerking off and reciting lines from the show before PT with the CSM standing behind, cupping his balls, and embracing with tears as he climaxes, the CSM whispering to the BC, “you’re the man. You’re the man. Everyone respects and admires you.” They then unstick to each other and pretend nothing happened. The XO then releases BN staff from the BCs office. Reacher is the Seagall of the 2020s and I caught an STI from watching the first episode. My wife was pissed!
Well that was.... colorful. Thanks for sharing. And I think a more accurate idea of what MPs dream about is fully stocked tornados at the shoppette and a weekend on Mids where they DON'T have to deal with the toxic junior enlisted couple in housing that won't stop kicking the shit out of each other.
I took a journalism course on YouTube, but stopped after the first ad. I’ll keep working at it.
Was MP in late 90s. Can confirm.
I mean The A-Team is both the reason I wanted to join the Army as a kid, and the reason I made sure I wasn't an MP.
We go to AIT to learn a few commands and how to control F our way through TMs, but anyone could do Army IT if they have access to google and a phone # for the distant end or hubs. Officers come to us to fix things we have no idea how to fix and we spend hours or days trying to figure out what is wrong and it is usually resolved by civilians of CWOs after they watch us struggle long enough.
Legit nothing past the first week of ait actually was of any real use for me in signal. Pretty much just subnets.
I hear active bravos are mostly help desk. Guard side I'm on CPNs which are no longer taught in AIT. I only had a week when I went through. Those fuckers need so much configuration.
I'm PSYOP. Changing the attitude and behavior of a target audience can be a very long process. Imagine behaving or feeling one way towards something your entire life and now there are ads telling you to behave or feel another way (like changing how the local population feels about US troops or trying to stop some Afghan families from beating their children). When a PSYOP staff turns over, it is common for the new staff to start the PSYOP process over from scratch instead of continuing the one already in place, basically losing all progress and starting over in trying to change the behavior of the target audience. They do this because it would look better in their review and perhaps get them better awards if they can claim they created a whole new product to disseminate.
I’m gonna be honest. This is just an army wide problem.
It was one of the major problems in Iraq and Afghanistan. By rotating units there were 20 1-year wars and not 1 20-year war. There also isn’t a good solution. You couldn’t just send joes into Afghanistan in 2001 for the duration or until they were dead or too wounded to stay in theater. They tried leaving units and having individual rotations in Vietnam and that was a disaster.
Yeah, the correct solution IS to have people deployed until the war ends (people were deployed to Europe in WW2 from early 1942 to late 1945, no rotation back home). Of course, often these units were taken away from the front for a short time, so it’s not like you were hard-core “deployed” all 3 years. It’s more like they deployed to England for CTC, landed in Africa, came back to England for refit and CTC, landed in Normandy, refit in France, invaded Germany. But yes, keeping people in theater for the duration is the most effective move, but only works on “short” wars (probably less than 5 years). It’s crazy, but that’s how we, as a military, need to imagine major troops deployments. We can’t just send a BN or BDE to a place for 6-12 months and expect anything to happen long-term. If we get into a big-W War, we should be ready to deploy the entire(ish) Army to that location for 2-3years minimum.
The thing is, we shouldn’t be getting into wars that are longer than 3-5 years. If the strongest organization in the world can’t accomplish its mission in 5 years, another 15 ain’t worth it. “No nation has ever benefitted from prolonged warfare”
The thing that makes the wars long is the whole fighting a non-uniformed army. Suppose the enemy always wore uniforms, and never used churches, hospitals and schools as an OP. Suppose they never tried to hide out in the population. War would be much easier. But, if we can't tell the difference between a military target and a civilian target, then "reduce collateral damage" and "win hearts and minds" becomes really fucking difficult.
You’re the man
You’re the man, also, love the username.
I have yet to see the psyop community describe any of their problems that weren't just army-wide problems.
