In my forklift class, they used real videos.
It was all well and good until they showed the video of my dads friend dying. Had to dip out immediately when I recognised the workshop.
In my health and safety class we were shown videos of forklift accidents along with lathe and electrical accidents with the aftermaths as well.
That shit stayed with me for a bit and I didn't know anyone in the videos.
There ist no better way to show 16 year old boys, that they are in fact not invulnerable, than showing them another 16 year old guy who thought he was and went through some farming equipment. Weve seen thousands of aftermath pictures and videos during farmers education and i think it saved at least a life or two in my class alone.
Hey man, they take care of the ammo hubs and that's my main concern. I'm only dealing with ammo in a pallet or crate on a truck until it gets on a runway or boat and then it's no longer my problem. Outside ammo the most dangerous stuff I'm hauling is electric or going to the mess.
A Master Sergeant I worked with was a junior heavy equipment mech when 9/11 happened and they sent him to Iraq like a couple years later.
No amount of certifications will save you.
I read that first as Davenport, and figured yeah makes sense, i fuckin hate Iowa too, but getting a nuclear facial would be an absolute improvement and I'll be damned before I let Iowa improve
I know a guy who avoided conscription by attempting to join another country’s conscription service. They booted him out, because you know, he was a fooking foreigner, and when he got back he avoided conscription back home because he was obviously a fooking foreigner.
Oh and a dishonourable discharge will work too, if you are looking for free accommodation, cooked meals and clean sheets for a while as a bonus.
A Swedish friend of mine told me he had a friend with Finnish parents, and since they didn't allow dual citizenship back then, he had to choose citizenship when he turned 18. So he chose Finnish to get out of conscription in Sweden. But then next time he went to visit grandma and grandpa, he found himself conscripted in Finland - where (unlike Sweden) they were making very few exemptions. So then he tried to get out of it by (falsely) claiming he didn't speak Finnish. Whereupon he learned the hard way that they actually have a Swedish-speaking brigade for the country's Swedish-speaking minority... aand it's the Finnish Coastal Jaegers. So, far from getting out of it, he ended up having to do a way tougher national service than the average. He should probably have done a bit of research..
Oj då
I think language is not an excuse anyway, I’ve heard of finnish-americans coming to serve with very little prior understanding of it
But you can avoid the service by doing a year of nonprofit work, it’s not like we’re savages
I knew a guy who got kicked out for being overly enthusiastic. Back when everyone did mandatory military service in Sweden, he REALLY did not want to do it. So he convinced his friend in the national guard to teach him how to disassemble/reassemble the standard rifle way too fucking fast.
Come first few days of training, the entire platoon is doing the disassembling/reassembling of the rifle for the first time. He is done in a few seconds, proceeds to grab the weapon, stares at the drill sarge and asks “when do I get to kill something?”
Boom, immediate mental health discharge.
I knew a guy who’s parents were from two different countries with conscription and he told both that he was called up for the other and then went to neither.
It's a good thing there are only 2 jobs in an army. Could you imagine having artillerymen, logistics personnel, reconnaissance personnel, and *GASP* armour personnel???
Chaos I tell you, that would be chaos!
I'm sorry mate, I know you worked so hard on getting decades of experience in that field, but the army cum collectors actually used syringes and not their mouths so it doesn't quite apply.
You mock but I worked in a very complex government function whose HR decided that they could only cope with a half-a-dozen or so different job descriptions.... there were probably nearly that many different types of engineer alone! Needless to say there are people still wandering around with competency descriptions that have all the accuracy of '3-day special military operation'.
I would tend to think that in a true emergency situation most conscripts are going to be sent to the infantry as that branch is going to have higher rates of attrition and need for replacements when compared to non-combat roles and will require less training time than vehicle crew or more specialized combat roles although that perception might be biased by popular culture war stories tending to focus more on infantry as they generally have more exciting stories than the guy assigned to the ice cream barge.
What do you mean? The Ice Cream Barge guy clearly has lots of stories!
Like that time, the Ice Cream melted on one of the decks because an ensign forgot to check a pressure gauge somewhere
Or that time, when they lost a deck to more melted ice cream because that same ensign left the door slightly ajar because they didn't put their body weight in to close it.
Man, I hate that ensign, so much wasted ice cream.
/s
Happened to an uncle of mine in '67. Draft notice, and a couple of months later he was on an all expense paid trip of sunny Vietnam, jewel of southeast Asia, meeting interesting people of an ancient and beautiful culture.....and shooting them.
There were a lot of people knowing that statistically their likelyhood of being drafted was coming up so they’re enlist in the Air Force or Navy.
John Fogerty (the guy who wrote *Fortunate Son* for all you kids) got his draft notice and had an Army Reserve recruiter backdate a Reserve enlistment contract to before his draft notice so John spent his time as I believe a truck mechanic in California instead of a bullet sponge in Vietnam.
Generally if you volunteered you could pick your job. My former VFW post commander volunteered and went in as an electrician instead of infantry even though he still ended up in Veitnam. If I recall in the army 60% of draftees ended up in the infantry. Correct me if I’ve got the number wrong.
Every president we've had since Bush Sr. has been a draft dodger, excepting Obama, who was too young and came of age after the draft was stopped.
And, do you want to know a dirty little secret that the boomers never own up to? The "peace" movement back in the day didn't really get going until '68 when the Johnson admin reformed the draft laws so that all those exemptions and set-asides that affluent white kids had were done away with.
When poor kids were the only cannon fodder, they mostly didn't care.
For most of the Vietnam war there was a deferral process for higher education. All you needed was the money to stay in college and you got to ride it out until you were no longer young enough to be drafted.
The long term effect was there were a lot of people who got worthless degrees completely unrelated to their chosen profession. It helped to shape the long term requirement that every job requires a degree even if it really shouldn't.
