Daily Military Life

[Aedin]

I need to create a fictional army, but I still want it to be realistic and believable. I remember some of you guys mentioning that you'd served in the armed forces, so I was hoping that you might could answer some questions for me.
Forgive me if my questions seem silly. I know nothing of the military.

What was the average day like?
How close were you to your superiors? How often did you see them?
What was your training like?
How did you feel about being a part of the military?

Thank you for your time.

[dramspringfeald]

What was the average day like?
Like any other day; Wake up, work out, Take a nap, Go eat, Do my Job, eat, Smoke, and go home.
See I didn't get to go over, my sister died while in the care of the army SO I got locked state side.
Ask the combat vets though you may need to be more specific.

How close were you to your superiors? How often did you see them?
friends, I guess saw them every day or so.

What was your training like?
Wake up, work out, eat, shoot shit, repeat

How did you feel about being a part of the military?
Meh, Think high school but with AR's

[planktheory]

It's not incredibly different from the typical college life, except swapping out classes for 'work'. Typically you wake up, go to your company formation, you do a workout, have breakfast, hygiene up, go to where your job requires you, have lunch, go back to work, final formation, and break for the evening. Unless you have firewatch, then you work that night.

Formations are usually everyone standing around and your commander and/or first sergeant provide you with information on various things.

How close were you to your superiors? How often did you see them?
Depends on the size of your company, the smaller ones you see your superiors quite often. In larger companies, you typically deal with your squad leader, who they report to your platoon leader, they report to your first sergeant, they report to the commander, and it keeps going up from there.

In larger companies you typically just see most of the people in just your platoon, depending on what sort of job you do. Smaller ones have less roles to fill, therefore you will be working along with your higher ups more frequently.

What was your training like?
Basic training is pretty much what everyone expects out of training when they see Full Metal Jacket (though their DS was a bit extreme, and in the army they didn't make you sleep with your gun).

Advanced training is vastly different depending on your job, I had a lot of books and studying in mine and a lot of hands on training as well.

These are definitely more like college/high school classes, and typically quite structured.

How did you feel about being a part of the military?
I joined the military for the experience. It was very interesting and I met a lot of people. I think the biggest difference between civilian life and a soldier's life is structure and comradeship. I ended up getting along with virtually everyone I ever worked with.. but I also could tell that people tended to still form cliques and high school dynamics weren't too far off.

[TsukiShima]

I didn't join the army (that's for sure, I am a girl and most of all I wear glasses, that's a BIG limit). But if it helps, I was in a national service for three painful months, yet meaningful. It was not as strict as the real thing in army, but our teachers and coaches consists of them.

What was the average day like?
We had to follow a tight schedule. Waking up early and also forced to sleep early. In the morning you have workouts, and until the noon, you'll need to practice marching, weapons or perhaps camping. Whatever it is there's always activities. There's a slight gap though (It's for the time for the muslims to pray) we'll seek the chance to take the nap. The time for eat has already been set, but I guess you can still choose whether to eat or not.

How close were you to your superiors? How often did you see them?
Our teachers and coaches are strict yet flexible! (But perhaps that is because we were only teenagers.) You can treat them as a friend outside the training field, but always have respect and remember where you stand. Fortunately, we never heard our commando really raised his voice, but the other teachers did.

What was your training like?
Training was tiring, I can't deny that. We girls complaint a lot about being sunburned! xD Since we're not really an army, our training was focused a lot on marching, camping, you can say handling the weapon as the most anticipated activity.

How did you feel about being a part of the military?
Being even most honest, I was forced to enter the national service. Even so, it was memorable. I did changed to a more independent person, more positive and matured. But if I'm given the choice to go again, a big NO.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Planktheory said it all pretty well, but I'll make my contributions.

What was the average day like?
This is what I find most TV shows, movies, media, etc. get wrong about life in the military. They always depict it like all the soldiers or Marines are still in bootcamp and shouting 'Yes, sirs!' and doing pushups at the drop of a hat. Instead, it is very much like any other job.

If you are living in a squad bay/barracks, who ever is the last firewatch (night guard) announces "lights" and turns on all the lights signalling it is time to get up. In bootcamp, this would mean drill instructors yelling and people dashing out of the rack (bed) to get immediately dressed and stand on line, but in an active duty situation, there is generally 30 minutes to an hour until morning formation, and people are free to do whatever they want during that time. A lot stay in bed trying for a few more minutes of sleep, some sit on the edge of the rack and stare blankly into space trying to wake up, others take the time to read books, magazines, or talk with each other while waiting for their turn to hit the showers or shave.

