Why are you interested in the military?
- Thread starter Ryz05
- Start date
Well it is kind of hard not to gain interest in military when you are kid and your country is at war… I started reading military journals with 11 and practically absorbed all books on that subject I could find in local library. After war ended I have more or less lost interest on the subject but after my conscript service I regained part of that interest.
Also I was always more interested in military history and tactics then on shiny equipment most people are impressed whit…
Also I was always more interested in military history and tactics then on shiny equipment most people are impressed whit…
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I agree with you there Isthvan. A lot of the time I don't have as much technical knowledge as some of our members.But of course I learn and try to bring what expertise and interest I have (tactics, geopolitics, etc.) to the discussions. I read Defence Talk too and I joined but I didn't really post there because I just like SDF a lot more. Why? Well, I like the faster pace of posting and obviously we are one of the most professional forums out there. But mostly there is a real community of posters here and I feel like I actually know the other members; their viewpoints, their areas of expertise, their personalities.
As for the military, I would consider joining the Navy but am more interested in going into the State Department or CIA.
Sorry for being nerd but to me the most wonderful thing about the military is how it is driving the development of the science and technology. Take the WWII for example, if you compare the weaponry used at the beginning of the war with the one used at the end of the war, you would be amazed how far the technology went. Of course, killing is always a bad thing.
I was from an engineering background and I am alway keen to learn about about the latest technology.
I strongly agree with wanderingmind that even thought US and PRC see each other as potential enemy, there is a lot of common ground for people from both sides to have a civilised conversation.
I was from an engineering background and I am alway keen to learn about about the latest technology.
I strongly agree with wanderingmind that even thought US and PRC see each other as potential enemy, there is a lot of common ground for people from both sides to have a civilised conversation.
DarkEminence
New Member
When I was little, I was horribly interested in chemistry (and had a fascination with making things explode). Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I could make stuff explode with chemistry! And, that bombs were powered by chemistry!
After that, I've been interested in military affairs, but with a scientific eye (I may not know what a piece of equipment is, but give me a few minutes and I can tell you probably how it works).
After that, I've been interested in military affairs, but with a scientific eye (I may not know what a piece of equipment is, but give me a few minutes and I can tell you probably how it works).
I couldn't agree more :coffee:Men in uniform just do it for me
Love the engineering of these deadly but unique machines.
My old man served in the Korean War. My oldest brother served in Vietnam War.
Both in the US Army.
I started as a ME major but ended in CS, but still love anything mechanical and electronic. Also love building 1/72scale WWII warplanes when I was young.
Found allot of really great info in this forum. Keep up the good work.:coffee:
My old man served in the Korean War. My oldest brother served in Vietnam War.
Both in the US Army.
I started as a ME major but ended in CS, but still love anything mechanical and electronic. Also love building 1/72scale WWII warplanes when I was young.
Found allot of really great info in this forum. Keep up the good work.:coffee:
wanderingmind
New Member
After I read the responses since my first posting, I had to stop and think back for a few minutes, and decided to add my own reply to the central question:
I was a "Baby Boom" baby, born two years after the end of World War II. When I was a three-year-old, my father was recalled to duty with the National Guard and stationed at Fort Rucker, Alabama, where we joined him. I still remember proudly carrying his "tin pot" helmet up the stairs to our apartment every afternoon when he came home. For two years, I was an "Army Brat," in all the best senses of the term. When he was released, we went back to Minnesota, but Dad continued to wear his uniform one weekend a month and to summer camp two weeks every year.
Just after I got out of first grade, we moved when Dad went on duty as a full-time National Guard technician in another city, wearing his uniform to work every day. This, of course, gave me status with my schoolmates. And, every chance I got, I was at the armory, learning how to strip and clean everything from .45 pistols to Browning Automatic Rifles to M-1 Garands and M-1 carbines to Model 1919A4 air-cooled light machineguns. His fellow guardsmen were happy to show me things, and by the time I was a third-grader, I could perform every function on the 105mm howitzer crew except loader -- those shells were just too darned heavy for me. I could plot a grid coordinate, level, lay and elevate the gun to the proper settings, and open the breechblock. At a big occasion for the dedication of a new armory annex, I even got to pull the lanyard on a blank charge!
Then my father was medically separated from the Guard with a heart condition, and back we moved to my old hometown. However, my connections to the military didn't end. Our church would conduct a paper drive every year, and I would ride the truck. Besides newspapers, people would contribute old books and magazines, etc. I don't think there was ever a drive where I didn't bring home my own weight in books for my personal use. I once possessed dozens of English Literature textbooks, McGuffey's Readers, etc., from the early 1900's, as well as World War I and between-the-wars Army field manuals and other things.
And I pored over these books! I read literature classics and things that were way beyond my years like they were going out of style. In fifth grade, my teachers were astonished that I had read "Ivanhoe" - which wasn't even on the required reading lists until the freshman year of college. I didn't care -- I was in hog heaven! (And I still read an average of six to eight books each week. Just ask our happy librarian!)
While I was absorbing all these books, I also absorbed some of the things they talked about. Reading "A Message to Garcia" out of a 1910 McGuffey Reader, you can't help but understand the underlying concepts of duty and initiative and honor. I guess I indoctrinated myself in the higher military concepts as I went along... By my late teens, I knew I would be either a professional military man or a pastor or - combining both worlds - a chaplain. After I found out there would be no money available for college, my choices were firmed up.