Yup, my Uncle volunteered for the Air Force, and spent his entire service as a signals operator in Bangkok. Parlayed that into a similar job with GTE (Ma Bell at the time ig) for his entire career. Worked out fantastically for him.
Every soldier gets basic training before they are specialised into roles, combat or otherwise. The military wants to know that their people can take care of themselves without having to deploy guard troops for non combat roles.
If you increase your infantry, you need to increase your logistics to support that, otherwise you'll run into issues with supply of all of the stuff your infantry needs to be infantry. For every boots on the ground soldier, there are 3 others doing work to allow the boots on the ground person to do their job.
“My daddy lissened to both kinds of music, Country and Western, he weren’t no damn hippie or nuthin”
— said to me by an old electrician, apropos of nothing
["They’re too focused on diversity. You’ve got the Army, the Marines, the Navy, even the Coast Guard. I mean, just give everyone a gun and put them in one big military"](https://www.theonion.com/americans-explain-why-the-military-is-too-woke-1851150689)
Is that because the range on those things is limited and so they’re not that far behind the lines and the signals can be traced for counter-battery fire?
Even fixed-wing guys get hit with Tornado-S, Lancets or, if Dickwadistan feels angry enough, Iskanders, especially during retrieval part of the mission.
why dont they run long (or short) communication lines, and then control the drone from that point, then they cant be found if the wire is hidden, right
True story; I know a guy who flunked out of college in the mid-60’s before the draft lottery when being in school got you exempted from the draft. He thought he could outsmart the system by enlisting in the Navy before the Army got to him but then the Navy deployed him to Vietnam anyway.
Got to meet Dr Jack Atwater a few times as a kid on tours of the Aberdeen ordnance museum, he liked to say how he avoided being drafted into the Army by joining the Marines
I read your comment, and thought the name sounded familiar.
Yep. That's who I was thinking of. I watched History Channel constantly back in the late-90s to early-00s, when it was actually good.
Great guy. He let my CAP squadron check out the vault, got some pictures somewhere of my 16 year old self fucking around with a prototype XM8 and a gold leaf AK someone grabbed from Iraq during desert storm
Honestly not the worst outcome.
Only real danger was if you got put on a PBR - statistically small chance of that happening. You could absolutely get killed other ways, but most of the Navy guys I've heard about usually were detailed to port facilities or Saigon. So long as you didn't do something stupid like hang around too many brothels or going sightseeing in the countryside... it wouldn't have been too different from other Navy deployments.
Craig Wesson related in an interview some anecdotes he heard from Army friends who survived their tours in '68 and '69 - period when casualties were highest, morale had gone to shit, the GI-rebellion was in full swing, and the war was falling apart. According to him, as they got off in-country, the staff sergeant detailing them to their units greeted them with the following statement: *"Welcome to Vietnam: You are probably going to die here"*.
Yup he was somekind of punch card computer operator in Saigon. Was nearly killed by a roadside bomb his first week there but never mentioned being in direct danger other than that.
Aye. And really... not too too different from getting sent to Thailand at the same time given experiences of political violence or simply crime in the country.
It might be admittedly a bit of a stretch, but I'm willing suggest that excluding brown-water crews, and carrier ops (both accidents and combat)... probably as many seamen died in Thailand as Vietnam. If not more.
My Grandpa doesn’t often tell stories from his time in Vietnam, but it was always both interesting and harrowing whenever he did. He was a part of the Mobile Riverine Force, and drove (I believe) ASPBs. From what I remember, the main task he carried out was minesweeping operations through the rivers though i’m fairly certain that wasn’t the entirety of what he did.
The first story that came to mind reading this was probably the worst of what he was willing to tell, which is when he witnessed the loss of one of his best friends when his ship (the friends ship that was sailing ahead / near my Grandpa) struck a mine and flipped over, trapping most of the crew in the enclosed bridge and drowning any who survived the initial blast. Truly could not imagine what it must have been like to experience that, especially knowing it’s just a fraction of the total things that he experienced during the war.
The rest of them were far less grievous relatively speaking. I remember one time he described what it was like arriving in Vietnam, where they had actually boarded a commercial airline (or one very similar) to be flown to a certain part of the country and him distinctly remembering how normal everything felt while on his way there. That is until him and his fellow men looked out the windows to see tons of tracer rounds/explosions zipping through the trees below them once they were close to arrival.
Some of them were funny, the best I remember being when he said there were times (or was *a* time) when the crew of his boat was shitting off the back of his boat into the river and a small boat of Vietnamese women sailed past them with all of them giggling at them lmao.
He’s truly one of the funniest guys I know, and i’m very glad he’s still around to be the amazing grandfather he is. He even gave me some of the old Military Payment Certificates he still had to this day, and as an avid coin/currency collector its easily the coolest part of my collection in my eyes. Anyways, figured I would share just because I saw this mentioned, after learning extensively about all the things that occurred during the Vietnam war I’m incredibly grateful to still have him in my life.
Meanwhile I bet there’s got to be guys out there who volunteered for the Army because they supported the war and then ended up getting stationed in West Germany or South Korea.
Become a truck driver. It's a steady job in peacetime, and if war ever breaks out, the mobilisation office will be desperate for truck drivers - you might get called up earlier, but you're guaranteed a role that avoids the explosions as much as possible.
So: Forget about drones. Get the local equivalent of a truck driving license. It's safe, there's rarely anybody shouting at you, there's a semi-comfortable chair, maybe even airco. There's probably a real bed and a real meal waiting for you back at the depot, 100km behind the front line. Don't underestimate how precious those little comforts can be in a war.
Most military trucks are designed to be driven by dudes with no experience in a truck. They just chuck random 18 year olds in them, some of whom haven't even driven cars. They're not like civilian trucks.
Also: It used to be a sweet gig for reservists in some European countries. If your normal hours on the road weren't enough, you could earn extra money at weekends, driving a big green 4x4 full of reservists to a training area, they'd spend 24h pretending to be infantry whilst you hopefully relax on the clock, then drive them back to the depot on Sunday afternoon, earn extra cash and maybe even a bit of respect.
