Military Roll Call! Veterans, GTFIH!

Hey @Mike Hagger, how old were you when you went through Ranger school?
. Master Sgt. Jole Alvarez (right) of 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) posing for a photo with a fellow Green Beret after Alvarez, 42, completed Ranger School at Fort Benning, Ga., in December 2018.
image.jpg

"Age is no obstacle: Soldiers complete Army’s toughest schools after 40"
Story: https://www.stripes.com/news/us/age...ete-army-s-toughest-schools-after-40-1.571375
 
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We had a Field Meet Today for the Recruits/New Marines

Which was Horseshit because our Series has the One Goddamn Female Platoon and they were integrated to the different events and of course they lost because of them

Pull Up Contest , Push Up Contest , Ammo Can Press , Ammo Can Relay , Obstacle Course Relay , Tug of War.
 
I’m 35 years old!! While I’m not fat and out of shape, I’m not what I use to be. But I think we can all relate to that in some way.
The last2 years in the military I got really into running. I think it was mostly because of where I was stationed (VAFB) and my flight cmdr prodding me to run marathons and shit.
It’s been about a year since I’ve run a good distance, 15+miles, but over the past few weeks I’ve been getting back into (3-5 miles at a time) and thinking to myself as I run: how the fuck did I run so many miles and races when I was younger and physically be able to take it? Is this the end of being physically fit lol?

Then I read an article like the one above and say to myself, quit being a pussy.
 
“The Iron will always kick you the real deal.”
Henry Rollins.
 
RangerDanAndHisBigDogDick said:
Then I read an article like the one above and say to myself, quit being a pussy.
Click to expand...
The Ranger school APFT soldiers take, regardless of your age, is for the 18 year old category at 70%.
. Push-ups: 49 (in 2:00 minutes)
. Sit-ups: 59 (in 2:00 minutes)
. 2-mile run: 15:12
So, Alvarez at 42 had to pass it at the 18 year old category. Now, this guy had already graduated from 'scuba' school which has the hardest PT standards in the U.S. Army.
 
John T. Reed (Vietnam Veteran, West Point/Harvard Grad) posted this the other day:

