Durtyrok Carolina Offroad Forum

Here it is.

Thanks, Jeff.

So, here is a little military background on me. I went to basic in September of 1993 at Ft. Sill, OK. I did my AIT training at Ft. Huachuca, AZ, to become a 96R, or Ground Surveillance Radar (GSR). I was stationed in Bravo Company, 103d MI Bn, of the 3d Infantry Division in Wuerzburg, Germany, from 1994-1996. While there, we reflagged to 1st Infantry Division and the 101st MI BN. I ETS'd in July of 1996. I reenlisted in August of 1997 to become a 92R, or parachute rigger. I went to jump school at Ft. Benning in September. In October, I went to Ft. Lee, VA, for my second AIT, then on to good old Ft. Bragg to become part of the 623d QM Co (ABN) in 1st COSCOM. After a year and a half, I came down on orders for Korea. I spent my year in Pusan, South Korea, in the 4th QM DET (ABN), then went right back to Ft. Bragg to the 612th QM CO (ABN). I got out in July of 2002.

I first enlisted aug 85. I started out as 29Y Satelitte Communications Equipment Repair Tech. Then went to the 1C ASI school. I then became a Satelitte Network Control. I controlled who accessed the bird, located jammers and did positioning of the satelitte. That became boring so I jumped ship to EOD(Explosive Ordnance Disposal). This is without a doubt the best job in the military. The drawback is you deploy a lot. I am in the guard now and in the past 3 years I have been home for 7 months, that is more than I deployed while on active duty. My duty stations have been Okinawa Japan, Augusta Ga, Ft Detrick MD, Redstoine Arsenal Al, Eglin AFB Ft Walton Beach Fl, Young Son Korea and Graf Germany. I had a break in service and did some contractor work in several places, not going to list them all but the best was Alice Springs Australia. Liked it enough to stay there 3 years. Well that is me in a nut shell, I have a total of 22 years and just re-up'd for 4 more.

I forgot to mention I had over 100 static line jumps. I also own 3 sets of foreign jump wings. Austrailian, Korean, and Thai. I got my Korean wings in Seoul after I jumped out of a zeppelin. That was a wild jump.

Thak yall for your service i plan to join next year ill be 17 and almost done with highschool.

If you are serious about the military, talk to a recruiter now. You will be well informed on your decision by the time you actually go to MEPS. Just make sure you get Airborne in your contract!

Just make sure you sign up as a 89D, all the other mos's suck.

Be sure to see a Marine Corps recruiter if you want to do it right!

Really though, what do you plan on doing? What would you like to do?

EOD? You can have that.

Go Airborne Infantry with option 40, or 18X. Thats the cool guy job.

Seriously, what do you want out of the military?

EOD is offering up to $100k in reenlistment bonuses right now. The enlistment bonus used to be $25K, I am not sure what it is now. You have the oppurtunity to work with the SF guys and the Delta guys as well. Then look at the money you can make as a contractor when you are done. Blackwater and Triple Canopy are paying up to $250K for a 6 month contract. If you do not want to be a contracter in Iraq or the Stan you can make $8k a month doing range clearence in Alaska, everything provided for you. If I was a single guy, I would be doing that right now. My team member from thsi last deployment just accepted a contracting job in Yong Son, Korea for $10k a month, and he only has a little over a year of worth of experience.

In the end though just pick a job that is going to give you useful skills in the outside world. That would be the best advice I would give you.

100 grand? Thats a good chunk of change, but I would not like working around explosives. Im glad we have people like you to do it.

Yea okay, you infantry guys are the ones who are nuts. LOL

100k for EOD? That pisses me off. When it came time to get out or reenlist I had my meeting with the CO and I told him that I wanted EOD. Then I would try to go Warrant Officer. In my experience a Warrant Officer in EOD is one bad mofo! Every EOD WO I met was cool and they got to travel all over the place. In the Marine Corps you had to be e-5 (or get e-5 in eod school). I was close to e-5 so I told him I wanted eod. He looked into it but no luck. I am willing to bet my monitor wouldnt let me out of the 04 field. I would probably still be in if I was EOD.

I wasnt infantry, but wish I would have went that route. I just packed parachutes for a living. As a rigger, I spent a total of 3 days in the field, and that was in a warehouse rigging up bundles for resupply missions.

So your job was to pack other guys chutes? . I guess that is better than guys packing your chute.

Call it what you will, but I never had any complaints with my packing skills! All of my parachutes opened without any problems.

I really dont know what i want to do i really want to be a navy seal but then again i want to join the army.
What are the qualifications to get into special forces for the army. i want to like do something spectacular lol.
The reason i want to join is bc i want to make a career out of it and also because my dad was in vietnam on river patrol boats.

18X is basically Infantry, but you will be groomed for SFAS. All SF MOS's are 18 series. If you make it through selection, you start your SF training. If you dont, you go back to being Infantry. 11X with option 40 is Airborne Infantry, with RIP (Ranger Indoctrination Program). RIP is supposed to prepare you for Ranger school, which is one of the hardest schools not just in the Army, but throughout the military. To be a SEAL, you better start getting in shape NOW. All I know of the SEAL's training is BUDS, which is supposedly THE hardest school, barring Hell Week in SEAL training. Get all of the information you can so you can make a well informed decision when it is time to go.

ok thanks a lot itchee96.
im going to try and talk to a recruiter this week

Good luck. Remember, stick to what you want to do. With the problems they are having recruiting, you will get what you want. The only dumb question is one not answered, especially when it comes to your life.

Yea im not going to let them try to bullshit me into anything i dont want to do

So, any updates?

no not yet i left a recruiter a message like a week ago and he hasnt called me back yet so im going to give him a call tomorrow and see what happens

I know the recruiter has called you back by now. What gives?

let me put in my .02....

if you want a excellent career...go U.S. Coast Guard....

it's a much smaller service, more family orientated...

http://exposureroom.com/members/fotoman ... 18eacdbfb/

Check this out...you'd actually get paid to do that...

it's what i used to do..only we had a little smaller boat that was much slower than that one...
it will be the best 4 years of your life...( and no, i wasn't a recruiter..)

brian

I just enlisted into the navy, however, I do not leave for basic until march 2010, so that kind of sucks. The recruiter was trying to push me for seals, but i said hells no because the dropout percentage is 95%, however the enlistment sign up bonus was 40K. So I guess its what will "YOU' do for 40K? My MOS is Information Technician as I have my degree in Computer Information Science. Also, I will be starting out as an E4.

Congrats and good luck on your decision to join.

95% of my direct working relationship while in Iraq was with EOD. All EOD techs are a little different in the head. But I think it's a cool field to be in. I worked with a lot of great guys and gals, and still talk to a lot of them. I always joke and say AF EOD techs are all crazy, because they are the ones that have to stand up and say "I want to play with defective nuclear weapons!" when selecting their field. LOL!