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Ok, get this. I submit my application to the Canadian forces in mid JANUARY. Get my medical and physical testing done mid may, and find out, that somehow, I missed the cut off date for summer training. Why? Because the higher ups haven't approved and sent back my medical exam. It's not like I'm in perfect health, except that I AM GODDAMNIT!!!

SNAFU, Now hurry up and wait. Looks like no $4000 for me this summer.

Stupid bloody peace time armies...

*sigh* I guess the military is the same across borders, isn't it? "Hurry up and wait" is one of the mottos of the U.S. Army. I joined when I was 19. Despite having normal color vision, they labeled me as "colorblind" because the tech in the processing center flew through my color test without giving me a chance to focus even once. I guess he was having a long day, and just wanted to get it over with. I don't blame him. It was a very long line...

don't know about the US or canadien army, but the "slogan" for the finnish army is: "what doesn't kill you, pisses you off."

Originally posted by Chanak
*sigh* I guess the military is the same across borders, isn't it? "Hurry up and wait" is one of the mottos of the U.S. Army. <snip>

Hehehe - yours also?

We used to have a saying (actually as a grunt you get several, most aren't very nice) in my platoon (was a volenteer conscript - meaning I signed up eventhough I wasn't drafted)
"Ready, Set, Wait"

Although my draft periode was very short, due to me getting permision to get earlier to draft, getting earlier to server - wich means that after I was sent papers that I was to go to draft, a total of 6 months went and I was in the Army.
Usually it takes 6 months before your to go to the draft after getting the papers and another 6 months before you actually get to sever.

Originally posted by Locke Da'averan
don't know about the US or canadien army, but the "slogan" for the finnish army is: "what doesn't kill you, pisses you off."

The motto of the Austrian Army is apparently (as far as I remember from my stoned time in the military) :

"If it moves - salute, if it doesn't move - CLEAN IT !" ....

I've never again in my life cleaned so much doors, floors,windows and cars as I did in the military...**sighs**

No worries, I'm mostly harmless now...

Beldin

I'm sure Tammy will agree with me that the unofficial motto of the Australian army is "How come we don't have any bullets?", or maybe "Where are all our members?"
The official one is "The Army: The edge." Catchy, huh?

@Beldin-I wouldn't have thought you'd have been in the army, what made you sign up?

Originally posted by Ode to a Grasshopper

@Beldin-I wouldn't have thought you'd have been in the army, what made you sign up?

In Austria you HAVE to join the army for 8 months. It's the law...

I did my time like anyone else here - RELUCTANT ....

No worries,

Beldin

I thought that might be the case, to be honest. At least it sounds like you put the time to good SLURRy use. Thank goodness that's not required in Australia, I'd hate to have to join the army and what with the way that the Australian government keeps promising their unthinking total comittment to Dubyah's "War on Terror" it'd only be worse.

To put it short: Military SUCKS....if you're pressed into service and are not free in your choice...

The Pakistani Army motto is something i really like.
Unity Faith and Discipline.
Actually it is what our founding father - Quaid-e-Azam (Arabic for the Great Leader) said in the eve of our independence.

Glad to see it is international....

Stupid bloody freaking army! GRRR

I really need that money. I've got a part time job as a lifeguard but I need more hrs and they won't give them to me, and the stupid army who should have been my employeer dropped the ball.

Damn peace time armies.

@Beldin:

"If it moves - salute, if it doesn't move - CLEAN IT !" ....

LOL! I learned how to mop floors to a gleaming shine while I was in. I also learned how to clean a rifle from the muzzle to the shoulder rest with a cotton swab and oil. Oh yeah, and unless I forget: I dug holes. Lots of holes. I developed quite a talent for it, actually. I suppose if I ever am hard up for work, I could get a job as a grave digger.

Hey, eight months isn't that bad...I signed up for four years. (I kicked myself for doing that later) I agree: the military defintely sucked, but I did learn a few things while I was in.

@Xandax:

Although my draft periode was very short, due to me getting permision to get earlier to draft, getting earlier to server - wich means that after I was sent papers that I was to go to draft, a total of 6 months went and I was in the Army.

The US military is still a volunteer force. Every once in a while the subject of mandatory service comes up, but it never goes too far. I joined for a total of eight years - four of them active, the other four inactive. While I was in, Desert Storm/Shield happened in Kuwait. At that time, I was stationed in Germany, attatched to an ordinance unit.

