Any veterans/people with military experience out there?

[braves40]

Quote: Originally Posted by dickey1331

When I was in boot camp we did flutter kicks. Not sure if they still do them. Do you really care where I sent this from?

We did flutter kicks in the AF boot camp in `06. And we still do them for squadron pt.

[Buckeyes_Doc]

Quote: Originally Posted by dickey1331

When I was in boot camp we did flutter kicks. Not sure if they still do them. Do you really care where I sent this from?

We did flutter kicks up until about a year ago. I was told last September we couldn't do them anymore. Not sure if it was just our command, or a Navy thing. But I've not done flutter kicks in a group PT session since.

[Buckeyes_Doc]

Quote: Originally Posted by Crimsontide27

I really feel the need to reply to this. Its not that everyone is posting negative experiences...its that they are posting "their" unique experiences. Everyone has and will have different experiences in the military. Like a poster mentioned earlier, you can sign up on the same day, go to the same basic, have the same rank, have the same mos, and can even go to the same duty station and have a night and day difference in experiences based off your chain of command. People go to the recruiting station and hear all kinds of BS about what the military is like and find out very quickly after signing the dotted line 1 million times and reciting the creed that you swear to affirm and uphold the President and your commanders etc...that you were mislead. I know people that joined just to blow stuff up. Joined the Infantry, played with a few toys in basic and thats the last time you ever see them. I was combat infantry for 3 years and outside of basic...I never saw a claymore, I never saw a live AT4 , our 203 rounds were actually those chalk rounds that kick up blue dust, the AT4s fired the green tracers...oh...and for live fire on the M2A3 Bradleys, we fired the TOW missles that didnt even work. My dream...was to be a pilot. Recruiter said there was no way into flight school without going enlisted and applying for Warrent officer and becoming a pilot that route. He suggested I join the infantry since there was a lot of down time and I would be able to attend college classes and work on my flight packet. What he didnt tell me was that I would be going to NTC where I was on rotation 10 months of the year and I would have a chain of command that did not send ANY soliders to classes even though they were offered outside of our rotation schedule. So now Im in the middle of the desert, working on tanks that are not relevant outside of NTC ( M551 sheridans ) and have already been told that I would not have any opportunity to fill out a flight packet for WOCS. Discouraged, I still did my best and applied for all of the Army correspondance courses at the time ( AIPD ) so that I could at least start earning promotion points since education is pretty much the only form of points that were within your control. PT / Weapons qual was automatic points if you were sent to the board, and if you passed you automatically got the 100 from the commander. Finished about 200 hours worth of correspondance classes, was in the top 25% or so of the unit with PT, had no counseling statements outside of normal monthly counseling, was the platoon sergeant driver and drove the battalion commanders tank into battle on rotations. I was not a bad solider. Realizing that I would not get into flight school from the infantry side, I decided to re-enlist and go into aviation ( 67T Blackhawk Crewchief ). Went to Ft Eustis and was the honor graduate of my class. Deployed immediatly to Korea were my dream was back on track to fly. Got to Korea and had an inprocessing breif with the 1SG and he asked what I wanted. Mentioned I wanted to go to flight school and he just laughed. Told me that I was just trying to get out of a hardship tour and that flight school would be put on hold until I redeployed back to CONUS. One month prior to PCSing back to the states, the 2nd Infantry Division was put on notice that we were to deploy to Iraq. Never minding that we were in a non deployable unit on the DMZ in Korea....never minding that this would put us on back to back hardships....off we went. Memorandum from the Army came down and basically said that the Army was hurting so bad for pilots that you no longer even needed to go to a Warrant Officer Board to go to flight school...you just had to complete your packet and if you had all the qualifications, you were automatically accepted into flight school. So with packet in hand, I approached my commander with the memo he just put up on the Quansa hut, completed flight packet....AFAST test, Top Secret security clearance, both part 1 and 2 flight physicals completed, numerous recommendations from pilots in my unit etc... ...and the commander just laughed in my face...said I was just trying to get out of the war now...and worry about flight school when we got home from Iraq. 16 months later and we are still in Iraq and lo and behold...here comes red cycle alert for us and that we probably would not be redeploying from Iraq to Ft Lewis as planned, but that we would be getting a 30 day RnR and deploy straight to Afghan. This would put our various units at over 3 years of hardship tours with no break. I then asked our new commander about flight school before we deployed to Afghan and was struck down yet again due to trying to " get out of the war". During all of this time we had multiple changes of command, but everyone of them was pure garbage. The army was not about " be all you can be", it was about "be all the guy above you is willing to let you be". I can make over 200 posts, both good and bad about my experiences. However I feel that I wish I had known what the military was really like, as opposed to being filled with dreams and opportunities that I never could control. The military to me was sold on opportunities that I could be whatever I choose to be, given the fact that I would work hard and achieve it. This however was not the case and is not the case in many others careers as well. If you have a pathetic chain of command, your time in service will be miserable. If you have a great chain of command, then the sky is the limit. Its a crapshoot. There are many more terrible commands out there versus the very few that work for the soldier. This is what I didnt know going in.