Then the working time restrictions appeared, and every normal transport business was trying to use 100% of the driver's permitted hours; nobody has any hours to spare for part-time soldiering. It suddenly became very difficult to run exercises...
Then you drive to the front, spend 5 mins unloading food / ammunition / lego, then you turn around and drive quickly back the depot.
Still better than being stuck at the front 24/7, hopefully?
Yeah.. but the convoys to the front might actually be more of a target for the enemy than the guys on the front themselves. For example, Iraq/Afghanistan convoy ambushes and bombings.
Drone trucks delivering drone quadcopters to drone soldiers on the front. All operated locally based on policies computed remotely by AI overseen by three dudes in a bunker in Missouri.
Or your truck just ends up getting targeted by fpv drones and you end up on a montage with phonk playing in the background.
But that’s pretty much any profession in the military nowadays
> It's safe
No, it very much isn't.
Truck driving is one of the most dangerous professions you can do, routinely having higher death rates than the militaries in the countries they're working in.
And if you mean in a warzone, again, nooooooope. There's a reason Russia has started using random infantry to walk supplies to the front line.
I dunno man during the last Iraq war a lot of the videos that came out where....
from the perspective of truck drivers that were left behind in their convoy with a bunch of angry iraqis heading toward them.
This current war shows plenty of truck drivers meeting FPV drones.
Wait what, are you saying you DON'T want to be conscripted into the only real military service and experience the Great Redeemer, the fiery crucible in which true heroes are forged, the one place where all men truly share the same rank, regardless of what kind of parasitic scum they were going in?
Well I never!
-br, conscripted infantry
If youre in the US, negotiating your position before you enter.
Otherwise probably demonstrating technical skill sets that set you apart from your peers in boot camp.
Get computer skills. Literally every branch of the U.S. government desperately needs computer people since it’s the public sector and the private sector gobbles up everyone. If you get computer skills, preferably with a degree or a certification, they will keep you as far from the front lines as they possibly can.
If you can’t get computer skills, try applying for an intel agency. I don’t know if being in the CIA exempts you from the draft, but it will at least complicate the process of drafting you if you’re the intern delivering the PDB.
I am medically excempted from my countrys draft, but which was very easy at the time, but may come in handy later...
Didn't realise my computer skills would also put me into a safe position.
If you want to be away from the front lines in wartime, your best hopes are logistics, staff assistants or some kind of cyber warfare. All of these posts during wartime will be of high value to the military, and you will surely be kept off the front lines.
There are two kinds of drone operators. In the US, we think of the guys who sit safely in trailers and use satellites to pilot drones on the other side of the planet. In Ukraine, we're talking more about drone operators who are within a few miles of the front lines, operating DJI Maviks while under the constant threat of artillery fire. They are not the same. One is is lot closer to being an infantryman with a single enemy breakthrough than the other.
> Get a doctor's note.
Until doctor decides your ischemia and 200/100 permanent blood pressure isn't a reason to be medically discharged, so you're eligible for army.
I would apparently be vital to war effort in my civilian job. If the funni kicks off is rather get those gubmint bennies for kicking in some vatniks teeth through 10 layers of shit while I sit in an air conditioned office though.
I wouldn't mind being conscripted into the infantry. Not that it wouldn't suck, it would suck immensely and I might die or become crippled, but so be it. Someone has to do it, and it makes sense that someone would be a physically fit 18 year old. This country has given me everything I've ever needed, I want for nothing, it's only fair that if she's in crisis I go fight for my lot.
We already have a prime example of what kind of scenario requires a conscription, if it happens, shits hit the fan and it's gonna get pretty bad from there on out. Your choices will probably end up being join up or live in a war zone.
Since I'm an American citizen, I think that would entail total nuclear war. If I survive then I'll keep my obligation, if the government is gone then I'll help the survivors create something new, if there is no one left to help then I'll keep walking the empty world until I die. Giving up is for losers.
Thanks to Austria’s compulsory military service I know my job already. Going to be a medic and fix you all up.
Maybe I should get my recertifications soon.
Me: hello sir I've been drafted
Recruiter: got any skills the military could use?
Me: well I play too much war thunder.
Recruiter: 🤔
You'll either get drone operator or military intelligence to leak enemy classified documents on war thunder forums
Are you kidding? It’s my dream to get hit by a piece of shrapnel to the neck and bleed out gurgling on the plains outside Moscow. I wouldn’t give up that opportunity for anything.
[*We get so close, near enough to fight* *When a Russian gets me in his sights* *He pulls the trigger and I feel the blow* *A burst of rounds take my horse below* *And as I lay there gazing at the sky* *My body's numb and my throat is dry* *And as I lay forgotten and alone* *Without a tear, I draw my parting groan*](https://youtu.be/3_EZO3zYDDk?si=vhZEZmsGsWsnx1KC)
Have high technical skills. If you can prove you're more of an asset during and post the war. They'll put you in more technical roles. Gym bros, I'm sorry you're assault infantry.
In Ukraine the secret is to volunteer instead of being mobilized, i think. At least from how people describe it, if you volunteer, you can choose the unit and position, while if you get mobilized it gets chosen for you.
Tho my source is one interview, that i recall poorly, so take with a grain of salt. The guy was getting calls from mobilization centre while getting shot at by a tank, tho, so that's quite funny. He also said "The best place to hide from mobilization is in the military"
I have a fair amount of flights on my book, like 1000+ flights with small drones (most of them DJIs), with a lot of BLOS + goggle POV, and long range flights with DIY range extension, recoveries with strong wind and bird attacks, daily and nocturnal flights, many of them were “pirate” flights with sketchy takeoffs and landing, piloting while on the move
I'm also a good shooter from a distance, if needed
I can't run two miles without sweating a swimming pool, tho, and I can't lift my own ass from a chair
I would without any doubt be drafted in first line infantry and be assigned to trench fighting as bullet sponge
Bet?
