Military Service

Joshua

Hello friends. I wondered if they're are any peoples here in AJB who used to be in the military of their country.
I served for three years in the army of my country.

Higgins

I have served in the german airforce.

Back in the day, it was 15 months mandatory, now it's voluntarily.

Chriscoop

Yes Ive served for my country, ive talked about my service often on AJB. I believe there are quite a few ex military members here.

Joshua

I hope we can all swap funny stories! I was a volunteer to serve in my army. When we trained we slept on the floor all the time in our blocks because out bed would be inspected in the morning and everything had to be perfect to be set out for the corporals or the sergeants or the officer who would come to inspect in the early morning and we would make the bed at night for the inspection. If nothing was perfect all the things would be thrown out of the window and the soldier would be in trouble!

Bond44

I was in the Women's Auxiliary Balloon Corps does that count? )

However due to OPSEC I can only talk about what happened 25 years ago - everything else is still covered by the OSA apart from my Facing the Loaded Gun POST stories - which will of course form part of my memoirs to bore my grand children with 8-)

So my experiences in my early days somewhat mirror your own Joshua - fun times though and oh how things have changed! It was always emotional to see your highly polished boots take a flying lesson out the window - or to parade with all you kit, bed, locker and all on the parade square for a Show Parade! (then have to put it all back in your room again).

Funny thing was as I progressed through the Ranks I got it, why things were so tough in the early days. If you could not administer yourself in Barracks how the hell would you survive in worse conditions on Operations!

Its funny how you never see it that way at the time though

Cheers :007)

Joshua

The boots would have to be polished but we only had one pair so they would be for training and parade also. At night after the training day had end we would polish the boots for the parade in the next morning and if they were not good the soldier would be in much trouble. Some soldiers paid for others to polish the boots and some soldiers even had a pair of boots they bought for parade only so they did not have to spend the hours polishing the boots at the night time. These soldiers would have to hide the boots because other soldiers if they found them they would throw them over the wire for cheating!

To get the uniform ready and the room and the bed and the boots ready would take all of the time until lights were out!

Bond44

Sounds like it was pretty much the same deal everywhere - having a spare or sub contracting to someone who could do it better (for a price)! )

Number24

My national service was in the army, in the combat engineers. Once in the late winter we were on a three-day ski march. suddenly we saw the sun rise for the first time in months. So we applauded and cheered
It was also fun when foreign elite units came to train winter warfare, and only after six months of service we did well against them! That was fun

Silhouette Man

Unfortunately the closest I ever got to military service was being a Private in the Boys' Brigade (BB). )

Herr Michael

I was in the US Air Force for eight years. I was a guidance & control electronics technician on the Minuteman II weapon system before it was decommissioned in 1993.

Chriscoop

Number24 wrote:

My national service was in the army, in the combat engineers. Once in the late winter we were on a three-day ski march. suddenly we saw the sun rise for the first time in months. So we applauded and cheered
It was also fun when foreign elite units came to train winter warfare, and only after six months of service we did well against them! That was fun

I spent some time in Finland training with Arctic prepared wolf's ( land rover) the vehicles coped better in the cold than we did!

Number24

The Hägglunds BV206 tracked all-terrain vehicle is God's gift to military winter training, in my opinion

Chriscoop

Number24 wrote:

The Hägglunds BV206 tracked all-terrain vehicle is God's gift to military winter training, in my opinion

I think I've been in one of those, but not a military variant, and it was red, are they a Norwegian machine?
The Russians had some serious atv's at that time, huge machines that went anywhere.

Higgins

I think that Häglunds are from Sweden

Chriscoop

Higgins wrote:

I think that Häglunds are from Sweden

Were they not similar bandvagn? hang on...... Bv 206 is a bandvagn 206

Number24

Yes, BV is short for bandvagn.