@Ode:

I'm sure Tammy will agree with me that the unofficial motto of the Australian army is "How come we don't have any bullets?", or maybe "Where are all our members?"

Hey, that's what we said during the whole Kuwait/Iraq affair: they didn't give us any bullets in Germany!

Well, the Australian army might not have any bullets, but they sure do have beer. I liked it whenever an Australian military attatchment would visit. Bunch of great guys, and generous with their beer.

Oh, the official slogan for the US Army is "Be All That You Can Be." The US Air Force: "Aim High." The US Marines: "We're Looking for a few Good Men." I have no idea what the US Navy slogan is: no one does, really.

@Chanak-Well, the reason behind the two unofficial mottoes I gave for the Australian armed forces was because there was a big budget scare a while ago that pointed the spending for army ammunition was so low that soldiers weren't being trained in live-fire exercises, and were just using blanks, even when scheduled for live fire training.
The other motto is because it's recently been announced that there's a crisis in a shortage of membership in the army reserves, and that if attacked Australia could not adequately protect it's borders. The obvious thing is bring back our soldiers from Dubyah's War on the Rest of the World, and don't commit any more until we've solved our own military issues, but that's never going to happen under Prime Minister John Howard, who has recently been described as being an "ass-licker" during his recent meetings with Dubyah, and by another politician no less.
Considering Australia's one of the largest land-masses in the world, and has a population of around 20 million people, it shouldn't come as any surprise that we couldn't defend our borders if attacked.

@Ode:

Well, the reason behind the two unofficial mottoes I gave for the Australian armed forces was because there was a big budget scare a while ago that pointed the spending for army ammunition was so low that soldiers weren't being trained in live-fire exercises, and were just using blanks, even when scheduled for live fire training.

That happened frequently while I was in the US Army. Depending on the mood of the country at the time, you're either eating steak and shooting targets to smithereens, or you're eating spam and mopping floors. I experienced both while I was in.

I don't keep up with politics one bit. The US has undergone similar situations as you just described happening in Australia. After the Iran/Kuwait action, the US essentially butchered the military down to nearly nothing, save the elite forces and air force. Now Bush has money pumping into the military once again, no doubt to fuel his personal campaign for re-election. That's the history of the US military: build up, tear down, build up, tear down.

I could honestly give a rodent's rear-end about politics - but I can say that if you guys ever got in a tight spot in Oz, most Americans I know would be more than glad to help out. I sure would be.

Glad to hear that Oz wouldn't be on it's own if worst came to worst, but I think that our main defence is that Australia just isn't important enough to warrant being attacked, in spite of all the Australian government's rhetoric on the importance of 'border protection'. The only reason the government in Australia is so keen on defence spending is because they won the last election by villifying asylum seekers, and need more ships to intercept any asylum seekers before they put them in mandatory detention centres on some small pacific nation for a few years before denying their applications.

Originally posted by Ode to a Grasshopper
I'm sure Tammy will agree with me that the unofficial motto of the Australian army is "How come we don't have any bullets?", or maybe "Where are all our members?"
The official one is "The Army: The edge." Catchy, huh?

Living in a suburb that primarly consists of people who are either in the defence force or used to be in it. I could regale you with stories of people whose job is knock back "potential candidates". Here's a good tip, don't try to sign up with a cheese burger in hand. First impressions do actually count.

As for the bullets bit, well it is ironic considering that we've already planned to buy new stealth fighters which are still in their development stages whilst our boys are playing with blanks. I'm not sure why we even need the stealth fighters...

Originally posted by Tamerlane
As for the bullets bit, well it is ironic considering that we've already planned to buy new stealth fighters which are still in their development stages whilst our boys are playing with blanks. I'm not sure why we even need the stealth fighters...

I would guess to fly around without bombs.

Strange how some people think. Give a man or woman a gun to learn to defend your country and don't trust this person with the bullet. Not to single out your country...the US is the same way.


(At least the National Guard is.... I had a thought right after the government put the guards in the airports....would they have bullets? When my wife when North, I thought about asking one of them at the airport...but I figured I might be thrown in jail or worst if I asked. )

Originally posted by Weasel
(At least the National Guard is.... I had a thought right after the government put the guards in the airports....would they have bullets? When my wife when North, I thought about asking one of them at the airport...but I figured I might be thrown in jail or worst if I asked. )

Thats like the security folks down here. Three weeks ago I went to the airport and they were everywhere. But I honestly don't think they were armed, needless to say I got the same temptation but common sense prevailed in the end. *sigh*