Soldiers Reveal The Truth About The Military - AskReddit

the effect of taking someone else's life is lasting it will repeat in your head soldiers and veterans what is something they don't tell you about the military you will get yelled at for not knowing how to do something that you haven't been trained for yet the highest-ranking people aren't necessarily the best out there they may just have managed to stay in a long time you can't quit and they'll only fire you if you do something criminal all other bad behavior just results in punishment oh you got promoted great now go clean something sleep will become more enjoyable than fun times with your girlfriend you will travel the world at least some of the worst parts of it anyway if you wanted to get a feel for what the military is like do the following get very drunk until about 1:00 a.m. go to sleep wake up at oh five three oh if you did it right you should still be slightly drunk put on shoes shorts and a t-shirt and go outside set a cellphone alarm for twenty five minutes from now stand still with your arms behind your back until the alarm goes off after that go for a 5-mile run take a shower and get dressed in ten minutes go outside and look at your front door for half an hour take everything you can out of your house put all of your stuff back in your house go outside and look at your front door for 10 minutes eat breakfast you have had a good army morning Oh No you forgot to shave I can see that now that the Sun is up guess who you get to hang out with this weekend me we are good to go for a long run because you've forgot to shave and because I don't know how to be with my family if your infantry you'll go on month-long training exercises in the woods eating only MREs ready-to-eat meals you'll get back on a Friday and go out with your buddies where you all will proceed to clog the toilets of the bar with all of your nasty MRE brick poop after a week in the field I took an MRE poop leaning up against a tree it stuck against the tree a foot from the ground it was there when we left the field two weeks later it might still be there lower standards for romance with women way lower you'll cuddle with another man in a sleeping bag and it won't be gay I promise you'll do a lot of stupid stuff but also some really stuff speaking as an infantryman we got to shoot a lot of guns and blow stuff up there will be nasty women with four or five kids that live near the base who will throw themselves at you because they want to marry you and get free health care and housing don't do anything buy a car drink look for girls anywhere near a military base it's all a scam designed to separate 18 year-olds from their money just how stupid everything really is how unfathomably stupid some stuff really is motor pool closeout let's get the entire platoon down need to spend two hours making sure every vehicle is lined up perfectly with the vehicle next to it so that they will look good for when no one is around on the weekend to look at them [ __ ] waste of time end of the week formation is the final fu the Army will give you after another shitty week doesn't matter if you are a cherry private or SFC you got to go to formation Friday afternoon so 1sg battery commander and battalion commander can all take turns saying the same stuff over the course of an hour or two reminding you that drinking and driving smoking weed and beating your wife are all bad things the rapid descent introduced him I became a 19 year old timid virgin non drinker and smoker in less than a year I had lost my virginity to a 60 year old barmaid with cigarette burns on her boobs on her pool table in her dive bar after closing and during most nights ashore I would put a serious dent in a jug of Bacardi while smoking filterless italian cigarettes while listening to the cure and hating every fiber of my being airforce here when you arrive for basic military training boot camp they will wake you up at 2:00 a.m. to go to psychological training they will tell you these tests are to help pilots and training your T I will tell you when you are done you can rest your head on the desk most Herman just start filling in and guessing so they can sleep I spent three hours almost finishing the tests the next day we were give one of ten different squadrons they ranged from hell's hole all the way up to Disney World I ended up in a twin co-ed flight nicknamed Disneyland we got all kinds of perks and privileges coke and chow hall etc I am seeing a lot of posts about waiting yelling cleaning dependence there's another side that everyone knows about inter told about it but you will never know unless you experience it that experience is war or our current experience with it if you are in combat arms or some other MOS there is a good chance you will come out broken in some way or another physically mentally emotionally sexually whatever you will see injuries dead bodies war-torn regions of the world you will get injured yourself and it will most likely last what you see in the military sticks to you like glue you will randomly remember some horrific things if you go to war and actually see some stuff want to shoot someone awesome think you wanted to kill another human being great until you do it rarely does it matter if it was justified the effects of taking someone else's life are lasting it will repeat in your head there will be some horrible stuff that happens that you just can't control family friends wife when you are away you have zero control and you just have to hope that everything goes smoothly family dies wife leaves kids get sick and friends aren't exactly friends anymore life goes on without you many join to fight many who have often tell others to hope they never have to there's a reason for that these are just a few off the top of my head recruiters don't tell you about how you may have to set up an HLZ for a buddy of yours whose legs were just blown off recruiters don't tell you about the countless hours on guard duty staring at black night sky in Afghanistan or wherever hoping a platoon