<story><title>Faking your death</title><url>https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/so-you-think-can-fake-your-own-death-elizabeth-greenwood</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Diederich</author><text>Yes, this is all well stated.&lt;p&gt;In basic training, I ended up being very close to a lot of different people that I would have otherwise never come in contact with, to that level.&lt;p&gt;And in my opinion, this is a very healthy thing.&lt;p&gt;One thing I&amp;#x27;d like to share that cracks me up, all these years later.  Pardon the forthcoming ramble.&lt;p&gt;I had been handling guns from a pretty early age, but I was still looking forward to training on the M-16.&lt;p&gt;Well, at least in the early 90s, there is exactly one (1) day of weapons training in USAF basic training.&lt;p&gt;In the morning, we got on a bus and went to the ass-end of Lackland AFB where the gun ranges were.  We then received our weapons, with no ammo in sight, and &amp;#x27;trained&amp;#x27; on them in several hours of classes.&lt;p&gt;Note, this classroom was just a classroom, with desks, with the normal classroom density.  And so 50 young men and women were sitting at desks with M-16s.  And, on various cadences, we all held them up, put the clip in, simulated chambering a round, aimed, and pulled the trigger.&lt;p&gt;But we had to aim...kind of up and to our left.  Because we were never suppose to point the weapon at another person we didn&amp;#x27;t mean to shoot, loaded or otherwise.&lt;p&gt;It was an absolutely absurd scene.&lt;p&gt;Many of my class-mates were openly afraid of handling these weapons, and it showed.&lt;p&gt;After lunch we marched, weapons slung, over to the firing range.  We were to each fire sixty rounds that day.  The first thirty were warmup&amp;#x2F;practice.  The second 30 were for qualification.  We each lay supine with the weapon on sandbags.  Only then were each of us handed three rounds each, which we pushed into the clip.  And then we fired those three rounds.&lt;p&gt;The young lady next to me was terrified of guns, and had never touched one.  I noticed that she was closing her eyes before each shot.&lt;p&gt;After we fired our 30 rounds into the targets, our final scores were calculated.  My target had 30 holes tightly grouped in the middle.  But there was another hole, off all by itself, right on the edge of the target.&lt;p&gt;Somehow I managed to score 31 out of 30 that day, though it was recorded as 30.&lt;p&gt;The young lady next to me repeated &amp;#x27;gun day&amp;#x27; twice more, with different flights (groups), before she qualified.&lt;p&gt;Sorry for the ramble!&lt;p&gt;The real punch line came when I asked my training instructor, later on, why we bothered with only a single day of weapon training.&lt;p&gt;He laughed out loud and said something like, fuck if I know.  Think about it, Diederich.  What do you think would be going on if Airmen were forced to actually use their weapons against an enemy.  The war would already be over!&lt;p&gt;Indeed!  The USAF: where the best chance of direct enemy contact comes from becoming one of the few tens of thousands of officers who actually venture into enemy territory on occasion.  The &amp;#x27;grunts&amp;#x27;, the enlisted, no way.</text></item><item><author>coldtea</author><text>I did compulsory service, and the most important lessons for me from it are:&lt;p&gt;1) You get (well, are forced) to mingle and cooperate with people outside your &amp;quot;circle&amp;quot; and bubble (of course this is truer for compulsory service).&lt;p&gt;2) You are in place where no one treats you like a &amp;quot;unique snowflake&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;3) You get to do all the shit people usually have their parents, mothers, cleaning services, etc do for them, even more so than when merely living alone, because there you are forced to do it, and to do it for 100s of people.</text></item><item><author>Diederich</author><text>Funny you mention two days of basic training being your worst mistake.&lt;p&gt;My biggest problem with basic was keeping myself from laughing out loud at the various antics.  Once I was able to control that urge, it was pretty straightforward.  I saw it, essentially, as six weeks of necessary bullshit that allowed me to get to the next level.&lt;p&gt;My term in the USAF as a 3C0X2 (computer programmer) was fantastically beneficial.  I&amp;#x27;d already been programming for over a decade when I went in.  But the installation I landed at allowed me to really learn in a lot of new directions.&lt;p&gt;Having said that, I know a lot of folks that had a far less productive time.  But it&amp;#x27;s still a pretty good way to bootstrap a life independent from family, in my opinion at least.  The money from the GI bill is very valuable, plus, with some measure of self control, single Airmen can save up a ton of money, since the USAF pays in full for food, housing and medical.</text></item><item><author>hodgesrm</author><text>Fun article.  The idea of faking your death has probably occurred to a lot of people in military service.&lt;p&gt;It sure did in my case--it only took two days of basic training to make clear that signing up for the US Air Force was the worst mistake of a heretofore untroubled life.  It&amp;#x27;s gratifying to see my proposed method (an untimely hiking accident) so highly praised.&lt;p&gt;Just out of curiosity for anybody who has gone through this exercise what method(s) did you consider?  Extra points for originality.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mbrameld</author><text>Yeah, I thought the same thing when I joined as a 3C0x2 in 99. 10 years later I was still a 3C0x2 (3D0x4 by then I think, I got out shortly after the AFSC changed), but I was attached to an Army infantry unit (3-1 INF) in Afghanistan as part of the ILO, or in lieu of, program where they would take an Airman from a similar career field in lieu of a soldier. They later renamed it to JET, joint expeditionary tasking. I experienced direct enemy contact as an enlisted Air Force computer programmer. About half of our 80-person team was AF, most in on-the-fob support roles like services and supply, but the mechanics, medics, and civil engineers that were out with us every day were all AF, and all enlisted except two of the CE folks.</text></comment>