"I will try to summarize Tim Bakken’s "The Cost of Loyalty" book. It is an important book.
.
The service academies (West Point, Annapolis, and Air Force) of smart top leaders in war is an outdated notion. The military officer corps and the service academies have morphed into unselective, insular, careerist, bastions of ineptitude where the highest virtue is loyalty to your boss and to the military lifer community.
.
The three service academies should be closed or repurposed. The take way too much time and money to produce second lieutenants and the officers thus produced are not perceptibly better than the ones produced much more cheaply and faster by ROTC and OCS.
.
Loyalty pushes out competence at winning wars and honesty about the performance of military career officers.
.
This profound crime against the officers’ oaths is greatly aided and abetted the military being given its own judicial system where the lifer officers are prosecutors, judge, jury.
.
The paramount de facto goal of the military judicial system is to protect any high ranking officers from being embarrassed, protect the officer corps from being embarrassed, to protect officers from losing their pensions, protecting the the senior NCO and officer corps from ever being punished for anything. All malfeasance is excused as not intentional, even when it was intentional and offenses where the standard is negligence or recklessness are treated as if those laws do not exist.
.
The military career officer corps needs to be radically reformed to become transparent and competent and accountable for failure and misbehavior.
.
Military leader ranks have been hurt by a significant lowering of IQ and citizenship standards, especially among so-called “at-risk” low IQ and criminals recruited in spite of their lack of qualifications in order to fulfill quotas and to acquire football and basketball players who are competitive at the top NCAA level but whom West Point and the other academies cannot recruit without accepting person who are not officer material by virtue of low IQ and/or criminal records.
.
The military has the wrong weapons, no coherent strategies for actual war fighting, and lacks the intelligence to correct the situation.
.
Bakken is a civilian lawyer non-veteran so his perspective is most valuable when he analyzes the judicial aspects of the problem. And his twenty years as a West Point teacher has given him considerable understanding of the cadets and training there.
.
If West Point is to continue, it needs to change to the Division III athletic level so that it can stop recruiting dumb criminals to achieve otherwise unattainable athletic competitiveness. Their opponents then would be teams like the Coast Guard and Merchant Marine academies and NESCAC teams like Williams and Amherst and teams like MIT and Johns Hopkins.
.
The three major service academies really need to cease existence. West Point was created because America needed civil engineers and had to use Europeans for that. But warfare has long since stopped being about fortifications and America has long since created many top engineering schools.
.
There is no reason for the US federal government to operate accredited four-year colleges with the possible exception of Coast Guard and Merchant Marine academies because they teach operation of special purpose equipment not taught by civilian schools.
.
West Pointers are disproportionately represented in the higher ranks of the Army, but not in the ranks of successful officers. There seem to be none of those. Neither the WPers nor the ROTCers have won a war since 1945. If they both suck, just do ROTC because they are cheaper and take far fewer training hours.
.
I support Bakken’s reforms of the judicial system. Basically, repeal the UCMJ and have civilian DOJ lawyers and federal courts handle the litigation.
.
My solution to reform of the military is radical: Reinstate the draft and draft all ranks. Abolish career officers other than those who operate special equipment like fighter jets or submarines. Draft successful executives to command large size units. This was done roughly speaking during World War II. Also, the Navy Seabees operated like this. They were Construction Battalions made up of drafted civilian experienced construction workers.
.
I also would use letters of marque, sort of bounty hunters who would be put into the military, but who would conduct their operations however legal way they wanted. They would be exempt from such things as saluting and ranks and all that. They ick their own guys, equip themselves as they wish, and execute their own plans. They would have to abide by international law and US law but no lifers would have any control over how they accomplished their mission.
.
Bakken would reform the existing US military. I say, forget about it. Start over. We won our last victory with 13 million mostly draftees. They idea that a “professional” military is better sounds logical but is belied by the results in 1945 and since. The competent people in America are in civilian life, not the military.
.
My Uncle Jack was a high school dropout OCS officer in 1940. At one point, he was the youngest captain in the ground forces in the US army in Europe. He said we won the war in spite of the lifers not because of them. He said the civilians knew how to get things done and after they realized the lifers were incompetent, they just ignored them and got it done.
.
Result: VE Day and VJ Day. The only V Days achieved by the lifers are Valentines Day."
 
vcmmafan said:
John T. Reed (Vietnam Veteran, West Point/Harvard Grad) posted this the other day:

"I will try to summarize Tim Bakken’s "The Cost of Loyalty" book. It is an important book.
.
The service academies (West Point, Annapolis, and Air Force) of smart top leaders in war is an outdated notion. The military officer corps and the service academies have morphed into unselective, insular, careerist, bastions of ineptitude where the highest virtue is loyalty to your boss and to the military lifer community.
.
The three service academies should be closed or repurposed. The take way too much time and money to produce second lieutenants and the officers thus produced are not perceptibly better than the ones produced much more cheaply and faster by ROTC and OCS.
.
Loyalty pushes out competence at winning wars and honesty about the performance of military career officers.
.
This profound crime against the officers’ oaths is greatly aided and abetted the military being given its own judicial system where the lifer officers are prosecutors, judge, jury.
.
The paramount de facto goal of the military judicial system is to protect any high ranking officers from being embarrassed, protect the officer corps from being embarrassed, to protect officers from losing their pensions, protecting the the senior NCO and officer corps from ever being punished for anything. All malfeasance is excused as not intentional, even when it was intentional and offenses where the standard is negligence or recklessness are treated as if those laws do not exist.
.
The military career officer corps needs to be radically reformed to become transparent and competent and accountable for failure and misbehavior.
.
Military leader ranks have been hurt by a significant lowering of IQ and citizenship standards, especially among so-called “at-risk” low IQ and criminals recruited in spite of their lack of qualifications in order to fulfill quotas and to acquire football and basketball players who are competitive at the top NCAA level but whom West Point and the other academies cannot recruit without accepting person who are not officer material by virtue of low IQ and/or criminal records.
.
The military has the wrong weapons, no coherent strategies for actual war fighting, and lacks the intelligence to correct the situation.
.
Bakken is a civilian lawyer non-veteran so his perspective is most valuable when he analyzes the judicial aspects of the problem. And his twenty years as a West Point teacher has given him considerable understanding of the cadets and training there.
.
If West Point is to continue, it needs to change to the Division III athletic level so that it can stop recruiting dumb criminals to achieve otherwise unattainable athletic competitiveness. Their opponents then would be teams like the Coast Guard and Merchant Marine academies and NESCAC teams like Williams and Amherst and teams like MIT and Johns Hopkins.
.
The three major service academies really need to cease existence. West Point was created because America needed civil engineers and had to use Europeans for that. But warfare has long since stopped being about fortifications and America has long since created many top engineering schools.
.
There is no reason for the US federal government to operate accredited four-year colleges with the possible exception of Coast Guard and Merchant Marine academies because they teach operation of special purpose equipment not taught by civilian schools.
.
West Pointers are disproportionately represented in the higher ranks of the Army, but not in the ranks of successful officers. There seem to be none of those. Neither the WPers nor the ROTCers have won a war since 1945. If they both suck, just do ROTC because they are cheaper and take far fewer training hours.
.
I support Bakken’s reforms of the judicial system. Basically, repeal the UCMJ and have civilian DOJ lawyers and federal courts handle the litigation.
.
My solution to reform of the military is radical: Reinstate the draft and draft all ranks. Abolish career officers other than those who operate special equipment like fighter jets or submarines. Draft successful executives to command large size units. This was done roughly speaking during World War II. Also, the Navy Seabees operated like this. They were Construction Battalions made up of drafted civilian experienced construction workers.
.
I also would use letters of marque, sort of bounty hunters who would be put into the military, but who would conduct their operations however legal way they wanted. They would be exempt from such things as saluting and ranks and all that. They ick their own guys, equip themselves as they wish, and execute their own plans. They would have to abide by international law and US law but no lifers would have any control over how they accomplished their mission.
.
Bakken would reform the existing US military. I say, forget about it. Start over. We won our last victory with 13 million mostly draftees. They idea that a “professional” military is better sounds logical but is belied by the results in 1945 and since. The competent people in America are in civilian life, not the military.
.
My Uncle Jack was a high school dropout OCS officer in 1940. At one point, he was the youngest captain in the ground forces in the US army in Europe. He said we won the war in spite of the lifers not because of them. He said the civilians knew how to get things done and after they realized the lifers were incompetent, they just ignored them and got it done.
.
Result: VE Day and VJ Day. The only V Days achieved by the lifers are Valentines Day."
Click to expand...
What the fuck? I don’t know where to start, what sporadic and ridiculous compiling of words.
 
vcmmafan said:
John T. Reed (Vietnam Veteran, West Point/Harvard Grad) posted this the other day:
I will try to summarize Tim Bakken’s "The Cost of Loyalty" book. It is an important book.

"The service academies (West Point, Annapolis, and Air Force) of smart top leaders in war is an outdated notion. The military officer corps and the service academies have morphed into unselective, insular, careerist, bastions of ineptitude where the highest virtue is loyalty to your boss and to the military lifer community."
Click to expand...
I believe you had a few posts on this guy in the past. Reed sounds like one sorry ass individual. Bitter about his military experience. As I recall, he complained about everything he did (and was part of) in his military career.

Brief summary:
. West Point graduate (when it was all male): The school sucked and it sucks more now that it has females.
. Ranger school graduate: Ranger school sucked and is not a leadership school. He left out the part where West Point graduates get 'pushed' through the school regardless of how much they may suck.
. Vietnam War: It sucked and so did the U.S. Army in Vietnam.
. Special Forces: Reed was turned down 5 times by Special Forces. I'm sure they sucked after that.
. U.S. Army Officers (like himself): They suck.
. The U.S. military: It sucks.
. Left out the part that Colin Powell was an ROTC graduate who won the Gulf War in 1991. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The first African-American to serve in this position.

