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Agent Escalus posted:After my talk with the (retired) Colonel, I went out to the nearest recruitment center (New Westminster.) Straight from the recruiter's mouth: there are no positions available in any area of the CF, and they're also 800 people OVER their recruitment level with next to no one leaving, totally opposite from the usual trend. Wow that's just what I needed to know. I was going to go to the same recruiter in New West as well, that just cut some potential aggro from my life. I keep hearing all this crap about arctic sovereignty from the Fed propaganda machine, yet they have too many people in the CF and are turning droves of people away?
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Oct 5, 2010 23:02
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It's all about budget, pal. They could take on more recruits if they had the money to pay, feed, and supply us, and they don't. Hence the "hope for good things in March" bit the recruiter told me; maybe Harper and Parliament will push more dough through for Ice Defence! (Also, if you're in the area, join up with us sometime! We actually do things these days!)
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Oct 5, 2010 23:35
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Agent Escalus posted:It's all about budget, pal. They could take on more recruits if they had the money to pay, feed, and supply us, and they don't. Hence the "hope for good things in March" bit the recruiter told me; maybe Harper and Parliament will push more dough through for Ice Defence! It's mostly the training system. It is absolutely not a high volume system, particularly once you get past basic training. When I got in eight years ago, there was a big push and they put tons and tons of people through recruit school, as they ran courses in Victoria, CFB Borden, St. Jean and Halifax simultaneously. All that meant was thousands (probably) of recruits sitting around on PAT for up to two years. That in turn meant a lot of, bored, disillusioned and angry people. I was lucky, I only waited 6 months for my trade course.
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Oct 6, 2010 00:25
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compressioncut posted:It's mostly the training system. It is absolutely not a high volume system, particularly once you get past basic training. When I got in eight years ago, there was a big push and they put tons and tons of people through recruit school, as they ran courses in Victoria, CFB Borden, St. Jean and Halifax simultaneously. All that meant was thousands (probably) of recruits sitting around on PAT for up to two years. That in turn meant a lot of, bored, disillusioned and angry people. I was lucky, I only waited 6 months for my trade course. Whereas poor bastards like myself waited a year and a half, and then another year for a retrade when I got hosed by the CADPAT machine.
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Oct 7, 2010 13:48
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Agent Escalus posted:It's all about budget, pal. They could take on more recruits if they had the money to pay, feed, and supply us, and they don't. Hence the "hope for good things in March" bit the recruiter told me; maybe Harper and Parliament will push more dough through for Ice Defence! That's with fingers crossed the Cons stay in power. If Iggy and lefties get in I would hate to see what they hack and slash away from the CF.
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Oct 7, 2010 14:30
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Il_Duce posted:That's with fingers crossed the Cons stay in power. I hope the Liberals get in and slash the arty budget like crazy. That way there are no more retarded field ex's. Just sayin'. Sometimes less money is good.
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Oct 7, 2010 23:30
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They will keep the field ex's, they will just take away ammo.
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Oct 8, 2010 00:12
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Fraser CDN posted:They will keep the field ex's, they will just take away ammo. Nah it costs way too much to feed people and dry ex's are uncommon in my unit. They'd rather spend the money on the bullets than the field. That being said we're doing workup for Afghanistan soon, even though we wont be going, AWESOME
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Oct 8, 2010 00:31
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My Spirit Otter posted:Nah it costs way too much to feed people and dry ex's are uncommon in my unit. They'd rather spend the money on the bullets than the field. That being said we're doing workup for Afghanistan soon, even though we wont be going, AWESOME gently caress dry exs gently caress them hard. There's nothing worse than firing blanks through the guns, it fowls them something nasty and they're not really supposed to be used except for ceremony.
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Oct 8, 2010 00:53
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MA-Horus posted:gently caress dry exs gently caress them hard. There's nothing worse than firing blanks through the guns, it fowls them something nasty and they're not really supposed to be used except for ceremony. I agree with the gently caress dry ex's, but dry ex's are absolutely no ammo. Just deploying the howitzer then packing up and repeat. We got the M777s today and yesterday. Everyone was all excited taking pictures and all I could think was "gently caress these are going to suck to clean"
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Oct 8, 2010 01:16
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I'm finshing up my basic training, just got back from the final exercise and getting my G tomorrow. Happy to have this poo poo over and done with, and super happy i wasn't a gently caress up on this course. 0 admin actions or cousellings suckas.