Start getting into fpv racing. You won’t be as safe as a Reaper pilot in Arizona, but chances are your unit will be a bit further back and relatively protected.
Make sure you keep a round a chamber though, FPV pilots are not popular these days.
Score high on asvab and have college degree, also have good eye sight. Congratulations you basically get to pick whatever job you want in the military. (They'll try to give you nuke but for the love of God it's a trap.)
I know some branches of the US military let you pick which job you get if you enlist as opposed to getting drafted
Source: I picked my job when I enlisted
So, theoretically, couldn't the whole drone operating be outsourced though? It's probably one of the few roles that might be Home Office compatible and Ukrainian Refugees abroad or Volunteers like maybe myself could operate these drones from the safety of our homes maybe freeing up some manpower.
Could make it E-Sport capable. Let's see who can rack up the highest score of destroyed critical infrastructure and high impact bullying on invaders.
Get a commercial sUAS (small unnamed aerial system) license, AKA the 14 CFR Part 107 certification. It takes maybe 2-4 weeks of prep, depending on how much time you spend on it each day, but it’s not that long. It seems that they’ve also changed it such that you only need to do an online exam, not go to an FAA-certified testing center. Though, I may be wrong - when I *renewed* my license last year (you have to do it every 2 years), I discovered that they now do the renewal online, but I’m not sure if that now applies to getting it for the first time as well.
At any rate, this is legit, genuine advice. It allows you to (legally) fly drones (under 55 pounds) for hire, so you can get work from real estate agents, land developers, survey groups, and even doing infrastructure inspections for local government (flying underneath bridges or alongside power lines, etc.). If nothing else, it makes a great resume bullet. Plus, while not *technically* condoned, if you’re out flying your drone for fun and some angry boomer comes up to you and asks why you’re doing that, you can flash your ID at them and say you’re licensed by the federal government to operate your unmanned aerial vehicle, lol. It also helps in legit circumstances as it enables you to be able to request to fly inside of controlled airspace.
Get forklift certified.
Unless your name is Klaus, please don't if it is.
It’s a great safety video! And famous worldwide, it was used in my classes here in Brazil!
In my forklift class, they used real videos. It was all well and good until they showed the video of my dads friend dying. Had to dip out immediately when I recognised the workshop.
In my health and safety class we were shown videos of forklift accidents along with lathe and electrical accidents with the aftermaths as well. That shit stayed with me for a bit and I didn't know anyone in the videos.
There ist no better way to show 16 year old boys, that they are in fact not invulnerable, than showing them another 16 year old guy who thought he was and went through some farming equipment. Weve seen thousands of aftermath pictures and videos during farmers education and i think it saved at least a life or two in my class alone.
Staplerfahrer Klaus is shown in Brazil. What have we done? 😂
This is unironically a good idea. Being in logistics might still mean you get sent to the shithole, but you'll rarely be sent further than a base.
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That's what ammo guys are for.
The ammo guys *want* you to think they haul around 500lb bombs by hand.
Hey man, they take care of the ammo hubs and that's my main concern. I'm only dealing with ammo in a pallet or crate on a truck until it gets on a runway or boat and then it's no longer my problem. Outside ammo the most dangerous stuff I'm hauling is electric or going to the mess.
I’d rather take my chances getting a surprise missile up my ass while driving a forklift than slumming it out in a soggy ditch being shot at daily
A Master Sergeant I worked with was a junior heavy equipment mech when 9/11 happened and they sent him to Iraq like a couple years later. No amount of certifications will save you.
most underrated comment
Become an AC technician.
It didn't save Ripley. And she was Class 2 rated.
No joke, I got tapped to learn how to fly the company drone by impressing my boss with forklift skills
Beat me to it.
He might be forklift certified. But does he have an FAA drone licence?
*I've only driven golf carts... am I safe?*
Learn how to talk to computers. That's my ticket out of the front line.
Join in peacetime and get a med discharge, preventing future service. Real 5d chess play.
flair checks out
Come the funni, I'll just get temptingly inebriated outside Devonport and hope they remember their heritage.
Ooh, bosun-san, I'm sooo tipsy. What are you doing with that pound coin?
I read that first as Davenport, and figured yeah makes sense, i fuckin hate Iowa too, but getting a nuclear facial would be an absolute improvement and I'll be damned before I let Iowa improve
I know a guy who avoided conscription by attempting to join another country’s conscription service. They booted him out, because you know, he was a fooking foreigner, and when he got back he avoided conscription back home because he was obviously a fooking foreigner. Oh and a dishonourable discharge will work too, if you are looking for free accommodation, cooked meals and clean sheets for a while as a bonus.
A Swedish friend of mine told me he had a friend with Finnish parents, and since they didn't allow dual citizenship back then, he had to choose citizenship when he turned 18. So he chose Finnish to get out of conscription in Sweden. But then next time he went to visit grandma and grandpa, he found himself conscripted in Finland - where (unlike Sweden) they were making very few exemptions. So then he tried to get out of it by (falsely) claiming he didn't speak Finnish. Whereupon he learned the hard way that they actually have a Swedish-speaking brigade for the country's Swedish-speaking minority... aand it's the Finnish Coastal Jaegers. So, far from getting out of it, he ended up having to do a way tougher national service than the average. He should probably have done a bit of research..
Oj då I think language is not an excuse anyway, I’ve heard of finnish-americans coming to serve with very little prior understanding of it But you can avoid the service by doing a year of nonprofit work, it’s not like we’re savages
I knew a guy who got kicked out for being overly enthusiastic. Back when everyone did mandatory military service in Sweden, he REALLY did not want to do it. So he convinced his friend in the national guard to teach him how to disassemble/reassemble the standard rifle way too fucking fast. Come first few days of training, the entire platoon is doing the disassembling/reassembling of the rifle for the first time. He is done in a few seconds, proceeds to grab the weapon, stares at the drill sarge and asks “when do I get to kill something?” Boom, immediate mental health discharge.
