Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: senna on August 22, 2002, 02:41:48 PM
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Just out of curiosity whats military life like day to day. Most people know about the F-16s and all that weaponry and stuff but whats it like day to day?
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Boredom... drudgery... boredom... more drudgery... inpections... boredom... excitement... boredom... drudgery... rinse... repeat...
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You left out, pointless formations.
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LOL... oh yeah... there was that. The notion of the "enlisted ornament" was one of the reasons I eventually left the service.
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...few seconds of sheer terror... change of underware... more boredom...
Oh, yeah - Sandman has already mentioned "exitement". That was it.
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One term applies to all branches:
Hurry up and wait.
You have to bust bellybutton to get 200 pieces of equipment ready for deployment in 2 days only to wait 3 days for someone to actually come pick them up.
You have 15 minutes to get all of your gear together so you can wait in a room for 15 hours prior to getting on the plane.
AKDejaVu
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hurry up and wait
most of the time.
excitement crept in during the cold war on surveilance missions a few times but most of the time it was
hurry up and wait
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I always felt that being in the Navy was like being in prison with a good chance of drowning.
But, they did teach me many useful skills. I don't think I ever would have learned to use a buffer otherwise.
F.
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You forgot the cleaning aspects... from buffers to white glove inspections of M2 .50s. And what about the alcohol?
Charon
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yeah, and I can make a bed and iron my shirts with the best of them . lol
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Wait, how could you forget recalls after 10pm, grab your stuff, report, signin, inspect your bag, sit around for 3 hours playing cards and watching tv (simulate deployment) ride bus to flightline, get on plane, head count, get off plane and go home at 2am. Then go to work at 6am.
AirScrew
Mobility/ Medical Readiness NCO
366th Med Grp 1987-88
MHAFB 1984-94
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I was at Mt. Home from 86-90 MajTom. 366th EMS... in the weapons release shop.
AKDejaVu
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Depends on where you work, and what you do. I would not characterize my job as boring, drudgery, and countless inspections. Far from it. I work at a headquarters for the AF's Intelligence agency. We are also teh service cryptologic element for thje national intelligence community. I get to see and do some pretty neat stuff. I see and read things that the public will either never see, or will see at a much later time:)
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I served during the cold war as a flying crew chief on an RC135 in Alaska. missions were exciting as hell but the rest..
s n o r e
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Standing in Line.
Our 1st sergant wuz lookin pretty depressed on his DEROS day. I asked him why he wuz so down... he seemed to think nobody liked him much, so much so that it was rumored that if he got killed, everybody that knew him would come to the funeral just to piss on his grave.
'Not to worry, Top..' sez I.. '..ain't nobody in this outfit intrested in standing in another diddlyin line'.
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Lemme see...
Goin' to the head to take a cold shower (cuz' there ain't no hot water) and having pissy saltwater slosh and slop over the tops of your shower shoes...
1 month into a 6 month deployment, and having no more fresh milk, bread, or soda...
Bug Juice sans sugar (I once saw the cooks using a packet of bug juice to scrub the grills)...
Drinkin' water from scuttle mixed with JP5...
Tryin' to sleep in a 7' long, 2'foot high "rack" while someone buffs the floor and slams the lockers and bunks with a power buffer...
Waitin' in a loooooong line to eat "sliders" on hard as rock "homemade bread"...
Drinkin' coffee so black, strong, and thick, some use it for shoe polish and others as 'Never Dull'...
Listening to the same roadkill stories from your shipmates, over and over and over again...
And who can forget... The Phantom toejamter?
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Thank you :)
Originally posted by AKDejaVu
One term applies to all branches:
Hurry up and wait.
AKDejaVu
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I heard the military is for people who can't get jobs at McDonalds.
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That must be good news. Your job is safe.
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Milnko wuz a squid..!!
LOL.. hey, how'd you get those square hats down on yer pointy heads?
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Goin' to the head to take a cold shower
They told us squids wern't to bright :) All you had to do was fill a black container with water, and leave it out in the sun. We used inner tubes in the army. The water would get hot enough to scald you.
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Originally posted by Wlfgng
I served during the cold war as a flying crew chief on an RC135 in Alaska. missions were exciting as hell but the rest..
s n o r e
Wlfgng......... you were an IMT? 6th? What years?
I dodged the 6th but spent a few years in the 55th.