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Oct 8, 2010 02:39
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My Spirit Otter posted:I agree with the gently caress dry ex's, but dry ex's are absolutely no ammo. Just deploying the howitzer then packing up and repeat. We got the M777s today and yesterday. Everyone was all excited taking pictures and all I could think was "gently caress these are going to suck to clean" gently caress youuuu and your gucci kit. I would so much prefer a dry ex over "Oh it's technically dry no blanks for rifles or MGs but we've got a stack of 105 blank let's use that yes troops it will add REALISM even though it won't recoil or anything get it done gunners" Cue me grabbing a ML and heading to meaford proper to steal as much toilet paper as I can steal.
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Oct 8, 2010 04:48
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Samu posted:I'm finshing up my basic training, just got back from the final exercise and getting my G tomorrow. Happy to have this poo poo over and done with, and super happy i wasn't a gently caress up on this course. 0 admin actions or cousellings suckas. Why are you still awake? So how was sleep dep? Anyone hallucinate and see hosed up poo poo?
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Oct 8, 2010 11:35
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Fraser CDN posted:Why are you still awake? Sleep dep sucked. We were supposed to get a couple hours a night but our MCPL is a balls out insane van doo thought was a better idea to loving run.us into the ground since one retard in my section mouthed off to the loving div OC. We had to get in full CBRN dress state and carry aroud some pump on stretcher for hours. 23 laps of the fob. Our sister platoon got 4 hours a night since they're hollywood as gently caress. Sleep dep week was cool though. I got to be IC for fob security during a massive stand to. Also the missions you go on and the scenario itself is pretty cool and very well done. It kinda feels like you're actually on a mission.
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Oct 9, 2010 17:44
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Samu posted:Sleep dep sucked. We were supposed to get a couple hours a night but our MCPL is a balls out insane van doo thought was a better idea to loving run.us into the ground since one retard in my section mouthed off to the loving div OC. We had to get in full CBRN dress state and carry aroud some pump on stretcher for hours. 23 laps of the fob. Our sister platoon got 4 hours a night since they're hollywood as gently caress. Sleep dep was the best part of basic. Did you get to do the refugee scenario, that one was hosed up. I think they stopped this, but we got to attack our sister platoons base with arty sims, thunder flashes, then 20 mins later came back with smoke nades (signifying a chemical attack) it was funny watching them scramble around. Our Mcpl got in poo poo for letting us do it.
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Oct 9, 2010 19:06
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It definetly was the highlight of my basic. We didn't attack our sister platoons fob, but when we were all sleeping in the hoochies in week 11, the farnham region had a record rainfall for October. What we did was one section did a recce of their set up, 2 and 4 took up firing positions and my section crawled through the undefended part of their line and cut down a good 15 hoochies before getting chased off. Is there a lot more training for combat arms guys that employ actors/other CF personnel as enemy force? I really didn't expect this kind of training and I hope it's not the last I see of it. I'm a combat engineer if that helps. I totally dummied a fleeing prisoner and it turns out he's a master jack who works at Farnham. Awesome. Samu fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Oct 9, 2010 |
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Oct 9, 2010 19:58
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Samu posted:0 admin actions or cousellings suckas. So congrats for not being a total loving retard?
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Oct 10, 2010 08:05
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Christ it sounds a lot more in-depth then it used to be. My sleep dep was "Dig a hole, live in hole, don't sleep in hole (or anywhere else), run out of hole 5 days later".
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Oct 10, 2010 10:26
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Samu posted:
If you have any questions about your 3's and onward, let me know. My brother is a Combat Engineer currently stationed in a Heavy Equipment Op billet in Shilo. (Yes, he hates it there)
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Oct 10, 2010 11:24
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Ruse posted:If you have any questions about your 3's and onward, let me know. My brother is a Combat Engineer currently stationed in a Heavy Equipment Op billet in Shilo. (Yes, he hates it there) I have never met a person that didn't hate Shilo. It's such a hell-hole.
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Oct 10, 2010 14:44
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MA-Horus posted:Christ it sounds a lot more in-depth then it used to be. My sleep dep was "Dig a hole, live in hole, don't sleep in hole (or anywhere else), run out of hole 5 days later". Yea sleep dep is so much fun. You get to do scenarios like road blocks, patrols where you get ambushed, rescue a downed pilot, look for weapons cache's, refugee camps gets raided and you have to go into clear it out. You live in the FOB and the FOB will get attacked daily and have people come up grenades saying they found them and they want money. People wanting food, medical attention, offering sexual favors in return for weapons. They also have people try and sneak in, or tear down the razor wire. At the end of the week there is a huge fire fight and you have to extract from the area and get back to Farnham. Along the way they ambush you and set IED's.
