Any ex-military types out there (survey)?

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

For a colleague at work:
http://esurv.org/online-survey.php?surveyID=LIKIFM_1abed51&u=militaryidentity
Especially if you are or know any ex-RAF or Marines?
Thanks
Will

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Few at our club - I'm ex-LUOTC

IanS

[FierceKitty]

Do I count? I was thrown out of our army after three weeks.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Yes FK

[paulr]

Do I count? I was thrown out of our army after three weeks.

That is a distinction, of sorts. Do tell

[FierceKitty]

Well, I modelled my performance on Glenda Jackson in the Marat/Sade, answered a few questions on the assumption that most soldiers are born fools and most psychologists carefully cultivated ones, and after two weeks was removed from barracks and put in the loony ward; a week later I was sent home, officially an acute schizophrenic. Having lived sharing a flat and a bed with a real case of that disease for a few months, I was frustrated that they hadn't worked out that I was doing depressive paranoia, but I decided not to complain.

[Steeleye]

Well that was odd...

I know its been a while since I was 'in' but I can't remember thinking about any of those questions when I was 21 and running around County Tyrone! Or trying to stay awake in the turret of my Chieftain while on Exercise in West Germany.

In NI I remember being bored most of the time and pissed off that I'd lost my Local Overseas Allowance (for living in West Germany) and having it replaced with 50p a day active service pay...the guys with families back in Germany were even more pissed off than I was.

Yeah I enjoyed being in the Army, some of it was a good laugh and when you were allowed to do what you had actually been trained and deployed to do it was a pretty good career. Unfortunately most of the time we did 'make work'.

Fun things in the Army.

Exercises...where you went out and played soldier.

Northern Ireland, yep that was good 'fun' because we were actually doing something we'd been trained for.

One of the funest times I had was spending two weeks building fences for officers on their horses to jump over! Got a lot of free beer and good will out of that one.

To be honest I wasn't motivated by unit pride or national pride (I was self motivated...this was the 'right' thing to do) and as for camaraderie...well the less said about that the better. Don't get me wrong, if I'd seen a 'man down' I'd have still have gone out under fire and tried to bring him in. After all anyone can rescue a buddy it takes a special kind on nut-job to run out and rescue someone you don't like!

Okay I've rambled on far too long...

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

  to both!

[FierceKitty]

The only plausible objection to allowing women to serve in a modern army seems to me the point that men may be dangerously protective, and might hazard their mission rather than abandon a wounded female comrade.

[T13A]

Hi Steeleye

Snap!

Aughnacloy and surrounding area and Armagh.

Not forgetting "Sabot dot one, firing NOW!"  (2RTR).

Unfortunately just outside of the age range of the questionnaire (boy I'm really getting old).

Cheers Paul

[Nosher]

Yeah, I completed this too. Oddly enough 16 years to the day I left.

I found the questions quite odd. I'm assuming they were written by a civilian? I also thought they were quite american?

Sense of duty and king and country never ever crossed my mind when joining. It was a family tradition with most of the males in my family joining due to lack of work and any job being better than no job.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Thanks gents.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Yeah, I completed this too. Oddly enough 16 years to the day I left.
Sense of duty and king and country

KING and country - you are getting on then.

IanS 

[Sean67]

Filled it in as well.
Remember going on tour Bosnia without the pay package they get now.
Money didn't motivate me a sense of adventure did Joined in 1990 before all these wars signed on for 6 years and stayed for 24 !
Would still be in but they told me to leave.
Regards
Sean