Joshua

I was in the commando regiment and a corporal. the training was different to training for general duties soldiers and much more harder to do. I saw the man with the golden gun for the first time i smiled because part of the training we had to do was to swim in rivers which were crocodiles lived. There was a couple of boats and soldiers with guns to watch for crocodiles but they would not stop the crocodile from attacking from below in the water. it was very scary always! When i saw Roger Moore jumping over the alligators it makes me think of those times! sometimes soldiers who tried to do commando training would die on each course and some were killed by wild animals during the selection training for the commando regiment because this was done in the very wild areas. This was expected in the course and still it was done because it was to make us the toughest of soldiers. One man did died on my course while doing the 120km march through the bush for commando selection. commando soldiers have to do 120km march with no foods but only small water to do this in 48 hours or they will fail. The country is very hard with many obstacles and is tough.

Chriscoop

Number24 wrote:

Yes, BV is short for bandvagn.

) I figured that out as I was writing it!

Loeffelholz

I was in the United States Air Force for four years; in Administration, and then later in Law Enforcement. I spent two years stationed at Zaragoza Air Base in Spain, and got to spend about a month on temporary duty at Zweibrucken Air Base in Germany (then called West Germany), participating in the Reforger/Cold Fire Air Base Ground Defense exercise, where we defended the base from the US Army from attack in a 'war games' scenario. I got to spend time in Paris, Northern Italy and Portugal as well.

The final two years of my enlistment were at Luke AFB in Arizona, outside the Phoenix metropolitan area. After winning the Deputy Commander for Maintenance Airman of the Quarter competition, I received a back-seat ride in an F-15 Eagle...the flight surgeon cleared me to an altitude of 18,000 feet - they had to go to another squadron to find a G-suit that fit me because of my height - and I was trained on the emergency egress system (ejector seat! haha)...and then I got to see the Grand Canyon from a fighter jet in the late afternoon. He hit the full afterburner, so I was actually supersonic for a minute or two, and briefly gave me control of the aircraft. Once I gave it back to him, we did rolls, and a loop! And I didn't vomit - I still have my unused airsickness bag as a souvenir.

It was possibly the best time of my life.

Number24

Joshua wrote:

I was in the commando regiment and a corporal. the training was different to training for general duties soldiers and much more harder to do. I saw the man with the golden gun for the first time i smiled because part of the training we had to do was to swim in rivers which were crocodiles lived. There was a couple of boats and soldiers with guns to watch for crocodiles but they would not stop the crocodile from attacking from below in the water. it was very scary always! When i saw Roger Moore jumping over the alligators it makes me think of those times! sometimes soldiers who tried to do commando training would die on each course and some were killed by wild animals during the selection training for the commando regiment because this was done in the very wild areas. This was expected in the course and still it was done because it was to make us the toughest of soldiers. One man did died on my course while doing the 120km march through the bush for commando selection. commando soldiers have to do 120km march with no foods but only small water to do this in 48 hours or they will fail. The country is very hard with many obstacles and is tough.

Im not sure if I have asked you this before, but what country are you from?

Joshua

Hello number24, i send you a message.

Joshua

Military days are good for the comrades we make, not so good for other things!

Joshua

I remember the training to be fit in the army. We did very much of training to be very fit and always had to run around the camp. I think the worse exercise was when we had to push the big tire. It was a tire from a tractor and only two men to push it to each tire. They were very big and heavy and hard to make go straight. We would have to push them along the dirt road while wearing the uniforms and the helmets and the heavy pack. The road was not good and if they fell over it was very hard to get to back up straight again because they were so heavy. We had to push them three kilometers each time and sometimes more than this! I always thought that was the worse of the fitness physical training!

Bond44

I always find it strange how military service can throw you a curve ball of the unexpected. I spent my early years training to sit in a trench in Germany and defend a bridge and wait for the Russians to invade and once they did we would the go partisan. Many years later a met a huge Russian who was a First Officer on a Russian sub. We chatted and I asked 'What does the First Officer on a Russian sub do?' Thinking a guy his size it must have been walk with a permenant stoop!). He said dryly 'I was to push the button' I looked confused 'The big red button' it was a Nuclear Sub!! (Russians 1 Little Old Me 0) Needless to say I said thank you for not pushing it and bought him drinks all night.