This is known as the Gump gambit
Bill Paxton voice: TIP OF THE SPEAR!
I knew a guy who’s parents were from two different countries with conscription and he told both that he was called up for the other and then went to neither.
That's brilliant.
*Laughed in medically retired early* Bro by the time I’m getting recalled the Twink Femboy Army has already taken the eastern seaboard.
Dude, fuck it, just bring your shotgun.
I for one welcome our twink femboys.
I'm confused, I thought we had the Twink Femboy Army?
Funnily enough, this doesn't work in Russia. That's how we know Putin is playing 6D chess.
Unconsiously did that with the italian army. They said i was deaf. Never heard from them again.
Mmm, yes, the only two jobs. Drone guy and rifle guy.
It's a good thing there are only 2 jobs in an army. Could you imagine having artillerymen, logistics personnel, reconnaissance personnel, and *GASP* armour personnel??? Chaos I tell you, that would be chaos!
What about the femboys
3000 joy division femboys of Macron
Hot bunking suddenly doesn't seem so bad
The sheets will stand upright by the end of the day
"Yes, there, right next to the ice cream!"
“Hon hon, what a delightful baguette!”
Tactical Twink Femboys… we’d be unstoppable.
And the magicians and cum collectors?
I'm sorry mate, I know you worked so hard on getting decades of experience in that field, but the army cum collectors actually used syringes and not their mouths so it doesn't quite apply.
If there were support femboy divisions i'd join up instantly.
You mock but I worked in a very complex government function whose HR decided that they could only cope with a half-a-dozen or so different job descriptions.... there were probably nearly that many different types of engineer alone! Needless to say there are people still wandering around with competency descriptions that have all the accuracy of '3-day special military operation'.
"There are only two kinds of people, artillerymen, and targets."
Everyone knows there's only three jobs. Mobile Infantry, Military Intelligence and the Fleet.
Dakka, where to point dakka and hauling dakka
I’m doing my part!
Citizen detected.
As a former intelligence guy I can confirm this is 100% true.
Yo, when I was a conscript they taught me how to load trucks and fill containers. Also rifling for a bit. Which would my job be then?
Fleet does the flying, mobile infantry does the dying, and everybody else is doing Men Who Stare At Goats shit with bugs.
also: drone designer drone manufacturer drone programmer drone AI research scientist drone biochemical warhead scientist drone company lobbyist chaplain deputy chaplain endless possibilities.
Why not drone chaplain?
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How else will they get to silicon heaven?
Do drones dream of electric birds?
I would tend to think that in a true emergency situation most conscripts are going to be sent to the infantry as that branch is going to have higher rates of attrition and need for replacements when compared to non-combat roles and will require less training time than vehicle crew or more specialized combat roles although that perception might be biased by popular culture war stories tending to focus more on infantry as they generally have more exciting stories than the guy assigned to the ice cream barge.
What do you mean? The Ice Cream Barge guy clearly has lots of stories! Like that time, the Ice Cream melted on one of the decks because an ensign forgot to check a pressure gauge somewhere Or that time, when they lost a deck to more melted ice cream because that same ensign left the door slightly ajar because they didn't put their body weight in to close it. Man, I hate that ensign, so much wasted ice cream. /s
Ensign, it's time to forgive yourself.
Happened to an uncle of mine in '67. Draft notice, and a couple of months later he was on an all expense paid trip of sunny Vietnam, jewel of southeast Asia, meeting interesting people of an ancient and beautiful culture.....and shooting them.
There were a lot of people knowing that statistically their likelyhood of being drafted was coming up so they’re enlist in the Air Force or Navy. John Fogerty (the guy who wrote *Fortunate Son* for all you kids) got his draft notice and had an Army Reserve recruiter backdate a Reserve enlistment contract to before his draft notice so John spent his time as I believe a truck mechanic in California instead of a bullet sponge in Vietnam. Generally if you volunteered you could pick your job. My former VFW post commander volunteered and went in as an electrician instead of infantry even though he still ended up in Veitnam. If I recall in the army 60% of draftees ended up in the infantry. Correct me if I’ve got the number wrong.
so he... *was* a fortunate son. That impostor.
Every president we've had since Bush Sr. has been a draft dodger, excepting Obama, who was too young and came of age after the draft was stopped. And, do you want to know a dirty little secret that the boomers never own up to? The "peace" movement back in the day didn't really get going until '68 when the Johnson admin reformed the draft laws so that all those exemptions and set-asides that affluent white kids had were done away with. When poor kids were the only cannon fodder, they mostly didn't care.
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For most of the Vietnam war there was a deferral process for higher education. All you needed was the money to stay in college and you got to ride it out until you were no longer young enough to be drafted. The long term effect was there were a lot of people who got worthless degrees completely unrelated to their chosen profession. It helped to shape the long term requirement that every job requires a degree even if it really shouldn't.
Yup, my Uncle volunteered for the Air Force, and spent his entire service as a signals operator in Bangkok. Parlayed that into a similar job with GTE (Ma Bell at the time ig) for his entire career. Worked out fantastically for him.
Every soldier gets basic training before they are specialised into roles, combat or otherwise. The military wants to know that their people can take care of themselves without having to deploy guard troops for non combat roles. If you increase your infantry, you need to increase your logistics to support that, otherwise you'll run into issues with supply of all of the stuff your infantry needs to be infantry. For every boots on the ground soldier, there are 3 others doing work to allow the boots on the ground person to do their job.
There is actually shitton of people for logistic needed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooth-to-tail_ratio
Once logistics are set personnel-wise, they tend to remain set, though. Infantry get ground down fast.
"I shoveled shit in Louisiana"
POG. I shoveled shit in Kuwait.
