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DumbparameciuM posted:Hey I'm a civvie with some dumbfuck questions especially for any Australian Army types who are in here because I am considering going for a Reservist position. I'm aware that this makes me a loving moron. Questions: Things that won't happen in Basic: - Instructor violence Things that will happen: - You will meet some real fucken winners - You will meet some psychotic people - They might be your instructors - The personality of your section commander will greatly affect your quality of life - Lectures, Lectures, Lectures. - Lots of the time will be boring - After a few weeks everyone becomes really grouchy and boring - You do what you are asked to do exactly and perfectly and still get punished for it - You will do some fun stuff - You will see how armies everywhere suck the most of the fun out of fun stuff - You'll have to stick your neck out because everyone is competing for stuff like the 3 working washing machines used by your 100 brothers and sisters - The Aussies will not be 50% cute chicks unless you go into the medical corps (still debatable) - If you're in a reserves only basic, you'll probably be treated as a second class citizen, you might be dressed in lovely old rags and second hand webbing for much of it (perhaps an NZ only thing), and possibly lectures in the evening instead of baracks time/ shop visits. - Things are more chill once you're off initial courses but stupid stuff will still happen and sometimes you'll wonder why you put up with this bunch of duffers In NZ, Reservists aren't eligible for most of the Army benefits like housing, dental, non-urgent medical care, welfare fund houses and so forth. I hear Aussie treats it's reservists better though. So if your defense housing question is linked to your application, check it out very thoroughly, in fact check out all the benefits and see if they actually apply to you and how hard it is for reserves to actually use them. Ditto if you are going in to get qualified for something, find out when they will actually give you the qualification and how much slave time you need to do for it. Best thing is to talk to some private soldiers doing the same type of service and trade, maybe at some event they do a display at (or anzac day) if you don't know anyone. My recruiter didn't really lie too much but I had to push my application through myself at every stage otherwise it was just pushed into a pile and dropped out of consideration. Edit hahaha I found Territorials.jpg on the army website 
Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Mar 5, 2017 |
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Mar 5, 2017 23:21
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I served in the Australian Army Reserve as a rifleman in 5/6 RVR between 1997 and 2003, so while I was in it, take what I say with a grain of salt because I got out nearly a decade and a half ago and did basic nearly two decades ago. Basic was fine. We were tired most of the time and people made fuckarse stupid mistakes as a result of that, but that's what training is for. It was 15 hour days for 42 days with only a couple of afternoons off during that time, and by the end of that everyone was very much on the end of their tether. I don't think it's as long any more. What Jaguars! said is right, no one's going to beat you or anything, there was a real bastardisation problem in the Aus army in the 1990s but by the time I started everyone was veerrrry careful not to be doing anything that could be construed as violent hazing because some careers had been ruined and a couple of people went to jail for it as well. We had decent, new equipment except for our rifles; they definitely handed us the shittiest F88s they could find to the reservists, I assume because they thought we'd never need to fire them in anger. Still needed to hit a loving target though. Tons of lectures, tons of drilling, fucktons of marching. Seriously, you will endurance march, parade march, hike in formation, and jog in formation for what feels like forever. I quite enjoyed it because I was 18 years old and quite fit and healthy and it honestly felt like a bit of a "Boys' Own" adventure to me. Didn't have anything tying me to home like a girlfriend or close family that I would miss. When I finished Basic they lined us all up and gave everyone who completed a cheque for a thousand dollars which I immediately spent on parts for my car because I was an idiot like that back then. They definitely still do the same now, but I think it's more than two grand. Like I said, I'm a long time out, but I joined the reserves at 18, and distinctly remember not seeing a single cute chick the whole time I was there. Plenty of "eh, it's been a while and the light isn't good" birds though. If you're on deployment you get free dental and medical but I don't think that applies to elective stuff while you're just doing your "one weekend a month, two weeks a year" business. It's quite hard to find online information in regards to other reserve benefits, so talk to your recruiter thoroughly, listen very carefully and get things in writing.