Later he asked what I did so I told him and he laughed and said 'you know we would just have fixed you in place, gone around you, then headed straight for the channel'. Hindsight is a great thing if only I had known all those hours sat in a sodden trench in Germany was a complete waste of time!

It's a funny old world - As M would say 'Christ I miss the Cold War!'

Cheers :007)

IanT

I'm an army reservist - for the second time in my life. Joined an OTC at university in the early 90s. Left for 15 years. Re-joined for a lark 5 and a half years ago. Recently got promoted to Sergeant. So I must be doing something right!!!!

Joshua

That is a good story! I wonder also like us if you were made to fill in the trench after you had been in it?

Bond44

On one gig I was giving a presentation to a large auditorium filled with about 300 people (civilians, agencies, NGO's etc). In the break a guy came up to me and said 'you are in the Forces right?' Yes I answered 'Ah' he said staring at me then 'I was a conscript on the Malvinas in 1982' ok I was thinking this is going to get tricky 'The Falklands' I said 'Yes' he said 'The Malvinas' oh OK 'The Falklands' confirmed I. His face broke into a smile and said 'we should have a beer when you are finished'.

After the event we sat chatting a some time I was expecting it to be quiet awkward - reality was he was a young lad sent to a place he knew nothing much about to sit in a trench and protect its new sovereignty. No one had expected the UK would react the way it did at the time. We both called the place by our own name but we knew where we were talking about and neither was upset by the other. Needless to say we skirted around the why's and wherefores and talked with affection about the weapons (their FN out SLR and we both had gimpys), kit and tough environment experiences etc. He was quiet a senior guy in a global NGO.

Fortunately that conflict was before my time but it was the catalyst for this scroat to make something of his life rather than continue to borrow other people's cars without permission!

It was funny how we laughed and moaned about the same things from different sides - seemingly all soldiers moan about crap food, dodgy kit and the commanders above them!

Cheers :007)

Bond44

Joshua wrote:

That is a good story! I wonder also like us if you were made to fill in the trench after you had been in it?

On a major NATO exercise we spent 2 days digging a set of full trenches ( about 10 of them between us), next day we died in place from an Arty barrage, we were then extracted from our location to allow the enemy to occupy them (so naturally we left them some surface laid rectal bar mines). Only to have to reoccupy the same positions 2 days later where they had doubled up on the mines in return. It stank, was covered in crap and we had to stay there 5 days!

Then yes spent 2 days filling it back in again ( though we did help a local farmer get a new barn by reversing accidentally into the corner of his old one!!)

Cheers :007)

Joshua

I already told the story of when we swum in the rivers which had crocodiles living in them. When doing this for the first time in a river which was in the rainy season and full and was about 80 meters wide. The boats with the sentries and the men on the banks of the river with the rifles to shoot the crocodiles and to shout if they saw them come. We recruits were told many stories to scare us about the crocodiles attacking the soldiers and that that they had liked to eat the men. Only the commando was doing this exercise because it was too dangerous for other regiments. If the recruits did not go into the river they were failed from the course but us who did go were all very scared. We were swimming in uniform and with boots. We were about halfway across and everybody scared and looking for the crocodile who were in the water. One from the boats shouted that the crocodiles were going to attack. The others on the bank and the boats shouted this too. All we in the water was like the champion swimmers in the olympic games! only after we had got out of the river on the other side that the instructors started to laugh. The big joke the played on us!

Chriscoop

All this military talk is starting to make me nervous, we are not about to start pulling rank and having regimental rubbishing are we?

Joshua

Chriscoop wrote:

All this military talk is starting to make me nervous, we are not about to start pulling rank and having regimental rubbishing are we?

my regiment can look down always! )