Dopers who’ve served or who know people who’ve served: What’s daily life like in our Armed Forces?
All I ever really hear about are the heroics and the atrocities, the recruitment propaganda and the anti-war propaganda. I want to know what the mundane (if military life can ever be called that), day-to-day existence is like between the newsworthy extremes.
(This thread was inspired by the “Write to a soldier” thread, which I found interesting but declined to join in because, really, which soldier would want to hear from some random 26 year old guy? Still, I’d like to hear more about how they live.)
ETA: Actually, on edit, I see no reason this has to be limited to American soldiers. If you’ve served elsewhere, feel free to share what that’s like.
And could a please mod remove the “American” in the title?
I was a flyer. If I was not flying a particular day then I stayed around the office doing my secondary job. I was good at it. It sucked hardcore though (they stuck me in charge of a shop when I had no training for it).
If the day was slow I’d shoot the shit with my friends then we’d go for lunch. I was home usually by 1630.
On days/nights I flew, I’d go in, get some office work done, get ready for my flight. And then do that.
Deployed: I’d wake up, eat, go to dinner, brief, put all my gear on the bird and wait for something to happen. 12 on 12 off until I got home.
One thing I miss more than anything was that I worked with my friends. We’d pretty much hung out all day and then on the weekends. You don’t get that kind of camaraderie in the civilian world.
It was a really good gig, besides the whole “Iraq” thing. That sucked. It was cold. I fucking hate the cold.
Either. I’d love to hear from a variety of people with a variety of experiences.
I don’t mean to pry, but would you be willing to share more details?
What did you fly? Where?
When you were deployed, what were the missions like? Were you on patrols that just involved flying from place to place with few or no engagements? Or were you always tasked with a certain objective? For 12 hours straight? How did you go to the bathroom?
What’s the office work like? Etc. I know so little about this I don’t even know what questions to ask.
For the office work I was in the scheduling shop. We coordinated with the base to get range times, with maintenance to get the correct load out on our aircraft and we decided who was flying when and what the training needed to be accomplished. It was a giant puzzle that needed to be pieced together every day.
I’d have twelve hour days but we’d never go up in the air for twelve hours straight. If while in the air you had to use the restroom you’d either pee in a Gatorade bottle or a piddle pack. If you had to crap really bad you prayed you landed at a base in time or you crapped your pants (I never did either of those).
I was in Iraq for two Christmases a few years ago, so that’s why I hate the cold oh so very much. (I was flying with my best friend one time on a really cold, really long night and all I hear from him is, “Y’know, if I put a bullet through my head I’d go somewhere warm.”)
I flew in a helicopter. There was a heater but because I had to man the weapon the windows were open and my hand was on the machine gun in the air stream.
I remember when I was 16 I swore to my mother that I’d leave the house when I turned 18. One week after my 18th birthday I was off to Basic. One week after my 20th I was off to Iraq.
And as I was sitting on some ramp on Christmas Eve with it being -4 out I thought to myself, “Man, I sure showed her.”
From what I understand (military folk, please correct me if I’m wrong), the miniseries Generation Kill (based on the book of the same name) was relatively accurate in describing one of the combat units during the 2003 Iraq invasion. Considering that they were at the front, there is surprisingly little combat in the show (never read the book) and mostly shows the guys waiting around and bullshitting with each other.
Hah! Some aircraft have better temperature than others. Most of the ones I’ve flown got way too cold. Partly out of necessity; the electronics need to stay cool, so turning the heat up wasn’t an option. Gloves/sleeping bag/hats helped.
The answer to your questions are too difficult to answer–a day in the sandbox is totally different than a day in the States; a day in one tour on the East coast is totally different than a day in another tour on the West coast. Some days/jobs/colleagues suck; some are great. What I’ve found is that the most rewarding jobs are the toughest and suck the most when they are happening. But if you’re enduring it with the right people, and you’re making actual contributions to the fight, those jobs are the most memorable and fill me with the most pride.
I agree with this. Some of the worst times in my life were made actually kind of awesome because of the people I was with. I had a good crew and the second worst night of my life I had my best friend flying with me, so it made it a lot better.
Honestly, if I could relive my last deployment I probably would.
No shit. That was brilliant. Still trying to figure out what to say to people who thank me for my service in Iraq. “Gee thanks, they put me in an office for a year.” Drove me nuts and made me dream of being back in a tank.
My wife is a soldier. She just did a year deployment in Iraq working in a hospital. I didn’t know anything about the military until I met her a couple of years ago.
When “down range,” i.e. in Iraq or Afghanistan, there’s lots of boredom, punctuated by awful moments, so they are always on a high level of alertness. Cheating on spouses seems rampant. Sexual harassment is rampant and completely tolerated. Female soldiers fear their fellow soldiers more than the enemy.
When not down range, the cheating and sexual harassment are less, but still there. Otherwise it seems something like a civilian job. They work hard and play hard. Lots of partying etc. But that’s to be expected amongst a crowd of folks in their 20s.
I thought of more things I’ve learned. They have to get into “formation” at all of these odd times, usually extremely early in the morning. It’s basically a head count. But just struck me as odd.
The workplace seems more dysfunctional than in the civilian world because they can’t fire worthless workers.
Down range, there are a lot more attacks than are reported in the US media.
There’s tons of bureaucracy, and soldiers have no real idea what it going to happen until it does. Misinformation flows freely. (makes planning for us families difficult).
They take all of the uniform formalities very seriously, but in all the time I’ve been on a base with her, I’ve never seen anyone salute.
I’m a civilian government lawyer, and I had occasion to work one time with a JAG attorney on an airbase. She had a whole file drawer marked “Sonic Boom Claims.” I had the impression that she worked on everything from procurement problems to bailing drunken brawlers out of the local county jail.
Thank you for that, by the way.