size of Taliban doesn't grow a pair of nut sucks and decide to rush your tower they don't tell you that when you get home your mind is still at war they don't tell you these things for a reason they need more of us you will spend 99% of your time doing mindless stupid stuff and about 1% having the most fun you'll ever have in your life sleep becomes the most precious commodity you can have your sexual standards go down way down like way way down most of the time you will get the feeling that your leadership has no idea what's going on and you will usually be right you'll be in your 30s with years of military experience and a college graduate with less than one year in service will be your boss you will resent this if you don't make racist jokes against your friends now you will soon learn to eventually you will begin to get annoyed with all civilians they don't really do anything wrong but they're just so slow they don't move with a purpose and this will piss you off if you're in the Army or Marine Corps there will come a point where you'll be drunk at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday think do I have a problem keep drinking and easily run 5 miles when 6 a.m. comes around you become dependent on your military friends going home won't feel like going home anymore because only your military friends really get you and your twisted sense of humor you will pick up a habit be it tobacco alcohol caffeine or women this is true in all cases there is no greater adrenaline rush in the world than combat at the same time hearing the screams of friends and some of the toughest men you've ever met in life as they lie there wounded and helpless will haunt you in some cases more than it is them you will always be joking with a friend one day making plans for the future when you get home back to the States and then in the blink of the eye they are gone it can happen so randomly you are left wondering why them or how them and not me I've had so many close calls that it is haunting when I think of how somebody's had terrible things happen to them on their very first time outside the wire it is baffling that your life doesn't belong to you anymore I mean we kind of get the impression of it but your life literally belongs to the government you are nothing but a pawn in someone else's game and you will go where and do what they tell you to do this line of work isn't just work it's a lifestyle no at that it is your life your husband or wife your kids none of that hippy BS matters to the military no matter how many times they say they're family friendly are they more family oriented than they were 100 years ago sure but it's still incredibly taxing on not just you but your family as well the people you dedicate your entire being to aren't always competent either I've met some bottom-of-the-barrel idiots in command positions people who clearly have no clue what the hell is going on or how to handle it for just no sense of responsibility to grow some guts to handle it but that's not the worst part when people mess up you can at least go wow what a [ __ ] and then sweep up their mistakes that's part of any job but the worst part of this is when people have early abuse you for their own gain even when it's clearly a waste you are powerless and when that power over you is given to the wrong people they can really Bend you over the table and f you over like no other job out there and speaking out against it is at best ignored and earns you a very harsh stigma with the wrong people I'm in the Coast Guard so my experiences will differ with combat veterans but I've worked with every branch and I've seen this pop up everywhere I've heard it from everyone I've served with it's sickening how many hundreds of millions get flushed down the toilet on a single base in one year on asinine BS that only served to benefit the politics of one person trying to earn an achievement medal or get promoted to a flag officer the military is also one big good old boys club I've seen people get hunted for and pinned down with administrative punishment for really minor crap like not wearing both straps of your bookbag even getting demoted or kicked out if people can make it happen not a-holes not idiot workers just people that don't fit in the club or don't want to and then there are other people who literally brag about roping someone and get away with it because they're in with the right people and oh he would never do something like that even when you know you heard the guy talking about how drunken dzx was and she is clearly traumatized by the experience and you see her almost every day and you see that look in her eye that says that she is completely miserable that she is living in a literal hell and she can't trust any of us again there is a lot of sketchy BS that I've seen go down whether it's Chiefs messes brown nosers to officers or many officers themselves there is a lot of disrespect for people as individuals I'm being medically discharged for a massive mess up that happened while in a training exercise in a lot of ways it's the best thing to happen to me in a while there is a lot of good the military has done for me but I'm also leaving permanently broken so I don't know if I sound a bit resentful there is a reason for it but there are some really strong bonds I've made with people while serving but they are all more born of a mutual struggle than anything else there are people in leadership roles that I respect a lot the ones that stick their neck out for you or call other people out when they are being ridiculous are true leaders and deserve so much more than what they are given our unit is so much more productive and Morelle so much higher when those kinds of people are in charge but when they aren't you dread waking up every day to tried your way into work Navy veteran here here's a few things I discovered as a CTT commanders tactical terminal shifts of between 12 to 24 hours are normal I was once up for 86 hours straight on a submarine trying to fix a piece of my equipment because her