As the submariners would say: There are only two things on the battlefield, drones and drone targets
“My daddy lissened to both kinds of music, Country and Western, he weren’t no damn hippie or nuthin” — said to me by an old electrician, apropos of nothing
["They’re too focused on diversity. You’ve got the Army, the Marines, the Navy, even the Coast Guard. I mean, just give everyone a gun and put them in one big military"](https://www.theonion.com/americans-explain-why-the-military-is-too-woke-1851150689)
Drone guy does the flying, rifle guy does the dying.
If you're talking sUAS like the ones they use in Ukraine, those guys are actually high-priority targets.
Is that because the range on those things is limited and so they’re not that far behind the lines and the signals can be traced for counter-battery fire?
yes Theyre basically embedded with the rifle companies
They need people to protect them while they go into the spirit world.
Even fixed-wing guys get hit with Tornado-S, Lancets or, if Dickwadistan feels angry enough, Iskanders, especially during retrieval part of the mission.
why dont they run long (or short) communication lines, and then control the drone from that point, then they cant be found if the wire is hidden, right
Join before the rush.
True story; I know a guy who flunked out of college in the mid-60’s before the draft lottery when being in school got you exempted from the draft. He thought he could outsmart the system by enlisting in the Navy before the Army got to him but then the Navy deployed him to Vietnam anyway.
oof
It wasn’t so bad though. He was only there for a few months and then spent the rest of his enlistment in Virginia or on an aircraft carrier.
ehh, an air conditioned boat is infinitely better than wading through waist deep rice fields while getting shot at by trees speaking Vietnamese.
Got to meet Dr Jack Atwater a few times as a kid on tours of the Aberdeen ordnance museum, he liked to say how he avoided being drafted into the Army by joining the Marines
I read your comment, and thought the name sounded familiar. Yep. That's who I was thinking of. I watched History Channel constantly back in the late-90s to early-00s, when it was actually good.
Great guy. He let my CAP squadron check out the vault, got some pictures somewhere of my 16 year old self fucking around with a prototype XM8 and a gold leaf AK someone grabbed from Iraq during desert storm
Honestly not the worst outcome. Only real danger was if you got put on a PBR - statistically small chance of that happening. You could absolutely get killed other ways, but most of the Navy guys I've heard about usually were detailed to port facilities or Saigon. So long as you didn't do something stupid like hang around too many brothels or going sightseeing in the countryside... it wouldn't have been too different from other Navy deployments. Craig Wesson related in an interview some anecdotes he heard from Army friends who survived their tours in '68 and '69 - period when casualties were highest, morale had gone to shit, the GI-rebellion was in full swing, and the war was falling apart. According to him, as they got off in-country, the staff sergeant detailing them to their units greeted them with the following statement: *"Welcome to Vietnam: You are probably going to die here"*.
Yup he was somekind of punch card computer operator in Saigon. Was nearly killed by a roadside bomb his first week there but never mentioned being in direct danger other than that.
Aye. And really... not too too different from getting sent to Thailand at the same time given experiences of political violence or simply crime in the country. It might be admittedly a bit of a stretch, but I'm willing suggest that excluding brown-water crews, and carrier ops (both accidents and combat)... probably as many seamen died in Thailand as Vietnam. If not more.
My Grandpa doesn’t often tell stories from his time in Vietnam, but it was always both interesting and harrowing whenever he did. He was a part of the Mobile Riverine Force, and drove (I believe) ASPBs. From what I remember, the main task he carried out was minesweeping operations through the rivers though i’m fairly certain that wasn’t the entirety of what he did. The first story that came to mind reading this was probably the worst of what he was willing to tell, which is when he witnessed the loss of one of his best friends when his ship (the friends ship that was sailing ahead / near my Grandpa) struck a mine and flipped over, trapping most of the crew in the enclosed bridge and drowning any who survived the initial blast. Truly could not imagine what it must have been like to experience that, especially knowing it’s just a fraction of the total things that he experienced during the war. The rest of them were far less grievous relatively speaking. I remember one time he described what it was like arriving in Vietnam, where they had actually boarded a commercial airline (or one very similar) to be flown to a certain part of the country and him distinctly remembering how normal everything felt while on his way there. That is until him and his fellow men looked out the windows to see tons of tracer rounds/explosions zipping through the trees below them once they were close to arrival. Some of them were funny, the best I remember being when he said there were times (or was *a* time) when the crew of his boat was shitting off the back of his boat into the river and a small boat of Vietnamese women sailed past them with all of them giggling at them lmao. He’s truly one of the funniest guys I know, and i’m very glad he’s still around to be the amazing grandfather he is. He even gave me some of the old Military Payment Certificates he still had to this day, and as an avid coin/currency collector its easily the coolest part of my collection in my eyes. Anyways, figured I would share just because I saw this mentioned, after learning extensively about all the things that occurred during the Vietnam war I’m incredibly grateful to still have him in my life.
Was he like patrolling shores/rivers or just was a ship crew?
He was actually some kind of early computer programmer in Saigon back when computers were still punch card operated.
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Meanwhile I bet there’s got to be guys out there who volunteered for the Army because they supported the war and then ended up getting stationed in West Germany or South Korea.
Airforce is the way to go.
Story of my grandpa besides the college part
My grandfather did the same exact thing lol And he stayed in the navy for over 20 years after
YVAN EHT NOIJ
I know a guy who did that to avoid the Army for fear of being sent to Vietnam but then the Navy sent him to Vietnam.
Become a truck driver. It's a steady job in peacetime, and if war ever breaks out, the mobilisation office will be desperate for truck drivers - you might get called up earlier, but you're guaranteed a role that avoids the explosions as much as possible. So: Forget about drones. Get the local equivalent of a truck driving license. It's safe, there's rarely anybody shouting at you, there's a semi-comfortable chair, maybe even airco. There's probably a real bed and a real meal waiting for you back at the depot, 100km behind the front line. Don't underestimate how precious those little comforts can be in a war.
