Spavined Gelding, you’re right. I know that you weren’t singling me out, but I was flippant with my post. I don’t know if it makes a difference, but I’m going to restate what I wrote. I hope that I’m not just mucking things up further.
Of course the best conflicts are the ones that are peacefully resolved. Beyond that, I’m too old to enlist. I’m bench racing, but there are three things that motivate me that might influence where I would want to serve if I could volunteer for service: a desire to help and/or assist people, an obsessive desire for a job well done, and an attraction to work that achieves results but that isn’t associated with high levels of recognition. I have to hand it to the military engineers. Combat is hard enough when you are told to shoot back but I have to hand it to anyone that builds stuff in the middle of a fight, and while I may be wrong I suspect that there aren’t many medals given to construction workers. I’ll never be there, but there is an appeal to doing the job no matter what it takes. Don’t get me wrong; there is no appeal to the simple risking of human life.
Also, for what little it’s worth, I looked into becoming a medic during Gulf War I, but the conflict ended before I signed anything. My belief (somewhat demonstrated since then) is that my life is no more important than anyone else’s, and I want to be willing to risk my life if it will likely result in a net savings of human life.
Sure, this is bench racing. In the end, “you go where you are told.”
My fantasy combat role would be an Air Force fighter pilot. Too bad I’m too old to start training, and I don’t have the near-perfect eyesight.
So my next choice would be an officer in an information-systems warfare (or whatever is the proper military term for “hackers and crackers”) unit. Let’s face it, at this point WWIII would be won or lost partly on who can do a better job of messing up the other side’s computer systems (C-quad-I, I think it’s called).
My worst choices would be Army ground combat, and anything Navy.
Well i TRIED to join the Army (ROTC) but they kicked me out. I imagine if they kept me, I would have ended up in the Corps of Engineers, which would have been pretty cool.
I’ve been a military buff all of my life, so it’s hard to pick what I would be most interested in doing. Just about anything but plain ole front-line grunt. Which of course means thats what I would most likely end up being. In that case, I would like to at least be in the Marines.
Well, assuming women are allowed on the front lines in this fictional war, I’d go for Special Forces or sniper training. I could never do submarines (drowning phobia) or fly anything (terrible vertigo). In reality, I’d probably never get accepted into the military. Other than being a good shooter, I have no other skills that the military would find useful, plus I’m short, slow and have no upper body strength.
Put me back in a Tank; specifically, M1-A1 or later (I think that’s all the U.S. Army is using nowadays). I wouldn’t mind a British Challenger, a German Leopard II, or the French LeClerc Mk. 2. All are very good Western designs with considerable attention paid to crew survivability.
Several decent “Don’t Fuck With Me!” machineguns, and one giant “I Said, Don’t Fuck With ME!” 120mm cannon, protected by several feet of excellent armor, and plenty of crew protection systems in the eventuality of a debilitating hit.
As for unit type: Cavalry, always. Preferably Armored Cavalry, but not the 11th in Fulda; “For Those About To Die, We Salute You (Better You Than Me, Chump!”). Armor’s fine for finally smashing the Bad Guys, but Cavalry gets them into position to do the thing. “Shoot, Scoot, and Communicate!”
In Gulf War I, our greatest fear was our own Air Farce, jet-jockeys so hopped up on adrenaline and just itching to drop some cool ordnance that they wouldn’t bother with such niceties as vehicle identification; fortunately, this fear was (largely) unfounded, even though we had some A-10s come in close and hot for a visual ID, and there’s not much difference from a ground-pounder’s perspective between an A-10 on an attack run and an A-10 coming in close for an eyeball. But most M-1 kills were friendly fire from other M-1s, and even those incidents were rare. T-72? I wave my private parts in your Auntie’s face!
Out of fuel? Become a pilbox.
Out of Ammo? Become a bunker.
Out of hope? Become a hero.
IMO, a “hero” is someone in Deep Shit a very long way from home.
I would probably go back to my old MOS, as an electronic tech in the Army. I did try to get into helicopter pilot training, but my eyesight is/was terrible. But this time around, with a college degree, I might have a shot at a commission if it weren’t for the “age thing”. On the other hand, going back at my old rank of E-5 would be OK. Just so long as it isn’t going back as an “E1 maggot trainee”. :eek:
Apologies if the thread seemed in bad taste, it simply came from one of those “what if?” conversations that pop up between a group of friends, in this case the question in the OP. The general concensus was that nobody wanted to go to war in a submarine and I was wondering what other people would think.
I was also interested in what areas would prove most popular.
And believe me I know real war isn’t fun and games and it wasn’t my intention to suggest that it is.
After having seen the effectiveness of the upgraded systems, I would go back to what I knew: tank killing with infantry-based antiarmor missiles.
I was a TOW section leader, and before that a gunner. I served in “peacetime”, during the Cold War, at the beginning of the Reagan era.
Personally, I would rather fight it out from here at my computer. With the current rate of advances in technology we could have the first Armchair War in a few years.
Like a few other here, I would go back to what I did when I was in. In my case, combat engineer paltoon leader. It was not my first choice, but once I was in I developed a real appreciation for the work that engineers do. Plus we got to blow up lots of stuff, which is very cool.
Almost certainly the Air Force. Hell, I applied to the damn Air Force academy, so that says something. I almost did ROTC, but decided not to, so it’s probably a good thing I didn’t get into the Academy.
Dream military job would be A-10 pilot, but that seems pretty popluar, so I don’t know what the odds are of getting it (I do have good eyesight and a college degree, so I’m slightly closer to being able to fly a plane than the average guy) But, with my degree, the military would want me to do basically what I do now, a biomed tech. I don’t know what it might be called in the military, or what branches have it, but if I didn’t have a choice in the matter that would be the most logical place to put me.
