Are/were some of you guys in the army ?!

Are/were some of you guys in the army ?!

Well, in germany, we have a compulsory military service, so that every german male of 18-23 has to be in the german Bundeswehr for at least min. 9 months (or alternative civilian service if you are feared by guns) ..... This is something, germans had to do, because we were "front line" in the cold war ..... but the military service "survived" the global change .... I am 21 now, which means I allready had to decide, what to do .... so, i decided to GET A GUN *yay*

I was for 9 months in an artillery scout battalion near the border to the netherlands ..... many times out in the forrests arround, and a hell lot of shoting !!!!! Regularly shoting with G36 (assault rifle), MG3 (the [modified version of] MG42 of WWII - nasty, but sweet weapon !!!!!), P8 (pistol) and a single shoting with a Panzerfaust (PRG) made me enjoy my time there ....

Some vids of "our" weapons to show ya, how much fun i had there:

G36 is the best weapon ever invented imo Only weights something about 6 pounds.
[youtube:25or8uvb]GtZEBM9fBts&feature=related[/youtube:25or8uvb] [youtube:25or8uvb]DWvGl9uxPkM&feature=related[/youtube:25or8uvb]

MG3
[youtube:25or8uvb]xAHXKnjkSVM&feature=related[/youtube:25or8uvb]

Panzerfaust ( I had one shot .... unforgetable !!! [not me in the vid btw] )
[youtube:25or8uvb]kiVRO1bhdj0&feature=related[/youtube:25or8uvb]


So .... were/are some of you guys in your military ?! I really wanna know !

 

Re: Are/were some of you guys in the army ?!

Nice, so you've been in the army too... We have a similar compulsory training system in Finland for most males aged 19-27. I had 12 months of service in 3 garrisons: An air force base in my city on arctic circle, the Jäegerbattalion garrison some 200km north from my place and the officer academy in southern Finland almost on the Russian border.

Shooting with several weapons including both light and heavy machineguns and a hot anti-tank weapon was definitely a unique experience, but in retrospect the leadership training was the single most memorable experience of my life. I'm still waiting for the pictures from officer training but they should arrive this week (finally).

Aside from the weapons you listed, what else do you gladly reminisce from your time? I might have a few war stories of my own to share... For one there is nothing like the feeling when you start your push with the smell of smoke grenades and gun powder from training ammunition and the platoon shouting... ahhh sweet memories..

 

Re: Are/were some of you guys in the army ?!

Well, right after the basic training, is was put in the assistance squad, that was responsible for the training of the new recruits .... made me lol, because just 1 week after "they" were finished with drilling me, i joined them and helped drilling the new guys.

So, during the 2 weeks of combat training in the forests, i was part of the paramilitarian command that was attacking the recruit's positions .... funniest moment was, that the staff sergeant of my unit was pissed, that we had a lot of assault rifles, but no MG, so i was ordered to "camp" together with a higher comrade one of the two recruit platoons's alert post .... we waited whole hour in the rain in the cold 4th. January week of last year, it was 2am, there was a horrible sight, 'caused by the rain-clouds, and it was -2 degree Celsius .... well, we waited an hour to the next changing of the guards, then we were crawling behind their positions, and captured them with our knives, whispering to them "you have been captured, dont say a word" .... and took their MG with us as well .

The "new" MG3 made our staff sergeant that kinda euphoric, that he decided to invade the now alert post'less 2nd recruit platoon's camp xD So we crawled to them as near as we could ... and made a lot of "boom" near their campfire and shot them a bit with practice ammunition and some some practice grenades, leting them know: "you're dead, bitches" ! I dont wanna know, what their leader was doing to the 2 recruits we captured =)

That was the best night i had there so far .... you should have seen the kind of expression that the recruit's platoon staff sergeant, as he have seen us "killing" them from closest distance ..... his face said: "WTF?!?!?!?" My damn "team failed so hard, fuckin noobs!" .... Blu team won xD

 

Re: Are/were some of you guys in the army ?!