Wow....it was tough reading this. I can't believe your CoC would laugh at you. Thankfully for the most part I've always had a good CoC. I've had Chiefs and LPO's that looked out for me. My last command gave me a end of tour award, and I've always received Early Promote evaluations. I got in a little bit of trouble a couple of years ago and my CoC completely looked out for me and took care of the incident at the lowest level.

[N51_rob]

Quote: Originally Posted by Crimsontide27

I really feel the need to reply to this. Its not that everyone is posting negative experiences...its that they are posting "their" unique experiences. Everyone has and will have different experiences in the military. Like a poster mentioned earlier, you can sign up on the same day, go to the same basic, have the same rank, have the same mos, and can even go to the same duty station and have a night and day difference in experiences based off your chain of command. People go to the recruiting station and hear all kinds of BS about what the military is like and find out very quickly after signing the dotted line 1 million times and reciting the creed that you swear to affirm and uphold the President and your commanders etc...that you were mislead. I know people that joined just to blow stuff up. Joined the Infantry, played with a few toys in basic and thats the last time you ever see them. I was combat infantry for 3 years and outside of basic...I never saw a claymore, I never saw a live AT4 , our 203 rounds were actually those chalk rounds that kick up blue dust, the AT4s fired the green tracers...oh...and for live fire on the M2A3 Bradleys, we fired the TOW missles that didnt even work. My dream...was to be a pilot. Recruiter said there was no way into flight school without going enlisted and applying for Warrent officer and becoming a pilot that route. He suggested I join the infantry since there was a lot of down time and I would be able to attend college classes and work on my flight packet. What he didnt tell me was that I would be going to NTC where I was on rotation 10 months of the year and I would have a chain of command that did not send ANY soliders to classes even though they were offered outside of our rotation schedule. So now Im in the middle of the desert, working on tanks that are not relevant outside of NTC ( M551 sheridans ) and have already been told that I would not have any opportunity to fill out a flight packet for WOCS. Discouraged, I still did my best and applied for all of the Army correspondance courses at the time ( AIPD ) so that I could at least start earning promotion points since education is pretty much the only form of points that were within your control. PT / Weapons qual was automatic points if you were sent to the board, and if you passed you automatically got the 100 from the commander. Finished about 200 hours worth of correspondance classes, was in the top 25% or so of the unit with PT, had no counseling statements outside of normal monthly counseling, was the platoon sergeant driver and drove the battalion commanders tank into battle on rotations. I was not a bad solider. Realizing that I would not get into flight school from the infantry side, I decided to re-enlist and go into aviation ( 67T Blackhawk Crewchief ). Went to Ft Eustis and was the honor graduate of my class. Deployed immediatly to Korea were my dream was back on track to fly. Got to Korea and had an inprocessing breif with the 1SG and he asked what I wanted. Mentioned I wanted to go to flight school and he just laughed. Told me that I was just trying to get out of a hardship tour and that flight school would be put on hold until I redeployed back to CONUS. One month prior to PCSing back to the states, the 2nd Infantry Division was put on notice that we were to deploy to Iraq. Never minding that we were in a non deployable unit on the DMZ in Korea....never minding that this would put us on back to back hardships....off we went. Memorandum from the Army came down and basically said that the Army was hurting so bad for pilots that you no longer even needed to go to a Warrant Officer Board to go to flight school...you just had to complete your packet and if you had all the qualifications, you were automatically accepted into flight school. So with packet in hand, I approached my commander with the memo he just put up on the Quansa hut, completed flight packet....AFAST test, Top Secret security clearance, both part 1 and 2 flight physicals completed, numerous recommendations from pilots in my unit etc... ...and the commander just laughed in my face...said I was just trying to get out of the war now...and worry about flight school when we got home from Iraq. 16 months later and we are still in Iraq and lo and behold...here comes red cycle alert for us and that we probably would not be redeploying from Iraq to Ft Lewis as planned, but that we would be getting a 30 day RnR and deploy straight to Afghan. This would put our various units at over 3 years of hardship tours with no break. I then asked our new commander about flight school before we deployed to Afghan and was struck down yet again due to trying to " get out of the war". During all of this time we had multiple changes of command, but everyone of them was pure garbage. The army was not about " be all you can be", it was about "be all the guy above you is willing to let you be". I can make over 200 posts, both good and bad about my experiences. However I feel that I wish I had known what the military was really like, as opposed to being filled with dreams and opportunities that I never could control. The military to me was sold on opportunities that I could be whatever I choose to be, given the fact that I would work hard and achieve it. This however was not the case and is not the case in many others careers as well. If you have a pathetic chain of command, your time in service will be miserable. If you have a great chain of command, then the sky is the limit. Its a crapshoot. There are many more terrible commands out there versus the very few that work for the soldier. This is what I didnt know going in.

