Me and the Military

[binny]

My brother also joined the Coast Guard to avoid the draft during the Vietnam war. My brother after him starved himself. When he went in for his physical he was grossly underweight an didn't pass. No Vietnam for him either. My brother #3 didn't have to worry about being drafted because he graduated in '78, but he did join the job corps after high school. I'm not sure what that got him. He's unemployed now and has been for a year. My oldest son left home when he was 18 before he graduated high school because he didn't want to live by our rules. He joined the Navy after high school (scratching my head). He has been to Japan, Iraq and is now in Spain. He hates it all. They dangled bonuses in front of his face and he bought all the crap they fed him. He thought it was going to be a piece of cake and he would be raking in the dough in no time. He joined for 6 years active, 2 years inactive. He's under paid and over worked. He's stuck in the Navy for 3 more years. He's now thinking that school is a better alternative.

[Rhizomorph13]

Binny,

I've worked with a lot of ex-military who were technicians who were able to get lucrative jobs right out of the military with their training and they were excellent at the job! Some of them hated the military but most had a great time traveling around the planet for free even though they weren't always stationed somewhere nice. I was jealous because they got to fire guns and throw grenades and were making much more money than me because of their military training. One clear downside was that almost all the ex-military had some nagging injury from their time they spent there and one of my friends had a completely ruined back. Safety is not the highest concern for soldiers apparently! I have heard more than enough horror stories about medical malpractice. One friend of mine had cysts on one of her ovaries and when they went in to remove the bad one they removed the good one instead. Doh! good thing she never ended up wanting children, although that probably has more to do with her adjusting her goals to reality.

Rhizo

[chatpilot]

I have a couple of military horror stories of my own but they are classified lol.

[Violet]

Classified by whom?

Are you *still* stuck in the military?

[chatpilot]

No I was just joking about the classified part Sae. Actually I was witness to certain training accidents that resulted in deaths of personnel and in fact when I left three months later 14 members of my unit died in a helicopter crash on the way to training in field ops. I could have easily been on that helo.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Safety is not the highest concern for soldiers apparently!

That is a vile canard! NCOs get really peeved if you so much as have an AD. (accidental discharge) They fly into a perfect tizzy if you accidently injure another soldier. (intentional is fine)----All that paper work! NCOs are terrified of paperwork as most of 'em are illiterate,although usually twice as smart as their officer,who is in charge because he can read.

[Violet]

No I was just joking about the classified part Sae. Actually I was witness to certain training accidents that resulted in deaths of personnel and in fact when I left three months later 14 members of my unit died in a helicopter crash on the way to training in field ops. I could have easily been on that helo.

That's... quite frankly... amazing...

/sigh, don't you just have to love mass-production militaries? /obvious sarcasm is obvious.

[chatpilot]

So true padraic. They claim that safety is first but accidents do happen. The first thing they did was threaten us before we went on weekend liberty with court martials if we dared to speak about what had happened on the base.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

. The first thing they did was threaten us before we went on weekend liberty with court martials if we dared to speak about what had happened on the base.

Really? WOW! I doubt that would have worked with Aussi conscripts, most of us were already really pissed off by having to be there.

Anyway,we only had the one serious accident.

There was this guy in the next hut who was a real arsehole, always getting the entire platoon in trouble.They got him really drunk.After he's passed out they hoisted his bed with him in it,into the rafters of the hut and left him there. Next morning he rolled out of bed---and broke his leg. It was treated officially as an unfortunate accident.

[chatpilot]

The platoon next to ours was out on field exercises and it involved the troops walking between two mountains. The mortar platoon was supposed to shoot mortars over the troops at the other side of the mountain. Someones settings were off and the mortar landed smack dab in the middle of the platoon. There were like 7 dead and a couple of injured soldiers.