The Air Force.

[Ritterin Sophia]

More seriously, is this a real story?

Yeah, the rest of his Flight sans his instructors dimed him out and he got booted. He'd had to go do something while his Flight was doing a ruck march or something, they came back early sans his instructors and then dimed him out, which obviously resulted in him being chaptered out. He went into the Army like ten years later, which is where I met him.

[Count Chocula]

As an addendum:

20 years from now, you will see 3:41 on the clock, xx341 on your odometer, $3.41 on a McDonalds receipt, etc. and will immediately flash back to Basic.

Texas is hot. Get used to it.

Make sure you can run 1 1/2 miles before you go to Basic, 'cause you sure as shit will do it there. But you won't have to do it in fatigues and boots because Zoomies are wimps.

Marksmanship training is a joke. You'll get a semi-auto M-16 with a .22 conversion kit. You'll probably shoot high expert anyway, because the targets are set at 25 yards.

Once you're out of Basic, go party at the E-Club or you'll blow it all on chicks and booze.

If you like the service, think about going the mustang route to become a commissioned officer. The AF will pay for your undergrad schools and there's a lot of correspondence and online courses out there.

Finally, take what the DIs say seriously, but not personally.

[Chardok]

WTF? How can anyone possibly ever miss with a rifle at 25 yards? I only ever had a problems with the 300m target

[Sam Or I]

2C: Stay out of debt period. If you get into debt, when your four years are up, you will feel trapped. Avoid this trap. If you sign up again it is all good, but make it your choice with as little outside influences as possible.

[Raxmei]

WTF? How can anyone possibly ever miss with a rifle at 25 yards? I only ever had a problems with the 300m target

If it's the target course I think they're using the targets are scaled down to appear as small as if they were farther away. It's still an easier course than the one that uses a full size range but not quite trivially easy, especially for inexperienced shooters in a service that doesn't place great importance on marksmanship.

[Mr. Coffee]

Having grown up in and around the military I can also tell you that these people have a very strange sense of humor, so beware of requests to do anything involving fetching quantities of grid squares, chemlight batteries, or prop wash, Spartasman.

[folti78]

also: headlight fluid

[Block]

PrickE-6 too. It sounds like a radio, but you're actually going around asking for a Staff Sgt. to be an ass to you.

[Raxmei]

If someone tells you to beat your face he wants you to start doing pushups, not punch yourself in the face.

[Littlefoot]

If you get a "dear John", don't blow your brains out on the firing line. Be a man and fuck her sister after you go home in your uniform.

However, if you do blow your brains out, at least dont smile at your bunk mate before you pull the trigger, that is just fucked up.

[Edward Yee]

You'll get posted different places and promptly stark fucking other people.

That's pretty much exactly what happened with my ex-girlfriend minus the marriage, although I wasn't in the military (she's Navy and hooked up with Air Force... before tech school though, I think). Oddly enough, I sorta-not-really-forgave her after she "Dear John"'d him too.

EDIT: She has however admitted that as soon as there's physical separation, boosh, she's "flighty," and has been in at least two separate relationships already in her current station.

[Lonestar]

If you get a "dear John", don't blow your brains out on the firing line. Be a man and fuck her sister after you go home in your uniform.

However, if you do blow your brains out, at least dont smile at your bunk mate before you pull the trigger, that is just fucked up.

What's your problem?

[Aaron]

What the Christ?

[Littlefoot]

guy in a trailing company got a "dear john" while we were at Pendleton. guess he couldnt take it and once he got up to the firing line he looked back at his rack mate and smiled, then put the barrell under his chin and thumbed the trigger. They stopped training on the whole base and did head counts. Later they marched us by his position and showed use the blood stains as a reminder that the shit we take for granted, like breathing, can be taken away in an instant by the tools of our trade. I tried to say it in a lighthearted way, but seriously, if you do get a "dear john", don't get too worked up. Cry a little if you want then move on. Trust me when I say that there will be many more girls, and better yet women.

[Lonestar]

Sounds like a bullshit sea story, if in fact you were a jarhead.

[Littlefoot]

Think what you want, the point still stands. Don't get to worked up over a dear john letter.

Oh, and don't clench up when getting the butt shot.

[Agent Fisher]

If someone tells you to beat your face he wants you to start doing pushups, not punch yourself in the face.

Seconded. My little brother went through BCT, and first day they actually start, Drill Sergeants are screaming in their faces and the guy next to my little bro get's told to beat his face and just started wailing on himself. The NCO was loving it. He went and got all the others to show them the idiot and once everyone had seen, then they stopped him and had him do pushups.

[EyebrowZing]

guy in a trailing company got a "dear john" while we were at Pendleton. guess he couldnt take it and once he got up to the firing line he looked back at his rack mate and smiled, then put the barrell under his chin and thumbed the trigger. They stopped training on the whole base and did head counts. Later they marched us by his position and showed use the blood stains as a reminder that the shit we take for granted, like breathing, can be taken away in an instant by the tools of our trade. I tried to say it in a lighthearted way, but seriously, if you do get a "dear john", don't get too worked up. Cry a little if you want then move on. Trust me when I say that there will be many more girls, and better yet women.

My recommendation is that if you really do want to kill yourself, go ahead, because I don't want to depend on (put my life in the hands of) someone who don't care about living. Just be smart about it. Don't shoot yourself, drive your car off a bridge or into a semi (completely sober of course), as long as you make it look like a freak accident I'm all for it. Once you do something that someone decides was preventable, you are no longer just the guy who got killed, you are the asshole you went and fucked us all over because you had a bad day. Now the whole base is going through days of safety stand downs, alcoholic abuse lectures, and health and comfort inspections for contraband. The only people besides your family who wish you weren't dead at that point are all the people who want to kill you themselves for ruining their week.

Also, if you ever wind up on Pensacola and they jokingly tell you to stay away from the Marines because we're dangerous and mentally unstable, listen to them. And if you get scarred by stories of years past when Marines have infiltrated the Air Force "hotel" (that thing is way too fancy to be called a barracks) and conducted room clearings and prisoner capture in the middle of the night, well then the Air Force is probably the right place for you. Like you said, at least it's not McDonalds.

BTW, your boots are stupid.

Okay, seriously, be prepared. The one thing that will put you ahead of the slow learners is having your things straight. Know where every item you own is kept, and be able to get it quickly. There are going to be many stressful things, good organization is something you can control to an extent that will lessen your stress. As for success, your attitude determines that. As long as you can pass the basic PT, attitude is the number one determining factor in your success, both for boot camp, and your entire military career.