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Originally posted by AKDejaVu
I was at Mt. Home from 86-90 MajTom. 366th EMS... in the weapons release shop.
AKDejaVu
I work with a few guys that used to be stationed in Mt. Home.
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Originally posted by -ammo-
Depends on where you work, and what you do. I would not characterize my job as boring, drudgery, and countless inspections. Far from it. I work at a headquarters for the AF's Intelligence agency. We are also teh service cryptologic element for thje national intelligence community. I get to see and do some pretty neat stuff. I see and read things that the public will either never see, or will see at a much later time:)
Rear echelon is where the excitement is, obviously. :D
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Cheap booze, grass, and hookers. Extreame bordom 99% of the time, knowing you're gonna die any minute the other 1%.
Looking back now I don't regret any of it, but I'm sure I don't ever wanna do it again.
US ARMY 67-77
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Dont forget the warm beer in the rusty cans. To this day I cant wire brush the rust off of anything, without getting that taste in my mouth. uaaak!
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Originally posted by Sandman_SBM
Rear echelon is where the excitement is, obviously. :D
Well I have done both now;) and I must say that I am enjoying being a REMF moreso than I doing hands on flight line work in the field. Well, that isnt exactly true either. I have some great mem's of that work and my deployments that I wouldnt trade for the world. Each is good in its own right.
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I think the military is many things to many people. I spent 5 years as a helicopter crew chief and loved the toejam out of it, even the hairy flights that left you soaked in sweat and wore out. For the last 4 years I've been a counselor in military hospitals and most recently a military prison. Basically, I have the same 9-5 job a civilian counselor would have, except I get to wear cool clothes. Took the job so I could have time to finish my degree. Planning on going back to aviation within the next year. That's what I love about the military, if you know how to get what you want out of it, you will never be bored. Always something new and interesting out there if you go for it. Also get to move every few years and see new places. I actually got out of the Army for almost 4 years in the mid 90's and went back in. Guess I'm a glutton for punishment :)
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I was at Eilson crewing RC VC models during uh.. let's see. (damn, has it been that long ?)
1978-80. Obviously SAC but damned if I can remember the unit right now. Spent some months in Shimya from time to time on deployment.
It was awesome in some respects... sucky in others. I'm sure you know what I mean if you've been there!
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Yeah, been to Eielson a lot... '75-80.. but I was based at Offutt.
If you were an IMT you were probably 6th Strat Wing.
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Offut.. man I remember an MSET team we had to drop off there... 35knot crosswinds, normally we'd pass on that but they insisted.
looking back down the fuselage during landing I could see the twist all the way down.. runway going back and forth from one side window to the other..
then sitting on the runway refueling and the plane was moving around, flexing the tires, from the wind.
did I say wind? I mean WIND !!!
lol
and yep, it was the 6th. we may have even run into each other. seems like all of the guys that flew did sooner or later.
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Trying to cook powdered eggs with powdered milk in a steel helmet. Just drop a black iodine pill into the canteen full of brown water you just watched a water buffalo piss in. And mix it up. Not to mention the 786 bucks a year. Ya! man thats the good life.
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Originally posted by easymo
Not to mention the 786 bucks a year. Ya! man thats the good life.
Hehe......when the hell were you in?:)
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I was looking for some papers a wile back. Ran into my W-2 form from 1968. They took out 81 dollers in taxes. I got extra for my hazerdous duty pay. Fat city.
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Hehe, alot of great stuff in this thread. Im glad I asked the question (figured alot of former military people here).
:D
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Originally posted by easymo
I was looking for some papers a wile back. Ran into my W-2 form from 1968. They took out 81 dollers in taxes. I got extra for my hazerdous duty pay. Fat city.
.....ouch:(
I think I was making about 1300 a month when I got out.
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those used to seem like high numbers
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I can only offer my own observations, which may or may not be similar to other expressed here.
To start with, I was raised to join. There was no doubt in my mind growing up. I was pretty well prepared when I got there, which is more than I can say for a lot of my fellow squids.
Actual on the job routine was similar to what I'm doing today. That is, I get up, I take a shower I go to work. Yes, we had occasional formation (and yes I squeaked about them) and yes we had to sit through at least one GMT (General Military Training, or Gross Missuse of Time , you make the call) but at the end of the day it wasn't that bad. I worked 12 hour toejamfs and had 3 days on, then three days off. As I Russian Linguist my job was boring boring boring borgin boring holyshitwhatthehellwasthat boring boring boring.