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Mar 6, 2017 02:14
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Friar Zucchini posted:It seemed to me that the the end goal of BMT was to teach us how to (and weed out the few that can't) follow very specific instructions, perfectly, repeatedly, in a situation where everything is terrible and you hate life, cause if poo poo goes down hardcore WW3 style ("everything is terrible and you hate life") they want people to still be mentally able to fix planes ("very specific instructions, perfectly, repeatedly") or whatever else a dude's job is. So of course poo poo sucks and doesn't make sense, the point is that you know how not to break down crying or try and fight your MTI. The problem with the thought process is they don't put you in situations you will face when poo poo goes sideways in war. If they had you folding socks and trying to navigate your surroundings as a unit under a low crawl grid with random explosions going off, it would make sense. Sitting on a bench while flight leaders hit you with pointer rods serves no purpose. Also, your goal needs to be teaching everyone to work as a team, not having one person bust their rear end while the rest of the flight beat and sabotage them. Which was routine in my flight before they pulled one DI and 7 people. Jaguars! posted:Things that won't happen in Basic: This does not apply to those asking about US military. Because there are instructors who will pick someone out and, for shits and giggles, beat them.
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Mar 6, 2017 02:28
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Memento posted:I served in the Australian Army Reserve as a rifleman in 5/6 RVR between 1997 and 2003, so while I was in it, take what I say with a grain of salt because I got out nearly a decade and a half ago and did basic nearly two decades ago. My experience was NZ basic in 2011, I have talked army with Aussies a couple of times and get the impression things are pretty similar. I think the hazing reduction has reached it's logical conclusion these days, while I had a few intimidating instructors, I was never worried about getting beaten up or put in a stress position. Punishment is mostly just fitness type stuff. It's worth noting though, that one of my instructors was still disappeared for drunken antics outside the ladies dorm one night, so poo poo still happens sometimes, but at least people are more aware that some things are beyond the pale. My Basic was about 10% women but the infantry is probably less than 5% and a lot of those are just waiting to be sent to another corps. I also see that you guys only do 35 days, which says to me that basic will be extremely rushed and when you get out you probably have to gently caress around a lot getting onto advanced basic courses run by your unit. My all arms was 10 weeks and that was thought to be very short. At least if you do it all at once, you can organize for your employer to give you the time off several months in advance and then not have to hassle them much.
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Mar 6, 2017 03:12
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Genocide Tendency posted:The problem with the thought process is they don't put you in situations you will face when poo poo goes sideways in war. If they had you folding socks and trying to navigate your surroundings as a unit under a low crawl grid with random explosions going off, it would make sense. Sitting on a bench while flight leaders hit you with pointer rods serves no purpose. Also, your goal needs to be teaching everyone to work as a team, not having one person bust their rear end while the rest of the flight beat and sabotage them. Which was routine in my flight before they pulled one DI and 7 people. do you actually think beatings are endemic in military training? especially in the loving air force of all places? perhaps you just got real unlucky and one of your dis was a sociopath?
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Mar 6, 2017 04:02
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getting beat in us military training probably happens like once in a great while and is dealt with and, I loathe the military and to think its frequent is ludicrous to me. Getting raped or molested as a female by a drill I'm way more willing to believe but outright beat? Just sounds like one of those dumb rear end pvt rumors like how every basic cycle before yours had a kid shoot himself in the portashitter or some other made up poo poo
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Mar 6, 2017 04:05
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like there would be occasional acts of mild violence against a recruit, but the worst i got was being shaken around like a ragdoll. one kid got accidentally poked in the eye when a di misjudged the distance, and another got his head bounced off of concrete when a di yanked his collar up and down while he was pushing. kid got concussed and dropped from training. di disappeared for a few days. i wouldnt call anything i saw or had done to me a beating, but maybe thats because i had an abusive stepfather who actually use to beat my rear end on the reg
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Mar 6, 2017 04:14
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Kung Fu Fist gently caress posted:like there would be occasional acts of mild violence against a recruit, but the worst i got was being shaken around like a ragdoll. one kid got accidentally poked in the eye when a di misjudged the distance, and another got his head bounced off of concrete when a di yanked his collar up and down while he was pushing. kid got concussed and dropped from training. di disappeared for a few days. i wouldnt call anything i saw or had done to me a beating, but maybe thats because i had an abusive stepfather who actually use to beat my rear end on the reg yeah I saw a dude get picked up and shook and some other like dumb mild contact, I'm just imagining a full on beatdown "WALL TO WALL COUNSELING" bullshit and that poo poo doesn't happen
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Mar 6, 2017 04:15
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Yeah that was saved for uppity LNs on deployment
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Mar 6, 2017 04:17
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Zeris posted:Yeah that was saved for uppity LNs on deployment Didnt witness a beating during my boot but we did have a boot on boot sexual assault (she was a very sweet but very very dumb girl and got cornered while cleaning an empty room but was rescued mid attack(assaulter was sent back to p-days and not sure past that)) and a possible doc on boot rape. The rape got swept under the rug and she got a honorable discharge a few months after hitting A school.