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Oct 10, 2010 19:44
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MA-Horus posted:I have never met a person that didn't hate Shilo. It's such a hell-hole. I knew one guy who liked Shilo, but it's because they let him drive the bulldozer in the winter. Fraser CDN posted:Yea sleep dep is so much fun. You get to do scenarios like road blocks, patrols where you get ambushed, rescue a downed pilot, look for weapons cache's, refugee camps gets raided and you have to go into clear it out. You live in the FOB and the FOB will get attacked daily and have people come up grenades saying they found them and they want money. People wanting food, medical attention, offering sexual favors in return for weapons. They also have people try and sneak in, or tear down the razor wire. At the end of the week there is a huge fire fight and you have to extract from the area and get back to Farnham. Along the way they ambush you and set IED's. Holy poo poo that sounds awesome. I'd sign up to do that right now. That sounds like a really awesome sampling of what you'll actually see on deployment. My basic blew, by comparison.
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Oct 10, 2010 20:05
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Yeah what he said, except we didn't get hit by IEDs or anything like that on the way back. I was on gate duty on the FOB a a big F350 rolled up to the front gate, stopped, and 3 dudes with CO2 weapons stepped out. The "enemy commander" was standing there eating a muffin and talking to our platoon commander, a PO1 who is just an awesome dude. Their exchange went a bit like: Bad guy: "We have you surrounded, you're outnumbered and outgunned. You can't win and we are going to kill every last one of your if you don't leave now. This is our land and we will kill you to take it back." *5 second pause* PO1: "That looks like a tasty muffin." *extended pause* Bad guy: "It is, are you going to leave." PO1: "Not unless we are relieved by other UN forces." *"enemy commander" leaves* It was loving hilarious. After they left we went on high alert and 45 minutes later like 5 trucks assaulted the FOB and we got hit on all sides through the forest. The guys in the trucks where CF personnel from Farnham dressed in dessert camo firing on us with real C7s and C9s. But yeah the training was awesome. We did road blocks, recce missions, we got ambushed during a presence patrol and one mission where we had to take back a refugee camp. People would try to get in at night and ask us for food. One mission we had to set up defenses around medical supplies and enemy forces tried to taunt us into escalating the engagement. There was also a couple first aid missions and one where we found a downed pilot and had to extract her under enemy fire. YOu do 3 or 4 missions a day including a 6 hour FOB security detail. People try to sneak into camp, and our instructors dressed up as enemy in the CP then went around "killing" people. They threw a thunderflash into our barracks while we slept. Good times.
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Oct 10, 2010 20:22
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So, from reading about things like dudes waiting a long while after bmq for their trade courses, I have to ask what do you do in that interim? Just sit on a base somewhere doing drills? What is the day-to-day life of a soldier in the CF anyway? How often do you get to flex your trade, that kind of thing?
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Oct 10, 2010 20:35
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Well I don't know for sure, but after I graduate Thursday I'm probably going to start my SQ in November, finish up for Christmas leave, then wait anywhere from 1 - 6 months for my QL3's to start. From what I hear on PAT platoon all you do is gently caress around and do tedious bullshit until you get on course. It doesn't really bother me that much though, I want to take that time to get stronger. I got exempt on the CF Express week 8 in BMQ, but I feel I'll have a hard time with my trade course if I stay at my current fitness level. I squeezed out 33 push ups, which is pretty lovely for a combat arms type, so I want to work on my upper body strength as much as I can before starting my 3's. My running/rucking is really good, its just pushups that I'm concerned about. If you're considering joining and have questions about the new BMQ course, I'd be happy to share my very small amount of military knowledge.
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Oct 10, 2010 22:10
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tuyop posted:So congrats for not being a total loving retard? Didn't you fail phase 3 or something?
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Oct 10, 2010 22:34
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acumen posted:Didn't you fail phase 3 or something? Not relevant. Edit: I'll post about the life on PAT as an injured person a little later, since someone was wondering about it. tuyop fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Oct 11, 2010 |
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Oct 11, 2010 17:45
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Gah, PAT is going to suck. I'm looking at February before I can get on SQ, and god knows when untill I can get on my trade course. I guess my mission now is to not get fat and lazy like half the armoured guys waiting for course.
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Oct 17, 2010 17:33
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I'm interested as well in hearing what you guys do on PAT. Sounds like a whole lot of nothing.
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Oct 17, 2010 19:22
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Haven't really started yet, just got in on friday and been just going out all weekend. I'll be able to answer that in a couple weeks I guess.
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Oct 17, 2010 19:40
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Samu posted:Gah, PAT is going to suck. I'm looking at February before I can get on SQ, and god knows when untill I can get on my trade course. I guess my mission now is to not get fat and lazy like half the armoured guys waiting for course. You clearly have never worked with armoured crewmen before. They're getting you fat and lazy to prepare you for your course. They have standards to uphold.