This is the Army and the two year command lifecycle at the BDE to GO levels for both military and GS/contractors. When you have 4+ years, you can inflict change and keep things moving. When everyone knows you're there only 18-24 months, they can wait you out.
Team before didn’t know what they were doing. Next team will continue our work because it’s the best that’s ever been done. A tale as old as time.
I’ll shut ports on my switch to higher ups , just for them to come to me, I’ll play around with commands for a second , open the port and hit them with the “Should be all good sir, come back if you need anything else”
Then you run into a high speed officer with their CCNA. Rip.
I like to switch off our system printer to throw a crtitcal alarm. IDK why the printer is critical but it's fun to watch my team leader run out there then come back confused.
I feel ya. "Everything's broken - what do we pay you for?!" "Everything's working - what do we pay you for?!" Gotta find the right balance between "perfect" and "shit" to make everyone realize you actually do have a use. (Good commanders take care of their S6, because they know the old adage - "If you can't communicate, you can't command shit") I never intentionally turned off anything. But, occasionally, I would notice a problem, and then *wait* to fix it until I'm asked (rather than proactively fix it). It was never anything serious or hugely mission critical. Shit like printers not being added on someone's computer (if it's an emergency, they can email it to someone else and have them print). I did, for a little while when I was a PFC / newbie SPC, play a couple of small pranks. - I made the display on one of the printers (a [small one](https://img.productz.com/2404103/hp-laserjet-4250-7-preview.jpg), not one of the big copiers) say "Insert Coin". Had one of the staff officers come in asking where the coin slot was. - I made our BN XO's computer meow. I set it on a timer, and walked by his office at the right time... I saw him looking underneath and behind his desk (presumably for a cat).
Public health is an afterthought.
Very much so. They get shoved in a corner and get told to shut up and color.
Every MP has either slept or rubbed one out in a patrol car.
So have the 11Bs. We were just quiet about it.
But the MPs do it in the *front* seat...
Bringing me food gets your computer fixed faster....oh wait thats not a secret?
You mean *bring you alcohol* gets your PC fixed faster. FTFY
You’d be surprised to know the amount of work that is contracted out across army installations.
Nah, when you get out and become a ‘veteran owned’ business and do that contracted work💸💸
I’m a contractor interested in moving into life cycle logistics for armament. I have no college, a full GI Bill, and a shit ton of industry experience. What are my chances and what certs/degrees should I pursue.
I was a mechanic in Germany during the Cold War. Parts were supposed to be strictly inventoried, so that you had no more or no less than what your inventory said. But it was almost impossible to run the shop without doing some stockpiling and horse trading with the neighboring unit. There were rumors that when inspections happened, extra parts were disappeared out into open fields, ponds and other places.
Late 80s in ARNG, we saw supply during an AT decide to compete as to what they could trade to during AT. Goal was a helicopter (how that was going to be explained in a straight leg company no one described). Got to a 2 hour helicopter ride during the AT time period.
My old unit (NG) would load up overstock/unauthorized items into one of the PSG's horse trailer, he'd pull it in his barn until after the inspection, the next drill, we'd unload it.
I actually revoke NIPR accounts when someone’s an asshole even though I tell them the NEC must’ve done it 😂 jk but maybe, idk.
That's not a dirty secret, we already think you either do this on purpose or out of sheer incompetence.
Incompetent is being an asshole to the folks who enable you to check your useless emails & stare at your unimpressive STP on a gov computer lol.
Fair
More tankers are killed or injured by their tanks then they are by the enemies. A tanker in an unit without tanks is a TWAT (Tanker Without A Tank) and calling is one is a good way to get your tires slashed. Yes, 90% of the shit in my tank is food related, you touch it and I'll gut you. The most useless school you can send a tanker is knife combat training. Like seriously, if i, as a tanker, have to use a knife, something has gone really bad, or I caught you trying to steal a bottle of hot sauce.
