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Hi
As I mentioned in another topic there has been a little lets-play-war period for me the last 6 months. Have you people done your "duty" for your country? What did you do in your service? Were you forced to do it or was it based on your own will? I’m not sure if there has been a topic about this in fs-boards, so go ahead and tell your opinions or memories about military service.
In Finland we still have no real alternatives for the army. Either you will have to go to the army or do some sort of "civilan-service", which is twice as long as army. So I decided to walk the shorter but heavier army way. The Finnish defence forces put me in a company of coastal rangers(or whatever "kustjägare" is in English). Our war time mission is to fight in small groups around the Finnish coast. We move with small but fast boats and run up the shore straight from them. After that we are supposed to "conquer back what belongs to us", f.e. little islands. The training was very heavy because we were supposed to be really fast with lots of heavy stuff on our backs. Running, crawling and marching was our daily routine, sometimes we even had jogging with landmines with us. However, everything was based on training up a physically strong soldier who obeys an order in any situation anywhere. This means one should not think or do too much himself. That was the worst thing in army to me. I have nothing against moving or excercising, but the military discipline sucked big time. Everything from how your hair is to how you carry your weapon was very strict. When and if someone didn’t have the entire equipment the right way, everyone was punished. Collective punishing is offcourse not allowed by law, but the officers interpreted it as "training".
So, we always trained something when soldiers made mistakes or were not good enough. Running around the building or training how to change clothes within a certain time-limit were popular trainings. It’s quite interesting how similiar the Finnish Defence Forces today is with the nazi-education in so called "Hitler-schools" during the WWII. They also had "masquerades" etc.!! 
However, already now I begin to forget the moments in army when I hated the whole shit. Time sure turns memories into gold(there is saying in finnish like that). The best side of army was to get to know a lot of people from around the country. There was a good team-spirit among us, when someone for example just couldn’t go further with a march, other people helped to carry his stuff(or him in the worst case). There were also many "after the military service I will never freeze or crawl again!!" -discussions, which now are just funny memories.
It was very odd to shoot in the beginning, I had never touched a gun before. Despite of that shooting became something automatic, a normal daily routine, which is quite sick because shooting is killing. Well, I hope there never will be a real war for me.
About guns, I still find it a little bit dangerous how easy it is for crazy people to get to do with weapons or steal ammo in the military service. Another scary thing with guns and training was that we used real ammo in our "camps". In a "camp" one doesn’t get to sleep more than maybe 1-3 hours a night and when you repeat it a couple of days you aren’t in a great shape to handle with guns and explosives. I think it is only stupid and dangerous to make training that realistic.However, this message is about to turn into a book, so it is better to end here.
I served my country (Sweden) doing "vapenfri tjänst" (i.e. weapon-free civilian service) for some 9-10 months, as technician for the Swedish state telecom company Televerket (which is now the pseudo-privatised Telia). To get to do the weapon-free thing I had to lie and say that I could not think of any hypothetic circumstances under which I would be able to kill another human being. Of course I could easily think of such circumstances, but I failed to see the logic in realising that in principle such a situation might exist should imply that you have no choice but to spend a big part of your life learning how to kill other people, likely to be trained by some asshole who calls collective punishment "training".
wow.. that was a cool run down. now we know why whe havent heard from you in so long…. in America there isnt a requirement to join, but they call you on saturdays when your a senior in high school. and try to get you to volunteer… i joined the u.s. navy out of high school , so i could see the world, and get out of the minimum wage job i was working… it was hard work, but you dont have to kill anyone.. once out of training thouhg, i realized i hated it, and quit … So I could go to more rock n roll shows.. It cant be that bad though, at lease, out fuher over here didnt get finland to join in this iraq bullshit.. that would suck.. i hope you can get it behind you as soon as possible, and get back to skateboarding..
My grandfather fought in WWII, and my father served in the Air Force during Viet Nam. I was never preassured by them to join, so I didn’t. It’s not that I’m not patriotic, because I am. I just was never interested in fighting someone elses war. And to me it seems that as an American that is all I would be doing. While I support our troops I don’t believe in the war we are fighting currently. Sure if someone attacked us and it beacame a war that was fought n our shores then hell ya’ sign me up. But getting involved in business that isn’t ours and bullying our way around the world isn’t my idea of being a good global citizen. Its just not what I wanted to do.