Breakfast may be eaten before or after morning formation, but you're generally responsible for getting it yourself. It all depends on what that particular day's schedule looks like.

Morning formation has everyone stand around relaxed and talking with each other while waiting until the platoon sergeant or commander shows up. Fireteam leaders get a head count for their guys, and squad leaders get a headcount from the fireteam leaders, so when everyone goes to attention the squad leaders can report to the platoon leadership whether everyone is there or not. Basically, this is like the roll call you had to do in school, only more organized. Afterward, everyone breaks to go to breakfast (if eating as a platoon) or goes to start their daily job.

There may or may not be physical training scheduled, but it can generally fall on any time of the day. Most of the time you are responsible for maintaining your own physical training. The military will just test you every so often to make sure you're still in shape.

How close were you to your superiors? How often did you see them?
Like planktheory said, it depends on the size of your company. Mine was pretty small, so I routinely ran into the officers in charge of the company. Leadership THAT high you aren't usually that close to, because the rank gap was just so huge. Still, you could occasionally have relaxed conversations with them if they started the conversation.

Platoon leadership is a different story. You'll know your platoon sergeant and commander very well, as they'll often have pep talks or meetings, and they know everyone in the platoon. You can go up and talk to them pretty easily, but you always want to remember and respect their position, and you definitely don't want them to think you are breaking the chain of command. (I.e. bringing problems to them before bringing them up with your squad leader).

Squad leadership is very relaxed and friendly. Most of the time your squad leader only has a single rank on you, and you constantly hang out with your squad so everyone knows each other, hangs out, and talk and tell jokes together. A lot of times your squad leader will be someone you knew who is promoted, so you were friends before, and still friends afterward. (Unless you are unlucky like me, and the ONE person you have problems with and fist fought with is suddenly promoted to be your squad leader. Think a supervisor at work who doesn't like you for an example of the headaches that can cause.)

What was your training like?
Insane. Full Metal Jacket is surprisingly fairly accurate just a touch extreme. (I was in the U.S. Marine Corps) It is rough enough that usually someone in every training platoon tries to kill themselves to avoid a few more weeks of it, and these are people who were screened for mental health issues BEFORE they go to basic training.

I can't speak to other branches of the military, but basic in the Marines only takes place in one of two places, one of them being the infamous Parris Island (where I attended boot camp). Essentially it is a swamp on an island with only one way on or off, and it is more regimented and you have fewer privileges than a maximum security federal prison.

My former recruiter summed up basic training the best - "I wouldn't take a million dollars in exchange for the skills I learned and the experience I gained, but you couldn't pay me a million dollars to do it again."

How did you feel about being a part of the military?
I think this highly depends on WHY you joined the military. From my personal observations, people are only in the military for a few reasons, not all of them mutually exclusive. They may have joined due to patriotism and ideals for the country, they may have joined for money for college or skill training, they may have joined to maintain family tradition, or they may have joined because they love violence and wanted a license to kill. (Few and far between, but they exist. One of my platoon sergeants was a straight up psychopath who would beat dogs to death with his bare hands for fun. Anyone who counts their kills and is proud of them is likely to be one of these.)

A lot of military personnel go through these stages:
Year One: "My branch is awesome and the military is awesome!"
Year Two: "It's all right."
Year Three: "Man, a lot of what I have put up with sucks."
Year Four: "Screw this!"

Anyone else is going career. The rest generally have feelings akin to this - "I would die for my fellow Marines, because they're awesome, but f*%k the Corps!" So ... its complicated. Honestly, this is one of those things you'll never understand no matter how much you read about it without experiencing it for yourself.

[Aedin]

Thank you for this guys. You've all been really helpful and given me a lot to consider. Thanks for your help.

[KomiTsuku]

If there is one thing I can stress about the military, it is a many-headed beast on all levels. Life as a soldier is different from life as a marine and definitely different than life as an airman. Even on that level, life in operations is radically different than life in force support or maintenance. Know the force you are making. Are they from a military superpower or are they a ragtag milita? Are they a mechanic, where you can be rough around the edges and cuss when you drop that wrench, or are they the by-the-regs overwhelmingly professional finance officer who wouldn't let his troops go home even a second early?

Anyway, here comes my bit for the questions. It comes from an NCO flyboy who spent most of his career downrange, so it doesn't match up with previous folks.

What was the average day like?
At home: I get up, go to workout, clean up, head into my office, check e-mails, address any deficient training or flights I need to do, push the paperwork, go home. It's honestly not that different than a more structured office job. Watch Office Space if you want a good example of my average day. Unless there is something incredibly formal going on (change of command), we never do formations and I've only marched during basic training, tech school, and ALS.