In my senior year in high school, I was all set to join the Army Security Agency as a German linguist with a guaranteed assignment to Germany, when I got a letter from a friend a year ahead of me in school who had taken the same deal. He did get his guaranteed first assignment to Germany, and was placed on immediate "temporary duty" to Vietnam as a rifleman... So, I went to the recruiting office next door to the Army, got a "No B.S., No Guarantees" speech that I liked - and at 17, a month out of high school, I was sworn into the U.S. Air Force, where I spent 20 years as a military man - and have now worked for the Air Force as a civilian another 20 years.
So, I'm interested in the military profession as one who was impressed by it, who was indoctrinated in it, who has served in it, and who has studied it all my life. Right now, in the books I took out from the base library yesterday, I have Lt Gen Gus Pagonis's book on leadership and logistics in Operation Iraqi Freedom, a book on the Army's enlisted pilots, and a re-read of Alan Warwick Palmer's book "The Gardeners of Salonika" - the story of the British army's operations in Salonika during the Great War.
In fact, I'm going to give a plug right now for a book I just finished reading for the second time: "Enduring The Freedom: A Rogue Historian In Afghanistan" by Sean M. Maloney. He teaches in the War Studies Programme at the Royal Military College of Canada and is the Strategic Studies Advisor to the Canadian Defence Academy, and his style of writing, his wit and his candor are exceptionally refreshing. If you want an understanding of coalition warfare as practiced in Afghanistan in 2005, look no further. It's exceptionally good!
:coffee:
I was a "Baby Boom" baby, born two years after the end of World War II. When I was a three-year-old, my father was recalled to duty with the National Guard and stationed at Fort Rucker, Alabama, where we joined him. I still remember proudly carrying his "tin pot" helmet up the stairs to our apartment every afternoon when he came home. For two years, I was an "Army Brat," in all the best senses of the term. When he was released, we went back to Minnesota, but Dad continued to wear his uniform one weekend a month and to summer camp two weeks every year.
Just after I got out of first grade, we moved when Dad went on duty as a full-time National Guard technician in another city, wearing his uniform to work every day. This, of course, gave me status with my schoolmates. And, every chance I got, I was at the armory, learning how to strip and clean everything from .45 pistols to Browning Automatic Rifles to M-1 Garands and M-1 carbines to Model 1919A4 air-cooled light machineguns. His fellow guardsmen were happy to show me things, and by the time I was a third-grader, I could perform every function on the 105mm howitzer crew except loader -- those shells were just too darned heavy for me. I could plot a grid coordinate, level, lay and elevate the gun to the proper settings, and open the breechblock. At a big occasion for the dedication of a new armory annex, I even got to pull the lanyard on a blank charge!
Then my father was medically separated from the Guard with a heart condition, and back we moved to my old hometown. However, my connections to the military didn't end. Our church would conduct a paper drive every year, and I would ride the truck. Besides newspapers, people would contribute old books and magazines, etc. I don't think there was ever a drive where I didn't bring home my own weight in books for my personal use. I once possessed dozens of English Literature textbooks, McGuffey's Readers, etc., from the early 1900's, as well as World War I and between-the-wars Army field manuals and other things.
And I pored over these books! I read literature classics and things that were way beyond my years like they were going out of style. In fifth grade, my teachers were astonished that I had read "Ivanhoe" - which wasn't even on the required reading lists until the freshman year of college. I didn't care -- I was in hog heaven! (And I still read an average of six to eight books each week. Just ask our happy librarian!)
While I was absorbing all these books, I also absorbed some of the things they talked about. Reading "A Message to Garcia" out of a 1910 McGuffey Reader, you can't help but understand the underlying concepts of duty and initiative and honor. I guess I indoctrinated myself in the higher military concepts as I went along... By my late teens, I knew I would be either a professional military man or a pastor or - combining both worlds - a chaplain. After I found out there would be no money available for college, my choices were firmed up.
In my senior year in high school, I was all set to join the Army Security Agency as a German linguist with a guaranteed assignment to Germany, when I got a letter from a friend a year ahead of me in school who had taken the same deal. He did get his guaranteed first assignment to Germany, and was placed on immediate "temporary duty" to Vietnam as a rifleman... So, I went to the recruiting office next door to the Army, got a "No B.S., No Guarantees" speech that I liked - and at 17, a month out of high school, I was sworn into the U.S. Air Force, where I spent 20 years as a military man - and have now worked for the Air Force as a civilian another 20 years.
So, I'm interested in the military profession as one who was impressed by it, who was indoctrinated in it, who has served in it, and who has studied it all my life. Right now, in the books I took out from the base library yesterday, I have Lt Gen Gus Pagonis's book on leadership and logistics in Operation Iraqi Freedom, a book on the Army's enlisted pilots, and a re-read of Alan Warwick Palmer's book "The Gardeners of Salonika" - the story of the British army's operations in Salonika during the Great War.
In fact, I'm going to give a plug right now for a book I just finished reading for the second time: "Enduring The Freedom: A Rogue Historian In Afghanistan" by Sean M. Maloney. He teaches in the War Studies Programme at the Royal Military College of Canada and is the Strategic Studies Advisor to the Canadian Defence Academy, and his style of writing, his wit and his candor are exceptionally refreshing. If you want an understanding of coalition warfare as practiced in Afghanistan in 2005, look no further. It's exceptionally good!
:coffee:
After the second iraq war, i noticed that tank vs tank is not about number anymore is about their technology, and was insterested in this because what can give so much advantage to the US.
i was like hmm US is gonna have a hard time since iraqi have so many tank and planes, but after i went to this site, you got a 4km tank gun and bvr missile making it so one sided. Kind of scary to know the reality but hey sometimes you gonna face it.
i was like hmm US is gonna have a hard time since iraqi have so many tank and planes, but after i went to this site, you got a 4km tank gun and bvr missile making it so one sided. Kind of scary to know the reality but hey sometimes you gonna face it.