OMG that's awesome... lol we had a lot of respect to the rangers like you from the officer academy Ranger Company. There was always rumours going on about them but no-one had ever actually seen a ranger during a field training mission although they had been scouting our positions everywhere... it was a silent respect/eternal hate -relationship between rangers and the rest. (though we had an internal joke about them, since they were supposed to be unseen, unheard, unknown... but were definitely not unsmelled hehheh...)

So based on your description I take it makes you... what, a corporal? I was trained as a rifle platoon leader, and one of the missions during officer training was a competition in the field between all platoons of the academy (about 25). The mission was to march about 25km through series of checkpoints in the forest/outskirts of the town while completing specific tasks on the way such as an elaborate live-fire shooting range. It was a cloudless day during the hottest time of June, sun was shining hot as hell (almost literally), we had a minimal battle gear of about 10kg including the rifle and a limited amount of water which proved to be a problem towards the end.

I was unanimously nominated as the primary navigator... I had no experience whatsoever about it but I understood how to read a map and I was in a peak physical condition (3200m in 12min). Damn I was excited, but the good thing was that because of the responsibility (if I failed, our platoon failed), there was no room for exhaustion or fatique. I ran like hell some 50m in front of the platoon scouting the next route, informing the elected platoon leader. Things got most interesting only in the very end, when we started to overtake several platoons that had started way earlier than we had. Our company was in plain sight when we had about 3km to go. We...

Hmm I have to go now... I'll finish this story once I come back from bouldering. Cya later...

 

Re: Are/were some of you guys in the army ?!

Fortunately in Poland we don't have to go to army
I'm so happy about that fact, however. I'm invalid and i can't be in army.

 

Re: Are/were some of you guys in the army ?!

Lol, no, not a corporal xD Private First Class is the highest rank you gain during the normal9 months, you have to stay there if you wanna get a higher rank. But at least, we were just stalking some rookies there, so with some detailed instructions we were more then enough to handle them (our staff sergeant was extremely pro).

But ye, we were pro scouts, we got some additional stealth training in the forest to our normal basic training.


And ..... I am familiar with long marches, i wont say more, too much pain to remember

 

Re: Are/were some of you guys in the army ?!

I would've wanted that too but no... only extensive camouflage applications just before an attack, since we were an offensive rifle company.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, so the company was in plain sight with just about 10 minutes to go, when I noticed that I had more energy than most our crew, so I started rallying the lot to suck it up for the final push. Our platoon leader, a big guy 190cm, almost literally collapsed just about then from the apparent dehydration. He was carried to the finish line by Mäkelä, a short but rather strong guy who afterwards commented the feat by saying "...Vainioranta is a heavy guy..." I saw Tervo who had 3 battlegears from his mates and Rajala who carried... dunno 5-6 rifles? Something like that. Our goal was to put ourselves to the limit and that we did.

I took a pale roommate of mine and started to half carry him eventhough his gear was already on someone else at the time, and shouted some battlecries from the top of my lungs. And trust me, after the leadership training the voice was loud. I motivated the crew with our company and platoon call signs "KÄRKI" and "BRAVO", "Pity is a SICKNESS!" - which was our drill instructor's catch phrase - and here is a kicker "PAIN IS WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY!" though I said it in finnish ofc.

We overtook a few platoons on the last 500m as the pale roommate of mine, who I was already half-carrying muttered that he couldn't move. He leaned to a lamppost, started shaking all over and collapsed back down on the ground. We poured our last drops of water on his head yelling at his face to have him stay in his senses. I don't remember who was right there at the moment but I took the guy from one leg while 4 others took him from the other leg and arms and carried him even as he was still shaking. Nearing the finish line there was another guy slowing down but luckily he had two mates of his own with him carrying from both arms.

We crossed the finish line and had the weak lads taken in shadow - I took a bucket of water waiting us and poured it on Nissilä while crying "MEEEDIIIC" (again in finnish ofc "LÄÄKINTÄMIEEES!"). Our company's chief Major Takkila took a picture just a minute after it, capturing the apparent satisfaction and blissful fatigue on all our faces including the 2 guys we had to hold standing. Once the picture was taken the medics had Nissilä immediately on infusion.