Downrange: Get up, walk a couple hundred feet to the bathroom, clean up, get some food with the rest of the crew, brief what we were going to fly for the day, head out to the jet and prepare it, fly the 12 hour mission, spend another hour shutting down and heading back into the squadron, brief what we did, go home and pass out. Rinse, repeat. There really is never anything that qualifies as an average day. There is always some sort of nasty surprise or sudden retasking that changes up the day. Stress point here is that life is 99% tedious boredom and 1% sheer unbridled terror and chaos.

How close were you to your superiors? How often did you see them?
Depends on the level of superior you are talking about. My immediate supervisor (a master sergeant) I see on a daily basis. We tend to joke around as we push through our daily work. Because we are a flying squadron, my office alone has a half dozen officers at any given moment, ranging from 1st LT to Major. While there is still a level of professionalism and due respect, we don't tend to have that traditional enlisted/officer mentality. That's not saying we're drinking buddies, hanging out after work, but in the office or in the plane, you tend to be pretty friendly just because you see them every single day. Oh, the stories I could tell...

They're your family downrange, like it or not. A crew eats together, lives together, flies and fights together.

However, there is a jump when you hit the Lt. Col level or higher, when they have full squadrons under their command. I see senior squadron on a regular basis, but...

You'll know your platoon sergeant and commander very well, as they'll often have pep talks or meetings, and they know everyone in the platoon. You can go up and talk to them pretty easily, but you always want to remember and respect their position, and you definitely don't want them to think you are breaking the chain of command.

Anybody higher than that (group or wing command) you see very rarely and definitely not on anything less than a professional basis.

What was your training like?
I'd rather not talk about basic, but while the AF is not as gung-ho as the other branches, the same principles apply.

However, once you get past the boot camp and technical school stuff, training doesn't stop. There is always another computer based training or qualification that you need to take care of. There is about three dozen things I have to keep green on a yearly basis. Some of it is very informal, me and an instructor going over the various things you can use to give first aid. Some are a lot more formal with 60-70 people in an auditorium with a speaker and slide shows. Oh, the slideshows. Training tends to be a lot of death by powerpoint.

Lesson: You are never fully green, so stop slacking around and get it done. It should have been done last week!

How did you feel about being a part of the military?
Love (most) of the people I work with, hate the machine. Thankfully, nothing ever stays the same, so my feelings are constantly changing. It really is a person-by-person basis. I know people who come into work every day wishing they'd not signed the dotted line. I know others who worked twenty years because that plane was all they ever knew or wanted to know. A lot of the officers stay with it because it provides a stable life for their family.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Stress point here is that life is 99% tedious boredom and 1% sheer unbridled terror and chaos.

Ah, yeah. Can't believe I forgot to mention that. It's been a while since I was in.

Yes. The military is almost unrelentingly boring. For every cool, exciting thing you get to do, for every amazing brush with awesomeness, you have weeks of soul crushing boredom in between. "Hurry up and wait." That's the phrase you'll hear to describe it. You have to rush around in a hurry to get somewhere to sit and wait for hours before anything actual happens.

I have literally gotten up at the ass-crack of dawn to march to a field to sit under a tree until it got dark AGAIN at sunset, to do an hour long live fire exercise. (My job was infantry, in case I didn't mention that before.) That was my ENTIRE DAY. Other days included such exciting activities as cleaning your rifle for 8 hours straight (that you cleaned the day before), or standing in a fighting hole staring at the horizon for 18-20 hours a day. Have you ever stared in a single direction at a single thing for more time than it takes you to drive from Florida to Canada? I have. For multiple days in a row. At the end of that week I got to experience the most thrilling combat exercise of my entire military career for 2 hours, yes, but I had to put up with 120 hours of boredom to get to that part.

I averaged it out once, and found that by counting up all the exciting and cool stories I tell of my time in the military, something awesome and memorable only happened an average of once every 3 months to me while I was enlisted.

Some are a lot more formal with 60-70 people in an auditorium with a speaker and slide shows. Oh, the slideshows. Training tends to be a lot of death by powerpoint.

Powerpoint privileges should definitely be revoked for military instructors. You would think a slideshow on the best way to engage in urban environment house clearing would be exciting, but the Marine Corps found a way to make it boring.

They even had a slideshow prepared for the effects of various NBC (nuclear biological and chemical) symptoms, conditions, and exposures, which consisted of pictures of various afflicted or dead individuals. Which also managed to be both gross and boring.

So, yeah, the military is basically prolonged boredom, tests and school work, punctuated by brief and explosive moments of gunfire and violence.