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Mar 6, 2017 04:40
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Nobody got beat up (by a drill) during my basic. A few dudes accidentally got smacked or whatever, but no intentional violence towards boots.
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Mar 6, 2017 05:50
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I got full on DDT'd by my drill sergeant during combatives and then told to drink water
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Mar 6, 2017 05:56
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJOXTI4FEuM
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Mar 6, 2017 06:04
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All bets are off on the grenade range. They are allowed to gently caress you up there.
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Mar 6, 2017 06:45
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My last job was providing phone support for on-premise firewalls with a large install base in the military. 80% of their calls were incredibly easy "hard drive broke, please RMA" deals, and the other 20% were fun times navigating the FreeBSD command line by spelling out every command via the phonetic alphabet to diagnose something broken in software. Who would be calling us, and what would their day-to-day be like? I figure they work on much wider range of devices given that they weren't typically that familiar with ours (not that other customers were either--the military just had the unique position of never ever being able to use screen sharing to let us troubleshoot directly).
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Mar 6, 2017 08:07
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anatoliy pltkrvkay posted:My last job was providing phone support for on-premise firewalls with a large install base in the military. 80% of their calls were incredibly easy "hard drive broke, please RMA" deals, and the other 20% were fun times navigating the FreeBSD command line by spelling out every command via the phonetic alphabet to diagnose something broken in software. Who would be calling us, and what would their day-to-day be like? I figure they work on much wider range of devices given that they weren't typically that familiar with ours (not that other customers were either--the military just had the unique position of never ever being able to use screen sharing to let us troubleshoot directly). In the Air Force, at least, most standard comm units are broken up into long-range telecommunications, radio/SATCOM, network infrastructure, sysadmin, and client support (the people who go out and actually deal with the customers) teams. When a customer calls up with an issue, a communications focal point takes the call and tries to figure out which office to route the ticket to. This usually works out pretty well, but occasionally there are systems for which we don't have the homegrown skillset to effectively troubleshoot. For example, my unit uses McAfee firewalls for some of our boundary protection. The technicians who manage them receive a little bit of formal training to set up the firewalls, but the lion's share of their workload is non-firewall network management. As a result, if something goes pear shaped beyond their ability to troubleshoot, they'll likely call McAfee for support (or whoever we have contracted for Tier II firewall support; that's a bit out of my lane).
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Mar 6, 2017 08:55
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Thanks for the answers/advice to my earlier questions this thread is awesome. I found a great little resource on YT specifically for civvies like myself who are pondering being a reservist ("Choccie", in the local argo) which I'll post right here One of the funniest bits of advice IMO: "Never tell anybody you were in the Cadets"
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Mar 6, 2017 10:29
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Holy gently caress no. Also don't let on if your dad's a colonel or something. Also that guys fresh as hell. He's not wrong, but he's parroting a lot of sayings and stuff you'll get taught anyway. If you wanna be a basic star, be fit & strong, know how to repair a seam, tie a bowline/two half hitches, iron clothes and make a bed fast, learn the phoenetic alphabet and the ranks, know how to read a topographic map. You'll get taught the rest, it's not rocket science. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 11:47 on Mar 6, 2017 |
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Mar 6, 2017 11:10
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Jaguars! posted:tie a bowline/two half hitches Naked Bear fucked around with this message at 12:56 on Mar 6, 2017 |
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Mar 6, 2017 12:52
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Yeah, I use knots almost daily and people think I'm a god damned sorcerer when I tie them.
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Mar 6, 2017 13:25
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I can tie a bowline and French bowline faster than the instructors at boot and it won me a free phone call. Woo
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Mar 6, 2017 17:33
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DumbparameciuM posted:One of the funniest bits of advice IMO: "Never tell anybody you were in the Cadets" This also applies to entering nautical school on the civilian side, btw. Also nthing the bowline being the most useful knot ever; seamanship teacher wouldn't pass us if we couldn't tie it one handed or behind our back. Bonus points for both at the same time. Shout out to the clove hitch though, also a very useful fucker.
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Mar 6, 2017 17:42
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How does somebody become a drill instructor? Is it something anyone actually wants to do?