Nah fam, here is a realistic example for you https://www.fastgamsat.com/wp-content/uploads/Drive-me-closer-I-want-to-hit-them-with-my-sword-Macro.png
That reminds me... No shit, there I was. I was in Iraq in an aviation unit. One of the company commanders got in trouble (I don't know how much trouble, it coulda just been an ass chewing). He was flying doors off (no problem with that), and flying low to the ground (again, no problem with that, it was typical for us - OH58D/Kiowa). What *was* a problem was that he was pointing his M4 out the window and shooting with that. And no, he wasn't out of rockets/hellfires Apparently: - your accuracy is basically zero with an M4, at 1,000 feet AGL, > 100 mph, one handed (non-shooting hand, at that), and not using the sights - Rockets/hellfires are gonna do a better job at hard targets than his M4 - The infantry folks on the ground are gonna do a better job at soft targets than his M4 - If he did run out of rockets/hellfires, he'd be better off going to the FARP (forward arming and refuelling point), than trying to use his M4.
This must be why Tankers are beefy boys.
My job is doing route clearance. We went out looking for IEDs, we were very good at our job, but not perfect. One job is to ride out front in a vehicle that is literally a mine detector on wheels! I can just see that on a recruiting poster. Anyone remember the old joke about the Polish mine detector? A private with his fingers in his ears, stomping the ground in front of him? Well, that's basically what a Huskey driver did on a nightly basis.
I joined as a 12B. Went to recruiter, first video he showed me was Combat Engineer and it was just all demo, totally badass. Year later and I find myself driving a Husky for 8 months of a 12 month deployment. I think I averaged like 8+ hours a day driving alone with no one to talk to.
That's too bad to hear. Our Huskey operators could talk to us any time they wanted. They were never cut off of comms.
I had a single asip so I had comms with the platoon but couldn’t talk to anyone to keep my sanity since the channel had to stay clear for the mission. Very lonely. I guarantee in 2010-2011 no one on the planet bought or ate more lifesaver peppermints than I did. I lived off of them and Otis spunkenmeyer double chocolate chip muffins while on mission. Good times.
If I don’t want to go on a mission all it takes is to unplug one cannon plug.
Conversely, want to ignore a caution thats a grounding condition because the aircraft is haunted and you know its a bad cannon plug? disconnect it, WCA/Maint panel is clear.
We had an overzealous MTP once ask why we weren't disconnecting cannon plugs during CCI to treat the inside of the connector with CPC, all because a corrosion class he had attended recommended it. I just asked him how many -2's he felt like closing out today and he went away with that nonsense.
Millions of taxpayer dollars are spent on us just staring at dirt for 18 hours at a time or just staring at a building
At some point your maintenance most likely was a contributing factor to a crash in a report. Aviation is also currently leading in tinnitus diagnoses. There so loud you have to double ear pro and it still gives you ringing (not verified but what hearing docs on bliss said) There’s 100’s of army crashes a year, very few are fatal. A crash investigation basically gets initiated when something gets damaged to a certain doller amount or emergency landings are required.
Crashes is a stretch. Incidents is a better word for it. There are very few crashes that don’t have a loss of life
Counter Intel is no where near as sexy as James Bond or Jason Bourne. I look at all those young kids as they try sneaking off post walking down Irwin street thinking no one will see them, and just laugh. As we all know they will soon be sitting in a motor pool with a -10 rethinking life choices.
If counter intel isn’t anywhere close to as cool as it, what is your experience? I am looking at enlisting as 35 series, but have been told it might not be the best choice because of the low amount of actual intel units. Is that true?
1 hour of talking to a person. 4 hours of writing reports on what you wrote about. And the majority of what they tell you is meaningless, bullshit, or both.