"maxini " wrote:I served my country (Sweden) doing "vapenfri tjänst" (i.e. weapon-free civilian service) for some 9-10 months, as technician for the Swedish state telecom company Televerket (which is now the pseudo-privatised Telia). To get to do the weapon-free thing I had to lie and say that I could not think of any hypothetic circumstances under which I would be able to kill another human being. Of course I could easily think of such circumstances, but I failed to see the logic in realising that in principle such a situation might exist should imply that you have no choice but to spend a big part of your life learning how to kill other people, likely to be trained by some asshole who calls collective punishment "training".I’ve got some friends in Sweden who told me it is easy to say no to army. One can say he has a bad knee or another problem without being obliged to prove it medically.
"crazycloud " wrote:i joined the u.s. navy out of high school , so i could see the world, and get out of the minimum wage job i was working… it was hard work, but you dont have to kill anyone.. once out of training thouhg, i realized i hated it, and quit … So I could go to more rock n roll shows.. It cant be that bad though, at lease, out fuher over here didnt get finland to join in this iraq bullshit.. that would suck.. i hope you can get it behind you as soon as possible, and get back to skateboarding..Is it true that the United States support your studies if you join the army? Does the state pay University semesters or something? Btw, how much is the average monthly wages in the army over there? In Finland you get 3.60€ a day(=4USD) which is as good as nothing. I guess the proffessional army is better paid.
Actually I tried skateboarding.. Duh, 1,5 years pause really has an effect on how well you stand on the board… But it was quite fun anyway.
By the way, did you know that Jimi Hendrix was an airborne soldier? That was something totally new to me. Saw it in a Jimi -document a couple of days ago.
"Aatos " wrote:I’ve got some friends in Sweden who told me it is easy to say no to army. One can say he has a bad knee or another problem without being obliged to prove it medically.Yes, you’re well informed. Nowadays you can just say that you don’t wanna do it, but this changed just a few years ago and it wasn’t so easy back in the hey-day of yours truly. Guess this means you’re a few years younger than me
Quote:Is it true that the United States support your studies if you join the army? Does the state pay University semesters or something? Btw, how much is the average monthly wages in the army over there? In Finland you get 3.60€ a day(=4USD) which is as good as nothing. I guess the proffessional army is better paid.Yeah its called the GI Bill. You can serve like 4 years and get a certain amount of money towards college. When you get out you can start withdrawing from the account to pay for classes. My buddy did it earned a bachelors on the governments dime.
I’m not sure how much the military folks make, I know they get a living allowance and stuf like that. A lot of them buy houses and such and live off of base. So they must do pretty OK.
"crazycloud " wrote:i hope you can get it behind you as soon as possible, and get back to skateboarding..I second that.
Up until 5 or so years ago it was damn near impossible to escape doing the 12 month service. At first you could say you were gay or did drugs, and they’d let you off the hook -but after a while that didn’t help either.
I spent my 12 months way up north in the special forces. Most of the time I was inside a tank. More than anything else it was like a boys club on a field trip, except that we lived in 40 ton of armored steel and rarely ate or slept.My Marine recruiter uncle got into an argument with me about money for college. (I’m an English instructor and a professional student.) He acted as if I was the dumb one for racking-up debt from student loans. It is like a push and shove between the two of us: him-the diehard Bush lover and ultimate countryman and me-the nature-loving liberal who shows my love of country by running across its dirt and driving down its roads.
My brother-in-law just joined the Marines last Spring. We find out next month if he’ll take the trip to Iraq. (It doesn’t look good.) This was due to the aforementioned recruiter uncle and a grandfather who lost his mind in Nam. I might be in debt, but I’m not being forced to kill any babies. As for going mad, I can’t afford to lose what I have so far, much less serve in a bloodmoney war across seas. I guess I just have a lot of angst right now.
"tonas " wrote:I’m not sure how much the military folks makeOne of my husbands brothers is a Sergeant First Class, he has been in the Army for 20 years, I believe his pay is almost $2,000 a month………..Not a whole lot!
That is true – My Marine recruiter uncle has three kids and they can only afford a trailor on his military pay..
I know a few guys who aren’t even officers and they can afford brand new houses out here. They get an off base housing allowance that pays for the bulk of their house payment. I’m sure it must work the same for over there. Weird. :-
yeah. the military in the u.s. pays out whats called a g.i. bill.. it gives you about 16,000 -20,000 for college… the pay starts out at about 900 a month… not much. but if you go to iraq you get combat pay which is double.. the recruiters tell a bunch of lies, and they do get money for every sap they sign up to join.. its mainly a personal choice here in america.. for most working military people its just a job, with its perks, free housing, free medical, free food, for you family too .. its a suck ass job in iraq, but for the rest of the military it aint half as bad.. i hated it due to the assholes in charge, and the fact they can ship you off to whrever any time they want… im curious to know what the finish army uniforms look like! you should post a picture of you in your uniform…. do you get to do ski training lke they did in world war II?… that would be cool
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