A few minutes after we heard we made it 4th after only the AT platoon from our company that had a national level competitive navigator, the primary ranger platoon, and the communications platoon whose members had an average of 3200m/12min running test result. Bloody hell... we were more than happy since the combined results won us the overall companies' annual competition. We also received the traditional custom-made Ruk-puukko that is only for officers completing the race. Once we sat down on the green ground in sunshine there was a feeling of satisfaction like - never - before.

 

Re: Are/were some of you guys in the army ?!

Well, we were teached to just use the things we have arround ..... we made our own camouflage suits with some sand bags and a few camouflage nets ... as well as using the botanic arround, to look like it:




May not look impressive, but trust me .... if we are hiding, or even better, if we dig in, you wont find us that easily .... the recruits just walked down a path through the forest, 5 m away from our positions, and wheter they nor their group leader (corporal) were detecting us .... we were waiting there for more then 2 hours and waited until they passed us .... then we came out and shot them a bit .... *surprise* And that was at day ..... we performed like that in the rain at 2am in the dark forest as I allready said .... you would have needed god's eyes to see us coming !!!! We were teached to take us some time and move as slow as possible to make us invincible to enemy's alert posts ... and as i also allready told ya: we succeded with taking them out, poor rookies ...

Example: Can you see the soldier under this vegetables ?! =)

Trust me, the whole landscape looked like that, so the 'lil elevation wasn't suspicious at all .... we even have burrowed earth holes with "saving" the grassroots to lay them above us ... you havent seen any differens where we burrowed our posiotn and where we are ^_^ But you have to wear your water resistant, otherwise, the long waiting will finish you in the cold, wet earth ... oh, the most of us were fresh outa the basic military training, so I really dont know, how impressive our veterans would have done that xD

 

Re: Are/were some of you guys in the army ?!

Yeah I know... I was scouting with a pair in front of our attacking platoon with normal battlegear, camo face paint and some branches we picked up on the ground strapped on the gear. We took turns moving forward on each side of the road according to basic protocol near enemy contact. I observed my teammate when he moved a bit in front of me about 6m to the left. When the movement stopped and he was in position, I couldn't see him anymore... just with the very basic camo. If one doesn't actively search something it can only be found by stepping on it...

Your camo looks very good. I can imagine how the recruits wouldn't notice you.

 

Re: Are/were some of you guys in the army ?!

They are developing invisibility camo using nano techonology the moment will be god of all camo, saw a demonstration of it at a science exhebition.

Basicaly theres nano technology in the fibres of the clothes/camo that detect the colour of the surroundings and automaticaly changes colour to your surroundings.. so it is basicaly like having invisibility when they were demonstrating it you could see slightly outline of the person wearing the camo when they moved because the colours didn't update fast enough for the eye not to notice but when standing still you couldn't event tell they were there. Also if you wernt looking very closely like we were to try and see the guy you probably wouldn't notice them while they were moving either.

 

Re: Are/were some of you guys in the army ?!

I've thought about joining the army, if i did i would take the officer route.

 

Re: Are/were some of you guys in the army ?!

Well, in the first few weeks, you have to be able resist and ignore psychological pain - the basic training really can become extreme harsh ..... my one was just like hell, but that is caused by the instructor's voices *omg* .....

I think that german is the most scary language for military order's ..... i compared that @ youtube. Here the famous scene of Full Metal Jacket with Gunnery sergeant Hartman, in english and german dub .... just compare

English
[youtube:ebwlv16r]tlTvPujThfU&feature=related[/youtube:ebwlv16r]

German
[youtube:ebwlv16r]YR12-lyZTUE&feature=related[/youtube:ebwlv16r]

My group leader also sounded like that .... and he appeared to us like a killer *still scared* ....

@ Th: "LÄÄKINTÄMIEEES" is medic in fin. ?! xD Sounds weird .... in german army, we cry "SANIIIIIIIIII" (short for: Sanitäter) .... nice story btw. , congratz for your success