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Mar 6, 2017 19:16
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CongoJack posted:How does somebody become a drill instructor? Is it something anyone actually wants to do? People can volunteer. Or you can just get tagged to be one. Lately, in the Army, if you're slated to be one and fail the school, you keep getting sent back to the school. This was to cut down on the people who either intentionally fail or just screw up one event. Some people want to do it, because among some groups it's seen as prestigious or a good way to advance your career. Job seems real lovely to me.
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Mar 6, 2017 19:25
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CongoJack posted:How does somebody become a drill instructor? Is it something anyone actually wants to do? As far as I can tell it's just sociopaths and Admin/Legal NCOs who feel bad about only deploying to Kuwait but want to claim to be a "real" Marine
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Mar 6, 2017 19:26
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mlmp08 posted:People can volunteer. Or you can just get tagged to be one. Lately, in the Army, if you're slated to be one and fail the school, you keep getting sent back to the school. This was to cut down on the people who either intentionally fail or just screw up one event. I was told it was a really good way to make rank in rates that have abysmal advancement otherwise in the Navy.
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Mar 6, 2017 21:07
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All my drill sergeants were voluntold, hated it, but did it as good as they could anyway. Except for one, he couldn't give a flying gently caress and it showed. He got his round brown taken off of him half way through our cycle. And then we had an MP drill instructor but that motherfucker seemed like he was a sociopath and could derive fun from just about anything.
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Mar 6, 2017 21:53
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Booblord Zagats posted:As far as I can tell it's just sociopaths and Admin/Legal NCOs who feel bad about only deploying to Kuwait but want to claim to be a "real" Marine for anyone that wants to complete an enlisted career in the marines, you pretty much have to be a di, combat instructor, recruiter or msg at some point.
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Mar 6, 2017 22:16
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:for anyone that wants to complete an enlisted career in the marines, you pretty much have to be a di, combat instructor, recruiter or msg at some point. MSG and Combat Instructor seem like they'd be a lot less awful than recruiter and DI, but I haven't done any of it so I'll admit I'm talking out of my rear end on it. Also, are you and KFF the only actual Marines left in GiP? I'm pretty sure the rest of us were/are POGS and Air Wingers
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Mar 6, 2017 22:25
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LingcodKilla posted:I can tie a bowline and French bowline faster than the instructors at boot and it won me a free phone call. The BM who challenged us was a dirty cheat. He did it some crazy way where he spun it around his arm and head and had a bowline in seconds. Nobody else even came close.
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Mar 6, 2017 22:35
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Deathy is a marinara
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Mar 6, 2017 22:41
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cowboy elvis posted:Deathy is a marinara he is pog scum.
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Mar 6, 2017 22:48
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Booblord Zagats posted:MSG and Combat Instructor seem like they'd be a lot less awful than recruiter and DI, but I haven't done any of it so I'll admit I'm talking out of my rear end on it. i think kff is the only actual marine left in gip because i was a disgusting reservist. combat instructor probably sucks because its just as much of a time investment as a drill instructor.
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Mar 6, 2017 22:58
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Booblord Zagats posted:MSG and Combat Instructor seem like they'd be a lot less awful than recruiter and DI, but I haven't done any of it so I'll admit I'm talking out of my rear end on it. I was infantry and did a deployment but my first two years were security forces jerking off to to the female ocean biologists that trained dolphins in Georgia.
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Mar 6, 2017 23:47
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Also lol @ permanantly scarring your voice for the loving marine corps.
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Mar 6, 2017 23:49
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who doesnt want to sound like crackhead kermit?
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Mar 7, 2017 00:04
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i think the part where you break your brain after 3 years at bootcamp is worse than the crackhead kermit.
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Mar 7, 2017 00:06
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M_Gargantua posted:The BM who challenged us was a dirty cheat. He did it some crazy way where he spun it around his arm and head and had a bowline in seconds. Nobody else even came close. Yup. That's a method. Use to be the jumper on 60-90ft ships and had to be fast or be heckled for loving up. Besides having the ship having to retry the maneuver or slamming into the dock.
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Mar 7, 2017 00:22
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Why did he gently caress him up?
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Mar 7, 2017 00:33
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Two Finger posted:Why did he gently caress him up? Didn't take a knee on the follow through E: with the throw you're supposed to finish by taking a knee to simulate getting behind cover. Dude stopped and stared to see where his throw went.
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Mar 7, 2017 00:35
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