Experience of service in the Armed Forces

[Who?]

Terpin Hydrate was the cough remedy of choice in 1957 at Ft. Dix. I don’t know about anywhere else.

I slept a lot while I was in the URI ward.

 

[Edward]

The further I get from my time in the military, the more I romanticize it.

A wise observation. It's something fundamental to the human character, I think, which happens in almost any field too, with varying levels of potential danger. I see it in my own business, working in the university, where we are subjected to crazy management ideas from top level management trying to impose their own ideas based on the last time they were in a classroom twenty plus years ago across the full gamut of very different disciplines. At its worst when they glom on to a trendy new classroom approach that wasn't done in their day, such as the "flipped classroom", and then push it hard even as all the evidence shows it to rarely work in practice, and even when it does, to produce no better results than a traditional approach. Marry that to a culture which often seems to value innovation over effectiveness.... Course, I also have to remember to learn the same lesson myself. All very well me giving off about how much easier my students have it today than we did in the early mid-nineties, having, thirty odd years on, forgotten an awful lot of the hardships they still face today, as well as new ones that didn't happen in my era...

Another one: „Non-Swimmers Are Better Seamen, They Defend Their Ships Most Purposeful.“

That lines of thought was actually applied by the British in the early days of the RFC / RAF. Parachutes were not issued to pilots in WW1 as top brass feared it would encourage "cowardice", bailing out at the first sign of damage to the plane, rather than trying to land when holed to the point of being unable to fly back to base. Before the planes were equipped with guns (originally their purpose being reconnaissance rather than combat), pilots were issued with a pistol for the purposes of self-euthanasia if their kite went on fire and landing safely was a certain impossibility.

 

[Turnip]

Most fishermen couldn´t swim here too at a time, when an organized sea rescue service did not yet exist at our coasts.
It´s been reputed they preferred a quick end once they went overvoard, rather than swimming hopelessly around and drowning nevertheless after some torturing time.

 

[Trenchfriend]

But please tell me something.
I would BET, there were individual "super funny" guys, the kind we all know, here and there, back in these old days, freak enough to try this and were penalized or even his whole platoon.
I don't know, at the Bundeswehr, he would maybe have been forced to sing along until he's [Expletive deleted: please remember we try to keep the language 'family friendly' in these parts, folks] up.

 

[Turnip]

No, sir, plural. All members of that unit had to sing until…even worse for the officer candidates…
When, after a hard night, one of us enlisted got caught doing a quick puke into a hedge during morning line up we trained that until the last was emptied out and ready for breakfast…

Later on board rules have been less restrictive, at least in that respect.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

I was offered a Special Air Service selection try shortly after learning my admittance to
the London School of Economics. Elated to be leaving the Army but I felt like a horse's arse
explaining all over the regimental silver at a formal full dress uniform dinner engagement.

 

[Observe]

I was offered a Special Air Service selection try shortly after learning my admittance to
the London School of Economics. Elated to be leaving the Army but I felt like a horse's arse
explaining all over the regimental silver at a formal full dress uniform dinner engagement.

SAS? That's pretty interesting. Did you consider it at all? What would the first steps be in a selection try?

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

SAS? That's pretty interesting. Did you consider it at all? What would the first steps be in a selection try?

I had attained lieutenancy in the Parachute Regiment, closing contractual obligation so volunteering
SAS would have involved extending and the washout rate is extraordinarily high. Attrition is near 90%.
The applicant undergoes some physical qualifications with his home regiment, then off to Hereford for
a basic beat down cycle before the mountain course phase at Brecon Beacon Wales. Pass that and I
believe Malaysia jungle run through. That constitutes the first two steps before return to Hereford.
I wanted to leave all this for girls, London, LSE, and more girls.

 

[Ticklishchap]

I was offered a Special Air Service selection try shortly after learning my admittance to
the London School of Economics. Elated to be leaving the Army but I felt like a horse's arse
explaining all over the regimental silver at a formal full dress uniform dinner engagement.

Fellow LSE Alumnus: I did my MSc(Econ.) there some years ago.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

I have stopped out my emotions over leaving and with the Fed exporting global inflation
and all home grown boiled over tosh. And all BoE whipping boys. I needed this holiday leave.

 

[Observe]

I had attained lieutenancy in the Parachute Regiment, closing contractual obligation so volunteering
SAS would have involved extending and the washout rate is extraordinarily high. Attrition is near 90%.
The applicant undergoes some physical qualifications with his home regiment, then off to Hereford for
a basic beat down cycle before the mountain course phase at Brecon Beacon Wales. Pass that and I
believe Malaysia jungle run through. That constitutes the first two steps before return to Hereford.
I wanted to leave all this for girls, London, LSE, and more girls.

Thanks for sharing your story.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

My pleasure sir.

 

[Trenchfriend]

One question about Aliens's Colonial Marines:

Is there any sense in, that the Marines don't have an ATV like APC?

 

[Trenchfriend]

Did the US Marine Corps and the US Navy never try to deploy the exoskeleton power loaders used by the Colonial Marines in Aliens??

 

[AbbaDatDeHat]

Did the US Marine Corps and the US Navy never try to deploy the exoskeleton power loaders used by the Colonial Marines in Aliens??

I believe Aliens would fall under the purview of the US Air Force and their newly formed Space Force.
I’m sure they picked up where Dale Brown’s General Patrick McLanahan and his CIDs left off.
Or at least i would hope they did.
B

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

I believe Aliens would fall under the purview of the US Air Force and their newly formed Space Force...
B

I saw a news report about U.S. Space Force with an exraordinarily beautiful blonde babe three star general.
A real honeybabe. If I were an American teenage male that is where I would enlist. Here in the UK armed forces
recruitment is down considerably. Individual regiments recruit from home districts according tradition.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Anyone from the US Navy here?

Can a submarine really be "driven by sensors" as I understand as a semi-autopilot??

 

[Trenchfriend]

Was the "show me your warface" from Full Metal Jacket a real thing?

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Was the "show me your warface" from Full Metal Jacket a real thing?

Hollywood often gets it wrong but quote memorare training scenes can be spot on.
The Alan Ladd film about my regiment, The Red Beret has worn well and a Bridge Too Far is quite good.

 

[Trenchfriend]

R. Lee Ermey again.

How realitstic? Better than Full Metal Jacket?