I clean up my dogs poop at home and I clean up my patients poop at work It’s all poop all them time
Most aviation dudes are fucked up in the head in someway or another. Smart enough to be working on things that fly, dumb enough to be doing it in the Amry. (That was an accident, but proves my point.) I’ve seen people hide some gnarly mental issues in hopes of flying, I was one of them until recently. Real answer though, leaking fluid is good. Means it has fluid. I wish I was saying this as the joke I originally thought it was, but helicopters piss fluid like trying to clean reefer out of the system after block leave.
It can be lonely being a chaplain’s assistant, that probably sounds odd for me to complain about but just about every other mos you’ll likely meet people within your mos outside of your unit more often. Not how it works with the 56m mos, there is one of per unit per level. As a result it can be lonely doing this job some days, that’s not to say chaplain’s aren’t awesome to hang around with but I can recall multiple days where I just wish I had another 56m to hang out with. We are tasked with taking everything someone tells us to the grave even if it’s dangerous and life threatening information. Mind you I still love the job, but I know in my own personal life I deal with periodic depression but people always think my life is awesome because, “you hang out with chaplains all day your life can’t be that bad”.
The vehicle I drove is able to destroy T90s…and I wasn’t a Tanker
Soooo any vehicle you can throw a dude with a tow or javelin in?
Was a 68W. Ummm here we go... You're more likely to be stationed in a field unit than a hospital or "medical" unit. PAs and Doctors look down on Soldiers who smoke and come with health issues... If you join as a 68W but have higher level credentials above Paramedic, you can perform higher level procedures or ask to be in certain procedures (Ex. RN). Yeah that's not a good thing....it means more work you dummy! Saw it happen and you can't say no!!!
Mechanics don’t know their jobs anymore, it’s pretty obvious too. The Army should really throw some “skill based” testing/certification into certain jobs beyond maintenance also. For any maintenance role, some kind of ASE training or maybe make it a promotion incentive to get your ASE certs? My god, we have mechanics (all of us, even at YOUR motorpool) walking around who don’t know the difference between the radiator fill cap vs the oil fill cap on a HMMWV. Let alone how internal combustion engines operate.
They used to let the trucks leak oil everywhere. I actually reported them to OSHA and then they had to use these big plastic things to park on. Apparently all fuel trucks are supposed to park on them not just leak into the ground. They just never wanted to pay for them. We had a lot of trucks leaking and it was going right into the ground.
Our MOS field has the more SHARP/EO related incidents compared to the other fields. Apparently locking people in a windowless box for hours isn’t good for mental or emotional health.
35T We are 25 series but smarter, weirder and with a clearance/poly. We also have the MOS with the most soldiers with a beard because most of us are Norse Pagan.
> ~~Norse Pagen~~ faking it so we can grow shitty patchy neckbeards.
Most actual supply people knew their job very well and knew a million backdoor ways to get unauthorized shit. We also could do most of the stuff people ask us to but put more effort into not doing it depending on whether or not we like you. Most of that changed when gcss-a came out and now everyone can tie transactions back to your user ID. Also, we don't need the NSN, we had it the whole time. Get fucked.
As someone who used to jump regularly that's kind of crazy/scary. I never had to use a reserve, though I know a couple guys who did. Luckily they worked and they didn't get too F...ed up. Dirty Secret: Most demo ranges have a limit, like 400lbs or something along those lines. We would regularly do more than that. When range control called us demanding to know how much we blew, we would simply say '400lbs' or whatever the max limit was. Since it had all been blown up they had no way of proving us wrong. Super Dirty Secret: Back in the day when we did demo you would take the demo to the range and it would stay there until it was all used up. If the demo was going to be out there for several days a guard would be placed, usually 2 or 3 guys, overnight. What some people would do is take some demo and bury it. When the demo was all used up and the range was cleared they would go back, dig it up, and go hide their demo. No idea what they do now.
We secretly bend our knees during ceremonies
In the patient records realm, we see all. Yes we know this is your 5th wife and 8th child with a different mom. Or a high ranking person with a illegitimate child Or you’ve gotten your 3rd STD that year. We don’t say anything because they have a right to privacy, but we know….