maintenance people were garbage the average shift I pulled was 18 hours you will receive no thanks for this it's expected of you if you fall asleep and are caught while performing one of these shifts you will very likely be captain's masted for Navy folks for those unaware that's non-judicial punishment and can include a variety of terrible things getting your own bed rack and military lingo is not guaranteed on submarines hot racking sharing your rack with someone else who sleeps in it while you're away and switches out with you when your shift ends is extremely common I rode 10 submarines and never once had my own rack on surface ships it's less common but can or does still occur those medals you thought were really impressive like the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal they give those out like candy for instance I once saw someone receive one for keeping the soda machine on a surface ship stock during their deployment similarly you'll find that idiots that haven't done anything at all during their tour will get the same end of tour award as you even if you were the golden child of the shop because it's a rank based standard and varies only rarely with actual accomplishment this only becomes more frustrating as you gain rank because the people working their butt off under you will get the same BS award for all their hard work as the douchebag you have that you wish you could shun off on some other shop boot camp is not the military it's boot camp and wholly unique the people you meet in boot camp you will likely never run into again don't worry about impressing them don't worry about making friends don't worry about anything except getting through it look out for yourself first then your colleagues there will be many instances where you spend 10 hours of your 12 hour shift doing nothing waiting around is a big part of being in the military dot you will do paperwork for everything and frequently you will do it multiple times because incompetency runs rampant you will get treated like a child regardless of your age similarly you'll frequently find full grown adults acting like children despite their age actually being a good shipmate will quickly lead to you being disliked similarly you will be forced several times to make a decision where and you either follow regulations and rules or don't and it will make you very uncomfortable and it may impact your ability to lead further down the line the government quite literally owns you and you will be subjected to humiliating invasions of your privacy more than a few times during your tenure if you work in a joint environment you will quickly learn how much you dislike the other branches and civilians because their standards and objectives frequently will not meet your own not to mention every single branch has to have their own specific way to do the same thing that the other branches won't accept for example I've worked in a joint environment with civilians Army Air Force and Marines and found the following civilians are extraordinarily lazy and bureaucratic the army doesn't care about the actual purpose of the installation they frequently pulled their people from watches or force them to stay following a watch to do stupid not related to their actual purpose for being there the Air Force is astoundingly bureaucratic and whiny the Marines are idiots and incredibly arrogant and to be fair looking from the outside in the Navy was arrogant and stubborn until you get your own place off-base where you won't be subject to routine inspections you are made relationships don't bother if you're in the Navy not until you're on a short tour anyways there was an old saying that you weren't a chief until you had at least one divorce under your belt there was also another one that was similar but related to captain's mast it's frightening ly accurate many of my colleagues in the Navy had at least one divorce under their belt and it was invariably tied to being in the military and gone all the time as a result you won't necessarily see the world unless you do it while you're on leave and pay for it yourself in the Navy they call it choose your rate choose your fate rate in the Navy is your job certain jobs do allow you to get posted all over the world I tease but see T T's for instance you get your choice of the United States or the United States I got extremely fortunate in that my last station was England however I also closed that station down permanently so it's not an option anymore when those rare instances when an exotic location does come up you're not guaranteed to get it because it's competitive and you have to apply for the station so whether or not you get chosen comes down to the detailer as for ship tours you will see some ports for sure but I found while writing subs that depending on which side of the coast you are on you got essentially the same crap over and over for me I've been to Japan and Guam about 50 times surface ships definitely have a much wider port call list than subs so you'll see more if you go surface you'll find the same networking BS one-upmanship that you see in the corporate world is very much alive and well in the military if you've got friends you don't have to worry about much there's tons more but those are the things I can remember off the bat despite all the negative stuff the Navy was great if someone was doing something dumb and you had a better method or a plan you could call them out on it and change it despite rank difference we didn't have to do nearly as much [ __ ] as the other branches not everyone is an idiot and I have some very good friends from my tours thanks for listening to radio TTS hit the subscribe button and activate the notification Bell to avoid major pain and his friends click the right box for another military video let us know in the comments what you think about these joining the army [Music]

Channel: Radio TTS

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Id: MVyTIQUUtjw

Length: 17min 7sec (1027 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 11 2020