...who may have already linked to this, I don't know. Here is Someone You Should Know.
Aside from the visitors to the Castle who come in from Google searches for Gun Pr0n, most are military, or military-related, like family members, friends, etc. This post is for you 'normals' who lead a regular life, but who surf blogs like this trying to get a sense of the who, what, and why-the-hell? of soldiering.
I'm going to link to a post by "The Questing Cat," a soldier of the 1st Infantry Division. In this post, you'll get a view into "A day in the life of an Infantryman, 'Interesting version.'" That's as opposed to "A day in the life of an Infantryman, 'Routine Version.'"
Several things to note.
1. People like to put a bash on military training. Fox Yankee Mike Fox (you who know, know). Military training has evolved over thousands of years, people. We really do know what we're doing. We understand all the levels of learning and all that cool stuff you learned in college while pursuing your Adult Education, Early Childhood Education, Fill-in-the-blank Education classes and majors. And a lot of that stuff is applied - first - in the military school systems. At the advanced levels. Well, mebbe not that Early Childhood stuff, except in the Marine Corps schools. At the basic level - we try to teach it to sub-atomic levels. So that when you are under stress, you don't think - you act. Because your Orient Observe Decide Act (OODA) loop already has the pattern recognition algorithms ingrained at a molecular level. You don't have to spend a whole lot of time in the Observe-Decide portion - because you have the template stored in the Orient section that short-circuits you to Act. That is how you stay inside the other guy's 'decision loop' (hat tip to Instapilot's hero, Boyd).
I'd note that people also put a bash on military planning. Well, for all you education majors out there who think that the planning for the War and it's aftermath were all bollixed up... those plans were drawn up by officers who attended the Advanced schooling where we apply all those fancy educational concepts. Draw what conclusions you will...
That is evident in this post.
2. Why we fight. Mom, Apple Pie, Chevrolet Ford, and the GI Bill get you into uniform and into theater. Once in combat, you fight pretty much for one thing. Each other. Yes, all the rest of it is there - but when the bees are buzzing, it's the Team, and nothing else. If you are thinking about something else, you and we have failed, and we're all at risk.
That is evident in this post.
3. That wondrous word, which will get me in trouble with net-nanny software... F*ck. It's a word born for combat. For soldiering. For combat soldiering. I had a buddy who, when under fire, if he wasn't giving orders or talking on the radio was just saying "f*ck f*ck f*ckety-f*ck" over and over again. He had no clue he did it. If he was shooting, "f*ck f*ck f*ckety-f*ck," if he was maneuvering, "f*ck f*ck f*ckety-f*ck," if he was motioning over the RTO, "f*ck f*ck f*ckety-f*ck," if he was looking at his map, "f*ck f*ck f*ckety-f*ck." Now, if things were exploding nearby, it changed. To "f*ck f*ck F*CKETY-F*CK!" If there were bullets coming close enough you sensed they might not have the normal addressing of "To Whom It May Concern," but rather "I'm Looking For YOU, Motherf*cker," it changed.
To "F*CKF*CKF*CKETYF*CKMOTHERF*CKING A$$HOLE!"
That too, is evident in this post.
Read about a day in the life of an Infantryman. And pay attention to the last line in the post.
Proud to be a veteran of the Big Red One. If you're going to be one, be a Big Red One!
Tip o' the hat to SWWBO for pointing me to the post!
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