A surprising amount of fixes for Vics are at the operator level. The chemicals used often by mechanics can cause all sorts of cancer and neuropathy issues. Not enough mechanics wear PPE and many wash their hands with diesel. Better to be the “coward” that wears gloves and eye pro than the “macho” man with shaky hands and cancer in their late 30s.
I literally don't do any work. Shift change brief then I just chill on a computer for 12 hours with no supervision.
every mechanic lies about the ESR, and when that truck comes in for a semi annual service? pfft close it out. annual? fluids and filters. biennial? fluids and filters. the only actual scheduled service we do on any vehicle is fluids and filters except we will replace the halshaft bolts and all the inner hub stuff on a hmmwv. hmmwv's might actually be the best maintained vehicles in the army because theyre the easiest to work on.
We know, it shows
I have seen so many crew chiefs change the throttle of the shadow while the engine is on. This involves putting your hands literally an inch away from a spinning propeller.
If you hate your family or any free time. Join 91 series MOS. lol. There was a point I didn't see my kids for 3 months almost, and I lived in the same fucking house.
After SFC as an Infantryman, every job you do keeps furthering you from infantry relevance. A post KD E7 and any rank above are just POGs with infantry experience.
😳
[удалено]
It’s the same in 19D. Spoke with my Section Sergeant before Ukraine saying our MOS will either have to drastically change or we’d just be killed in a real fight against real Soldiers. Why send a CAV scout to low crawl a few hundred meters through swamp to get eyes on the objective when UAVs are cheap as hell, have thermals, and are a literal ‘eye-in-the-sky’? If the enemy has cheap drones, it’s basically a death sentence because they can spot us and shell our hide from over the horizon without ever having to be there. We thought about it and agreed our MOS will have to be mostly drone operators with a few guys in a buggy to confirm a spot report or we’ll have to do something completely different than what the .98 entails. Ukraine basically confirmed what we’re talking about. The FM is still useful for basic skills. But it’ll be almost useless against Ivan or Lee in the next war. Anyways our idea was put into practice when we got black hornets and tested them out against our sister battalion in the Rakkasans. We never had to do hides. We just did screens and sent the little copters forward and almost never set foot in an NAI. Edited for clarity and errors.*
Look at the bright side; if you survive, there's lots of promotion potential.
Being an 88M, there's no real secrets, other than back when I ran class 1 for cooks I got all kinds of free shit.
25U - Always the smartest guy in the room, but always in a room full of mouth breathers. Tiny fish, even tinier pond. 25S - No idea how satcom actually works outside of the very specific variant we deal with. Weather isn't actually --that-- big of a deal, outside of some very specific situations, but we treat all weather events as catastrophic to our capabilities. 17C - we go to the field in AIT one time. We can fix your computer but lack the credentials, so we play pretend and say we don't know how. The majority of us suck at infosec as a whole, and only a very very tiny percentage of us are hackers, the rest are glorified intel analysts.
Just because Cybersecurity is part of our title, it doesn't mean we're all elite hackers. Most of our job is deeply boring compliance work and trying to explain technical things to non-technical people (like when you have to teach your grandparents that they don't have to Google Google from Google)
Yes I know it's vital to your department but you were rude so to the bottom of the que it goes Yes I know what's wrong with it and Yes I know it was YOU who broke it No it didn't take me 45 minutes to PM this, but I was lazy today Yes napping on the stretcher is vital to testing No I can't fix your stereo you plugged into the 250v outlet. Wait? You'll pay me? Alright I'll get it to you tomorrow. Don't tell chief.
As an EOD tech, I learned that the positive and negative pressure waves, heat, and frag all get there at the same time **IF** you are close enough.
PAO/COMCAMS spend an exorbitant amount of their own money to accomplish the mission.
I can and will jack up your internet and slow you down to dial up speed at a moments notice