When I look back now, I'm amazed at how much we drank, but frankly it wasn't all that much more than dedicated college kids drink. I believe "Party like Rock Stars" was the catch phrase. I've puked in several countries, got rolled in Hong Kong, beat senseless in Hirosaki, and had to spend 300 bucks to catch the bullet train from Tokyo to avoid being U/A (AWOL) once. Am I proud of this? it was just stuff we did. We didn't have to drink so much, in fact there were pleanty of folks who didn't. But hey, we were sailors, we had a rep to protect.
Going to sea was alltogether different. 12 hours on 12 hours off. Not day off unless we hit a port. Then everyone shuffles off the boat, 95% get drunk, 80% get laid, 100% blow a huge chunck of money. You find comfort in the routine, I guess you don't have a choice. Our Ships library (on the USS Bunker Hill) had pleanty of books to keep you going for a short trip. I read Joe Foss's autobio, as well as Boyingtons (3rd time) and one called "Salvation for a doomed Zoomie" which was a pretty cool story about an F6F pilot who got shot down and served aboard the rescue sub that picked him up. He was Air and Sub Qualed at the end of his trip.
But through it all, the formations and the GMT, the shift work and the toejam work. The fair winds and fowl, you had your shipmates. If you went through a tour in the armed forces and didn't make any friends for life, I honestly pity you. People can troll about jobs and McDonalds and all, but there are some Amazing and Loyal people serving in our Armed Forces, and perhaps that is the most lasting a memorable part of my service, and the part that continues to this day, despite my having been out for Five years.
-Sikboy
PS: Oooops really started ramblintg there.
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It's all about getting out of it what you put in. I served in the US Air Force for 20 years 11 days. During that time, I got paid to go to school for almost 1/3rd of my active duty time, earned three degrees, and made contacts that allowed me to grab a great, well paying job with a defense contractor when I retired. Between the job and retirement pay, we're doing pretty well. All of the positions I've held have had their share of BS and were occationally slow paced. However, every one was challenging and I regret none of it. I was proud to serve, and glad I've had the chance to continue many of the friendships I made while on active duty.
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don';t get me wrong, I regert none if it myself. I learned and experienced more than I probably would have in a short period of time and made great life-long friends.
But I wouldn't do it over again after having done it once.
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Definately all the above.
I hated the excersises with a passion (who wants to don their MOP gear in 100 degree weather and 95% humidity?!)
I loved tying down the F16s and running them up to full augmentor at 11:55pm (base policy was to stop running engines at midnight - so if we had to be awake then so too did the brass was our thinking)
I made some good friends which have lasted ever since (been out of the USAF since '91)
I was in the 308th EMS Maintenance Section at Homestead AFB down in Miami FL before hurricane Andrew relocated it to the Everglades :D
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Day to day, the Military (well, USAF) depends entirely upon what field you're in and where your stationed. I consider my current job only slightly differen't than most civilian jobs except for the DCU's.
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My Brother-in-Law always claimed to have the best job in the Airforce.
He was an Academy grad, and played basketball for the Falcons. Later in his career (about 15 yrs in) the head coach of the AFA team asked the AF for my Bro-in-law to be his assistant. They created a job description for him and he retired as the Asst. b-ball coach at the Blue Zoo.
Didn't do him any good in the promotion department, but he didn't really care. Living on Academy grounds and having the same duty station for 10 yrs is a good gig.
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Originally posted by Awulf
Definately all the above.
I hated the excersises with a passion (who wants to don their MOP gear in 100 degree weather and 95% humidity?!)
I loved tying down the F16s and running them up to full augmentor at 11:55pm (base policy was to stop running engines at midnight - so if we had to be awake then so too did the brass was our thinking)
I made some good friends which have lasted ever since (been out of the USAF since '91)
I was in the 308th EMS Maintenance Section at Homestead AFB down in Miami FL before hurricane Andrew relocated it to the Everglades :D
Hey I was in the 308th EMS! My first assignment was to the now defunkt 308th CMU, which then changed to the 308th EMS. 88-89
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dang does every navy ship have a Phantom toejamter? i hated that toejam literaly .