If this story is true. I have no reason to doubt it. Contact the IG. CoC laughing at you as your pursue career enhancement. Holding you back? The LPO in me is telling me that you need to go over their heads. Contact the IG.

Sent from RedskinNation.

[Crimsontide27]

When I was a lower enlisted soldier ( E1-E4 ) , I would have had no problem going to the IG. However, when I became and NCO all of that changed. You can have multiple issues as an E1-E4 and it only remains in the company file..it doesnt follow you. The last thing I wanted to do as a career NCO was go to IG, alienate my chain of command, and end up getting a bad NCOER.

As those that are in service and are a NCO can tell you, just one bad NCOER can halt your career path. I planned on making the military my career, so I did everything in my power to do the right thing.

I encouraged my soliders to go to IG when they thought it necessary, but it really never accomplished anything. Solider would go to IG and the first thing that would happen is they would send a representitive to the unit within a few days to talk to the chain of command about it. Even watched a soldier get a field grade article 15 for drinking while on rotation, yet there was no proof he was drinking. Lost 3 years of rank and pay for nothing. IG was involved, but at the end of the day, its still up to your local chain of command. Matter of fact, in almost 7 years of service, I never saw IG accomplish one thing. I heard about a lot of people going, but never heard about any resolutions.

[Weeks]

Did you military guys have to tread water? If so, what was the longest time.

I can do everything, except for tread water lol

Edit: and I wasn't in the military just so you know

[dickey1331]

Quote: Originally Posted by Weeks

Did you military guys have to tread water? If so, what was the longest time. I can do everything, except for tread water lol Edit: and I wasn't in the military just so you know

For boot swim 100 yds without stopping and then tread water for 5 min without your head going under.

I remember that we had to chug water in boot camp. That sucked.

Do you really care where I sent this from?

[TMagic]

Thanks for all the input fellas. Its really appreciated and helpful.

Seems like its a pretty mixed bag. Some like it and others not so much. Talking to some people I know the other day, they said the friends they know that are in the military enjoy it. Then on here, theirs more negative feedback than positive.

Somebody brought up a good point earlier. For most people, they are going to complain about the ANY job they have. Its not often that you come across someone that loves his or her job. Someone that looks forward to going into work everyday. So it should come as no surprise that people are going to have bad things to say.

Does anybody have any experience as an officer? Does the experience of an officer vary that much from going in enlisted? I'm not really even sure I know exactly what it is that an officer does compared to enlisted either.