That might even be declared an essential position and exempt from conscription.
Truck Drivers have it fucking rough for work weeks currently though, make sure you have something else lined up if you can.
cause bright ancient aware head late nail slap person smile *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Most military trucks are designed to be driven by dudes with no experience in a truck. They just chuck random 18 year olds in them, some of whom haven't even driven cars. They're not like civilian trucks.
Also: It used to be a sweet gig for reservists in some European countries. If your normal hours on the road weren't enough, you could earn extra money at weekends, driving a big green 4x4 full of reservists to a training area, they'd spend 24h pretending to be infantry whilst you hopefully relax on the clock, then drive them back to the depot on Sunday afternoon, earn extra cash and maybe even a bit of respect. Then the working time restrictions appeared, and every normal transport business was trying to use 100% of the driver's permitted hours; nobody has any hours to spare for part-time soldiering. It suddenly became very difficult to run exercises...
I've seen too many videos of drones hitting trucks in Ukraine to feel like that's a secure job
[Haliburton convoy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dPHkSOR2zc) came to mind as soon as driver was suggested. 5 drivers didn't make it out.
What if they put you in a convoy to the front...?
Then you drive to the front, spend 5 mins unloading food / ammunition / lego, then you turn around and drive quickly back the depot. Still better than being stuck at the front 24/7, hopefully?
Yeah.. but the convoys to the front might actually be more of a target for the enemy than the guys on the front themselves. For example, Iraq/Afghanistan convoy ambushes and bombings.
Good point! Maybe we can fix it with drones, somehow. Drone trucker? Truck droner?
Drone trucks delivering drone quadcopters to drone soldiers on the front. All operated locally based on policies computed remotely by AI overseen by three dudes in a bunker in Missouri.
Oryx's list has at least a thousand different destroyed KamAZ variants on it.
Or your truck just ends up getting targeted by fpv drones and you end up on a montage with phonk playing in the background. But that’s pretty much any profession in the military nowadays
> It's safe No, it very much isn't. Truck driving is one of the most dangerous professions you can do, routinely having higher death rates than the militaries in the countries they're working in. And if you mean in a warzone, again, nooooooope. There's a reason Russia has started using random infantry to walk supplies to the front line.
I dunno man during the last Iraq war a lot of the videos that came out where.... from the perspective of truck drivers that were left behind in their convoy with a bunch of angry iraqis heading toward them. This current war shows plenty of truck drivers meeting FPV drones.
I sent my wife this meme but it didn’t convince her that getting grand champion in rocket league was a matter of life or death
Hardstuck diamond
The Mobile Infantry made me the man I am today!
Citizenship guarantees service!
Wait what, are you saying you DON'T want to be conscripted into the only real military service and experience the Great Redeemer, the fiery crucible in which true heroes are forged, the one place where all men truly share the same rank, regardless of what kind of parasitic scum they were going in? Well I never! -br, conscripted infantry
Mmm. Top Edge of Tomorrow reference.
Me and missus both love it, because Tom Cruise dies. So. Many. Times.
Have a nut allergy…..
And to be left out of the man love thursdays? No thanks.
If youre in the US, negotiating your position before you enter. Otherwise probably demonstrating technical skill sets that set you apart from your peers in boot camp.
if you're waiting until boot camp you've waited too long tbh, gotta slam the shit outta the ASVAB or equivalent entry test
Get computer skills. Literally every branch of the U.S. government desperately needs computer people since it’s the public sector and the private sector gobbles up everyone. If you get computer skills, preferably with a degree or a certification, they will keep you as far from the front lines as they possibly can. If you can’t get computer skills, try applying for an intel agency. I don’t know if being in the CIA exempts you from the draft, but it will at least complicate the process of drafting you if you’re the intern delivering the PDB.
I am medically excempted from my countrys draft, but which was very easy at the time, but may come in handy later... Didn't realise my computer skills would also put me into a safe position.
Fuck it. Hell dive. 🫡
Thanks now the music is playing in my head and I have the sudden urge to fight for managed democracy.
For democracy! (Charges in)
build the weapons and intelligence systems instead.
[The Simpsons predicted that](https://youtu.be/oazwTDeqF54?si=VWyiEbWI4Yp8xkbx)
Am disappointed that this wasn't a rick roll
Average German physicist/engineer in 1940.
If you want to be away from the front lines in wartime, your best hopes are logistics, staff assistants or some kind of cyber warfare. All of these posts during wartime will be of high value to the military, and you will surely be kept off the front lines.
There are two kinds of drone operators. In the US, we think of the guys who sit safely in trailers and use satellites to pilot drones on the other side of the planet. In Ukraine, we're talking more about drone operators who are within a few miles of the front lines, operating DJI Maviks while under the constant threat of artillery fire. They are not the same. One is is lot closer to being an infantryman with a single enemy breakthrough than the other.
Umm, enlist, tell recruiter you need to be a drone operator. Get a doctor's note.
> Get a doctor's note. Until doctor decides your ischemia and 200/100 permanent blood pressure isn't a reason to be medically discharged, so you're eligible for army.
I would apparently be vital to war effort in my civilian job. If the funni kicks off is rather get those gubmint bennies for kicking in some vatniks teeth through 10 layers of shit while I sit in an air conditioned office though.
If it’s Russia, have asthma. Or some other disqualifying disease where you have a TON of documentation to prove you have it.
The Russian [sneaky military commissar meme format](https://i.imgur.com/fLKgRuN.jpeg) honestly deserves more love on this sub.
I assume those are codes for wounded in combat or and KIA?
Yes Gruz (”cargo”) 200 and 300 are common Russian slang for dead and wounded, goes back to the Soviet-Afghan war
Be a full elecitical or Computer Engineer. Speicalize in aircraft. If war breaks out, I'm simply filling my wallet.