In summary:
John Reed is a bitter individual who hates the U.S. Army after spending four years in it -- to include one tour in Vietnam. As a veteran, I think the man has never gotten over Vietnam and how the U.S. military lost that war. Reed thinks he is an expert in all things military, but he is not. He just has an opinion, like everyone else. I believe Reed got passed over for promotion and was forced out of the system. Reed needs one of these to 'suck' on. o_O
 
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John T. Reed

"I have no desire or qualifications to consult on the military. What do I know about the military that would qualify me to consult on it? All I am is a concerned citizen with a little bit more experience than the average person."

"Like most Vietnam vets, my time there was mostly boring and I had no significant involvement with the enemy. To state it in terms that Vietnam vets would use, I was never in a firefight. Like most vets, I was stationed at bases that were the targets of enemy rocket attacks."

"I’m outraged at the way I was treated by the military and by the way the military fails to accomplish its missions and by the way the military gets people killed unnecessarily and by the way they waste taxpayers money."
@vcmmafan
 
Phr3121 said:
John T. Reed

"I have no desire or qualifications to consult on the military. What do I know about the military that would qualify me to consult on it? All I am is a concerned citizen with a little bit more experience than the average person."

"Like most Vietnam vets, my time there was mostly boring and I had no significant involvement with the enemy. To state it in terms that Vietnam vets would use, I was never in a firefight. Like most vets, I was stationed at bases that were the targets of enemy rocket attacks."

"I’m outraged at the way I was treated by the military and by the way the military fails to accomplish its missions and by the way the military gets people killed unnecessarily and by the way they waste taxpayers money."
@vcmmafan
Click to expand...
My dad is a Vietnam vet and despises guys like this.
 
Gregolian said:
Gross.

Like legit from a civilian standpoint that’s disgustingly short
Click to expand...
Yeah it’s pretty weak. But for calibers like 6dasher and 6.5x47, or 6creed, running 3000fps will burn barrels circa 2000. But rounds like 6.5creed and 260 will run around 3k. Nothing compared to the 308 which can easily roll 7k plus.
 
Gregolian said:
My dad is a Vietnam vet and despises guys like this.
Click to expand...
...here are some more 'whiny' comments by Mr. Reed:

"I was a Platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division. I was in several units in Vietnam. I volunteered for the 82nd and Vietnam as well as a number of things I did not get like a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol unit in Vietnam (one of my West Point classmates with an identical resume arrived in Vietnam the day before me and got the LRRP slot I was sent to Vietnam to fill in D Company of the 75th Ranger Regiment). I volunteered for Special Forces five times. While I was in Vietnam I was on orders to be transferred to the 5th Special Forces Group, but the orders were changed for unknown reasons."

Ah, yeah, John, that is how the U.S. Army works. You don't always get the assignment you put in for. Needs of the Army, better qualified individuals, and a little politics.
 
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Interesting...
Not sure it will make much of a difference at that level. Should maybe be instituted for senior NCO positions also.

"U.S. Army Uses a New System to Promote Hundreds of Officers"
Story: https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-gen...m-to-promote-hundreds-of-officers-11583339726

"The Army is revamping its process and adapting private-sector techniques to choose new battalion commanders, a keystone position. The new system includes surveys by subordinates, writing tests, psychological assessments, cognitive evaluations and a series of simulated militarylike scenarios in a wooded area on base to gauge leadership and problem-solving abilities."
@vcmmafan
 
U.S. Army 1995 - 1997
Medical Specialist - IFOR Bosnia & Herzegovina
 
My old unit never found those missing rifles and both the CO and SgtMaj just got fired.

Simpsons-nelson-ha-ha-93-p-672x480.jpg


lol the SgtMaj just looks like a dick too. Peace, bitch.

191006-M-JQ834-0001.JPG
 
FloridaCracker said:
My old unit never found those missing rifles and both the CO and SgtMaj just got fired.

Simpsons-nelson-ha-ha-93-p-672x480.jpg


lol the SgtMaj just looks like a dick too. Peace, bitch.

191006-M-JQ834-0001.JPG
Click to expand...

These two were only there for 6 months they were basically made scapegoats.
 
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