From the
Soldier side: I know in most large civilian companies, there are dumb things
that happen. Sometime’s it’s the really dumbass boss who thinks his/her way of doing something is so great, but those
who work for dumbass struggle each day doing something the way the boss wants
it done….when if it was done the correct way, things would not only work
better, but the company would profit.
When the
dumbass boss is allowed to continue doing things the “wrong” way for years,
they think it’s the right way…and as soon as they retire, get fired or quit,
the next person corrects all the dumb things…hopefully.
Well, just
think how big the US Army is (or was before the current cuts)… it was a giant
business, or as we used to say: “The US ARMY, 230 something years of tradition
unchanged by progress or intelligence.”
The other
day somebody asked me about my deployment to Bosnia….wow, that seem like years
ago, but it was really a good time…most of the time. What really kind of
bothered me about the Bosnia and later the Iraq deployment was: Most of the
training we had was absolutely totally useless off the wall stupid shit that
some dumbass office pogue must have made up.
In about
January of 2003, a bunch of us were told that we’d be going to Bosnia later
that year. OK, cool. We were Army National Guard—which means we go in for training
one weekend a month and two weeks of “summer camp”. Well, before we got put on
active duty orders, we were called up several times at the last minute and
told: “you have to come to mandatory training THIS weekend at Camp (fill in the
blank.)”
OK, I
never questioned my orders, even though in reality, they were required to give
us more than one or two days notice. For my “real job” I would tell the police chief: “Sorry boss, I
got called in for my training this weekend, I have to go.” He never gave me any
grief.
As far as training for either police work
or the Army, I always looked forward to it and figured I’d learn something new
and it would make me able to do my job better.
In many cases, the training was FUN!
(Thank you tax payers!) In much
training, it was rather boring, but important stuff.
Then, we’d
show up at the camp and they’d have a couple of retards who’d never deployed
anywhere try to give us some training on our jobs--- which usually never made
any sense and was put together so quick and bad, that it was a total waste of
our time.
Then
they’d do it again and again. We were called in for last minute training for a
total of 60 friggen’ days before we even were put on active duty orders…and
none of the training made any sense or was useful at all when we actually
deployed. From what I recall, all of this last minute training was all done by
people who had NEVER left the States and really had not even studied anything
about Bosnia. (with the exception of one
contractor company who gave us about a week of training that was GREAT!)
Then, when
we got put on active duty, we went to wonderful Minnesota to be with the Red
Bulls. RED BULLS- Attack and stuff
As the
Army always does, before a Soldier can be deployed, he or she must go through
deployment training. I guess now days this training is good, but in 2003, it
was not only useless, but if we actually did things the way they trained us,
we’d have all died.
Typical blown up house in Bosnia
Now, I
hope you understand that I’m not just making this up. Remember, by 2003, I had
been a civilian police officer/detective/sergeant/ranger master/ etc for over
22 years. My attitude in any kind of training is I hope to learn something new
every day…however, this training was a big case of “Army Dumb.”
Old Russian tank...
For
example, they trained us to search people…OK, as a cop, I had literally
searched people thousands of times…did it almost every day and many times took
guns, knives, and other bad things off of bad people. So, when we went to class
to learn how to search people, I listened…hoping that maybe I’d learn something
new.
Blackhawk ride from Eagle Base
Nope. The
way they were training us was not only dumb, but it made no friggen’ senses. We
were placed at simulated “traffic check points” (which we had none of in
Bosnia) and we were taught to search a person by patting them while our “cover
soldier” stood near and watched and were supposed to do something if we found a
weapon on the person. I’m not going to go into the boring details, but the way
they were training us was so dumb, that I was actually laughing.
Army Dumb Detector--- off the meter
When I
searched the persons in training the way I did as a civilian cop, the “trainer”
told me I was doing it all wrong. I just
looked at them and said: “I’ve been searching bad guys for over 20 years, the
way you’re training is not only wrong, it’s retarded. If you want to “fail” me, go ahead---but do
you want to take my place and get deployed?”
Most of
those training us were “broken” national guard soldiers who were non-deployable---
of course they were never going to go anywhere.
The all passed me through the training…and when we were leaving Bosnia
months later, I asked some of my comrades if they ever used any of the stupid,
dumbass training we’d been given. Nope. Just a waste of time—The Army Way.
1 comment:
Searching someone is easy. Just taser them, strip them while they are out of it and take any weapons you find.
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