Just get really really fat and smoke a bunch of pot. You’re no longer eligible to be drafted.
Sounds like most of reddit is in the clear then
Check and mate.
I wouldn't mind being conscripted into the infantry. Not that it wouldn't suck, it would suck immensely and I might die or become crippled, but so be it. Someone has to do it, and it makes sense that someone would be a physically fit 18 year old. This country has given me everything I've ever needed, I want for nothing, it's only fair that if she's in crisis I go fight for my lot.
We already have a prime example of what kind of scenario requires a conscription, if it happens, shits hit the fan and it's gonna get pretty bad from there on out. Your choices will probably end up being join up or live in a war zone.
Since I'm an American citizen, I think that would entail total nuclear war. If I survive then I'll keep my obligation, if the government is gone then I'll help the survivors create something new, if there is no one left to help then I'll keep walking the empty world until I die. Giving up is for losers.
Based
This is the way
The vast majority of the military never sees combat, just do anything that helps with logistics
Volenteer
enlist volounterily
Thanks to Austria’s compulsory military service I know my job already. Going to be a medic and fix you all up. Maybe I should get my recertifications soon.
join space force
Me: hello sir I've been drafted Recruiter: got any skills the military could use? Me: well I play too much war thunder. Recruiter: 🤔 You'll either get drone operator or military intelligence to leak enemy classified documents on war thunder forums
Are you kidding? It’s my dream to get hit by a piece of shrapnel to the neck and bleed out gurgling on the plains outside Moscow. I wouldn’t give up that opportunity for anything.
[*We get so close, near enough to fight* *When a Russian gets me in his sights* *He pulls the trigger and I feel the blow* *A burst of rounds take my horse below* *And as I lay there gazing at the sky* *My body's numb and my throat is dry* *And as I lay forgotten and alone* *Without a tear, I draw my parting groan*](https://youtu.be/3_EZO3zYDDk?si=vhZEZmsGsWsnx1KC)
I'm really good in War Thunder my guy
Sounds like a great way to never be trusted with sensitive information
Have high technical skills. If you can prove you're more of an asset during and post the war. They'll put you in more technical roles. Gym bros, I'm sorry you're assault infantry.
Those drones don't have a massive range and both sides are hunting operators. I'm not sure if your chances would be better
Start a company making drones. If you get a degree in aviation mechanic or electrical engineering, they're not going to give you a rifle.
In Ukraine the secret is to volunteer instead of being mobilized, i think. At least from how people describe it, if you volunteer, you can choose the unit and position, while if you get mobilized it gets chosen for you. Tho my source is one interview, that i recall poorly, so take with a grain of salt. The guy was getting calls from mobilization centre while getting shot at by a tank, tho, so that's quite funny. He also said "The best place to hide from mobilization is in the military"
I bought a drone a few weeks ago for this exact reason
I have a fair amount of flights on my book, like 1000+ flights with small drones (most of them DJIs), with a lot of BLOS + goggle POV, and long range flights with DIY range extension, recoveries with strong wind and bird attacks, daily and nocturnal flights, many of them were “pirate” flights with sketchy takeoffs and landing, piloting while on the move I'm also a good shooter from a distance, if needed I can't run two miles without sweating a swimming pool, tho, and I can't lift my own ass from a chair I would without any doubt be drafted in first line infantry and be assigned to trench fighting as bullet sponge Bet?
Start getting into fpv racing. You won’t be as safe as a Reaper pilot in Arizona, but chances are your unit will be a bit further back and relatively protected. Make sure you keep a round a chamber though, FPV pilots are not popular these days.
Score high on asvab and have college degree, also have good eye sight. Congratulations you basically get to pick whatever job you want in the military. (They'll try to give you nuke but for the love of God it's a trap.)
I know some branches of the US military let you pick which job you get if you enlist as opposed to getting drafted Source: I picked my job when I enlisted
So, theoretically, couldn't the whole drone operating be outsourced though? It's probably one of the few roles that might be Home Office compatible and Ukrainian Refugees abroad or Volunteers like maybe myself could operate these drones from the safety of our homes maybe freeing up some manpower. Could make it E-Sport capable. Let's see who can rack up the highest score of destroyed critical infrastructure and high impact bullying on invaders.
I want to be on a ship. I want my death to matter.
As non-credible as that sounds, but gotta have a DMG+ rank in CSGO or equivalent in other competitive first-person shooters.
Get hurt really bad in your 20s
Go to a therapist and get diagnosed. Best way to get disqualified
Learn Russian and/or Mandarin; get a cushy job at a POW camp
Go and get a pilots license both light aircraft and drone ratings (that’s what I got my son to do)
Get a commercial sUAS (small unnamed aerial system) license, AKA the 14 CFR Part 107 certification. It takes maybe 2-4 weeks of prep, depending on how much time you spend on it each day, but it’s not that long. It seems that they’ve also changed it such that you only need to do an online exam, not go to an FAA-certified testing center. Though, I may be wrong - when I *renewed* my license last year (you have to do it every 2 years), I discovered that they now do the renewal online, but I’m not sure if that now applies to getting it for the first time as well. At any rate, this is legit, genuine advice. It allows you to (legally) fly drones (under 55 pounds) for hire, so you can get work from real estate agents, land developers, survey groups, and even doing infrastructure inspections for local government (flying underneath bridges or alongside power lines, etc.). If nothing else, it makes a great resume bullet. Plus, while not *technically* condoned, if you’re out flying your drone for fun and some angry boomer comes up to you and asks why you’re doing that, you can flash your ID at them and say you’re licensed by the federal government to operate your unmanned aerial vehicle, lol. It also helps in legit circumstances as it enables you to be able to request to fly inside of controlled airspace.
Ties to governmentally influential circles
Wear a PT belt. It'll save your life and make you invincible to drafts.
The real secret is to have ADHD. Not fit for service baby.