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Oct 17, 2010 20:28
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Oh yeah, well here's the average day on PAT for an infantry officer who just failed their trade course or is awaiting the next one after CAP/BMOQL:* Wake up for 7:30 timing, attend silly PT with the rest of the guys which is usually a 5k run or interval training or something. Get told to report at 10. Go back to room to sleep/eat/masturbate until 10. At 10 get told that there are no taskings for the day and to report in at 2. At 2 get told to come back the next morning at 7:30. Mondays the first timing is 7 for a little parade and Fridays there's a 6.5k ruckmarch with the option to go for 13k. If you do the 13k you get dismissed from the march at around 9:30. *If you are injured remove from that schedule all semblance of PT or hope and replace it with up to six hours a week of painful and questionably effective physiotherapy. However, now most of us are on workup training for phase 3, or, Super Platoon. So we wake up for 6 or 6:30, do PT until 9 which is a full suite of crossfit, stretching, and mobility work, then come to the classroom for 10 where we teach each other classes from various basic pams in an effort to be "brilliant at the basics". We eat for half an hour or so at noon and one of the sections eats for ten minutes then goes swimming for an hour. After lunch/swimming, we go to the gym for some technical PT or strength training and get off at 4, or we do OPMEs and AJOSQ. We mix this up with days in the field and at the range doing navigation, patrolling, and hasty attacks (actually last week we went out with the advanced sniper course and practiced calling in live artillery, that was awesome). It's quite insane and really stupid sometimes but it's a huge improvement on doing nothing. We're also getting on the CQB instructor course in December for kicks and we do a couple of ruck marches a week, working up to a 30k to Fredericton at the end of October. Again, if you're injured remove all the PT and replace with feelings of worthlessness while you watch your peers improve and roll their eyes at your physio and doctor appointments. For the guys on Phase 4 or the guys coming off 3, it seems like course has just started three months early and we're kind of upset about it. In the other trades I've heard horror stories that range from sitting in a room all day 9-4 nothing, to cleaning weapons and other stores for hours on end. They seem to get much less freedom than the infantry guys, but that's just what I've heard. PAT is an awesome opportunity to improve and/or descend into complete depression and self destruction while being paid.
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Oct 17, 2010 23:22
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Wow, I wish my PAT time was like that. We did C7 refreshers (over an over again), or pick up garbage. The only time we got to go to the range it was for policing up brass, or to do GD/ buts. The best thing we got to do was a stalking exercise where we had to crawl undetected for 300 meters towards an "enemy position". For enlisted it was something like this: 7:00 Roll call and PT 8:00 Shower, get ready for inspection 9:00 Clean up from inspection 9-12 Go to tasking, or wait out for lunch 12-1 Lunch/ sleep 1-3 Gym on your own 3:00 Dismissible. PT for us was usually Monday/ Friday 5km run Tuesday and Thursday 5-13 km ruck Wednesday Sgt maj run, 7+ km run If you get injured and have to do injured PT, get ready to do a lot of finger flicks exercise. My brother was in Gagetown before his armored course and seemed to enjoy PAT cause they actually did some cool things. Me on the other hand, well, Meaford sucks. If you can try and get GD/ enemy force for a course. If you get selected you will get out of the shacks during the day and get to maybe learn/ do something.
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Oct 17, 2010 23:47
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Fraser CDN posted:Meaford sucks. I'm thinking this is the next thread title.
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Oct 18, 2010 00:53
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MA-Horus posted:I'm thinking this is the next thread title. I'd rather be in Meaford than in Shilo. How about "Shilo sucks, no seriously guys, Shilo loving sucks"
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Oct 18, 2010 01:22
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Gagetown is THE suck, so suck it.
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Oct 18, 2010 16:35
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tuyop posted:Gagetown is THE suck, so suck it. Been there, for about 6 months. I preferred it. Come to Shilo where its blistering hot in summer and brutally cold in the winter. Last year the week before christmas block leave, I think the week of the 12th, it was -45 with wind chill all week, probably colder at times but no warmer than -45.
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Oct 18, 2010 18:18
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tuyop posted:Gagetown is THE suck, so suck it. You were probably that guy saying St. Jean sucked. gently caress St Jean is a 5 star hotel compared to Meaford or from what I hear Shilo.
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Oct 18, 2010 21:19
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Testing Michelin tires tomorrow on the LAVs. I have no idea what this will entail. Probably driving around a bit and seeing that they don't explode?
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Oct 19, 2010 02:34
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Shilo is probably the most brutal base I've ever seen. Just got married? You're getting posted to Shilo? Yeah, that marriage will not last. There is nothing, simply nothing. Brandon is a half an hour away. Ever done a Timmys run with an hour commute? Not worth it.
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Oct 19, 2010 11:02
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