/lit/ - Literature

>>12422260

US Army 11B (infantry) here, was in 1988-1994, served in Panama and Somalia

>After basic training, what do you do to specialize?

After completion of basic training, you're sent on to Advanced Individual Training, which is the school that trains you on your MOS.

>Do you just pick stuff and practice with different weapons, or do you have to qualify first?

We're required to qualify with the M16A2 rifle at minimum although you can also try and qualify on other weapons like the M9 pistol, M203 grenade launcher, and M249 SAW and you get assigned one in depending on your aptitude with them. I was one of the best shots with the M203 so they wound up giving me one.

>They just give you all the kit you'll need for a year and stick you on a plane with intermittent resupplies?

When we go on deployment, we fly in with just our uniforms, helmets, rifles (unloaded), and other very basic accouterments, stuff like special weapons and ammo are flown in separately (because it's explosive and therefore dangerous).

>Before you leave camp do you do a gear check?

Always.

>How do watches normally work if there's a mission coming up, do the guys on the mission take it easy before they head out?

Strongly depends on the circumstances. In Panama, we were running rehearsals right up until H-Hour.

>Leadership is another good thing to look at. I have heard plenty of cases where the higher levels of leadership can be in conflict with company commanders on the ground, probably due to different levels of information.

Oh yeah, it can even happen with guys of the same rank because someone's not where they're supposed to be and it causes confusion. I nearly blew up another platoon because I fired a bunch of 40mm grenades into a building they were about to clear. Had no idea they were even there (smoke from burning buildings made it impossible to see). Showered them with broken glass. Platoon commanders got into a massive pissing contest over it and I got chewed out but not punished (good aim, supremely bad judgement).

>>12138201
>The idea that killing someone is some huge experience is a combination of projection by effete brahmin types and a deliberate attempt to enervate the vital spirit of warriors.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact combat has become far more impersonal in the past century. Instead of bayoneting a guy or shooting him at 50 meters (although in my cases, it was from as close as 30 feet to as far as 100 meters), you're shooting him from 200+ meters out or blowing him up with with an air or artillery strike from many miles away. As such, the actual act of taking life has become more mystified.


>especially in combat, which I assume you're talking about

You'd be correct.

>>12138226
That's the weirdest thing. When I pulled the trigger. It was like my mind just went blank as I watched their bodies fall to the ground. Even when I saw the body of one of my friends who was killed, I just became stopped processing it. The reality of it didn't really hit me until well afterward and I just felt emptiness.

When I saw the dead kids though (mostly from disease or starvation, some from gunfights we caught up in or showed up at afterward), I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry.

>>11885093
>>11885900
I'll break them up by genre

Personal accounts:

In the Company of Heroes by Michael Durant (Durant's account of the Battle of Mogadishu)

Jarhhead by Anthony Swofford (Scout Sniper who served in the Gulf War)

Night Mission to Mogadishu by Trent LaLand (US Marine who served in the Invasion of Panama and whose unit was later diverted from the Persian Gulf to evacuate 300 people trapped in the US Embassy in Mogadishu at the outbreak of the Somali Civil War)

Generation Kill by Evan Wright (reporter who was embedded with Recon Marines during the opening months of the Invasion of Iraq)

Strategy

Imperial Life in the Emerald City Rajiv Chandrasekaran (failings of the Coalition Provisional Authority during the first year of the Iraq War). This is in my opinion, the most important book ever written about the Iraq War.

Al Qaeda's Great Escape Philip Smucker (failure of the US Military to kill Osama bin Laden in 2001, also covers Operation Anaconda)

Fiasco by Thomas E. Ricks (poor planning behind the Iraq War)

Corporate Warriors by P.W. Singer (rise of Private Military Companies from the 1990s onward)