<story><title>Faking your death</title><url>https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/so-you-think-can-fake-your-own-death-elizabeth-greenwood</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Diederich</author><text>Yes, this is all well stated.&lt;p&gt;In basic training, I ended up being very close to a lot of different people that I would have otherwise never come in contact with, to that level.&lt;p&gt;And in my opinion, this is a very healthy thing.&lt;p&gt;One thing I&amp;#x27;d like to share that cracks me up, all these years later.  Pardon the forthcoming ramble.&lt;p&gt;I had been handling guns from a pretty early age, but I was still looking forward to training on the M-16.&lt;p&gt;Well, at least in the early 90s, there is exactly one (1) day of weapons training in USAF basic training.&lt;p&gt;In the morning, we got on a bus and went to the ass-end of Lackland AFB where the gun ranges were.  We then received our weapons, with no ammo in sight, and &amp;#x27;trained&amp;#x27; on them in several hours of classes.&lt;p&gt;Note, this classroom was just a classroom, with desks, with the normal classroom density.  And so 50 young men and women were sitting at desks with M-16s.  And, on various cadences, we all held them up, put the clip in, simulated chambering a round, aimed, and pulled the trigger.&lt;p&gt;But we had to aim...kind of up and to our left.  Because we were never suppose to point the weapon at another person we didn&amp;#x27;t mean to shoot, loaded or otherwise.&lt;p&gt;It was an absolutely absurd scene.&lt;p&gt;Many of my class-mates were openly afraid of handling these weapons, and it showed.&lt;p&gt;After lunch we marched, weapons slung, over to the firing range.  We were to each fire sixty rounds that day.  The first thirty were warmup&amp;#x2F;practice.  The second 30 were for qualification.  We each lay supine with the weapon on sandbags.  Only then were each of us handed three rounds each, which we pushed into the clip.  And then we fired those three rounds.&lt;p&gt;The young lady next to me was terrified of guns, and had never touched one.  I noticed that she was closing her eyes before each shot.&lt;p&gt;After we fired our 30 rounds into the targets, our final scores were calculated.  My target had 30 holes tightly grouped in the middle.  But there was another hole, off all by itself, right on the edge of the target.&lt;p&gt;Somehow I managed to score 31 out of 30 that day, though it was recorded as 30.&lt;p&gt;The young lady next to me repeated &amp;#x27;gun day&amp;#x27; twice more, with different flights (groups), before she qualified.&lt;p&gt;Sorry for the ramble!&lt;p&gt;The real punch line came when I asked my training instructor, later on, why we bothered with only a single day of weapon training.&lt;p&gt;He laughed out loud and said something like, fuck if I know.  Think about it, Diederich.  What do you think would be going on if Airmen were forced to actually use their weapons against an enemy.  The war would already be over!&lt;p&gt;Indeed!  The USAF: where the best chance of direct enemy contact comes from becoming one of the few tens of thousands of officers who actually venture into enemy territory on occasion.  The &amp;#x27;grunts&amp;#x27;, the enlisted, no way.</text></item><item><author>coldtea</author><text>I did compulsory service, and the most important lessons for me from it are:&lt;p&gt;1) You get (well, are forced) to mingle and cooperate with people outside your &amp;quot;circle&amp;quot; and bubble (of course this is truer for compulsory service).&lt;p&gt;2) You are in place where no one treats you like a &amp;quot;unique snowflake&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;3) You get to do all the shit people usually have their parents, mothers, cleaning services, etc do for them, even more so than when merely living alone, because there you are forced to do it, and to do it for 100s of people.</text></item><item><author>Diederich</author><text>Funny you mention two days of basic training being your worst mistake.&lt;p&gt;My biggest problem with basic was keeping myself from laughing out loud at the various antics.  Once I was able to control that urge, it was pretty straightforward.  I saw it, essentially, as six weeks of necessary bullshit that allowed me to get to the next level.&lt;p&gt;My term in the USAF as a 3C0X2 (computer programmer) was fantastically beneficial.  I&amp;#x27;d already been programming for over a decade when I went in.  But the installation I landed at allowed me to really learn in a lot of new directions.&lt;p&gt;Having said that, I know a lot of folks that had a far less productive time.  But it&amp;#x27;s still a pretty good way to bootstrap a life independent from family, in my opinion at least.  The money from the GI bill is very valuable, plus, with some measure of self control, single Airmen can save up a ton of money, since the USAF pays in full for food, housing and medical.</text></item><item><author>hodgesrm</author><text>Fun article.  The idea of faking your death has probably occurred to a lot of people in military service.&lt;p&gt;It sure did in my case--it only took two days of basic training to make clear that signing up for the US Air Force was the worst mistake of a heretofore untroubled life.  It&amp;#x27;s gratifying to see my proposed method (an untimely hiking accident) so highly praised.&lt;p&gt;Just out of curiosity for anybody who has gone through this exercise what method(s) did you consider?  Extra points for originality.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>snerbles</author><text>&amp;gt; The &amp;#x27;grunts&amp;#x27;, the enlisted, no way.&lt;p&gt;This was less the case in the past fifteen years, where USAF personnel in certain career fields were often pressed into Army roles.  Particularly in convoy and military police operations, the Army had overextended itself and needed the other branches to fill in the gaps of trained personnel.&lt;p&gt;For most airmen, it can be years before you&amp;#x27;re even considered for deployment.  Less than a year into my enlistment as a Security Forces airman, I was sent to be a prison guard (&amp;quot;detainee operations&amp;quot;) at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq.  There were Army and Navy personnel, but most of their guards were troops put into a role outside of their usual training...a couple years prior such non-police &amp;quot;augmentee&amp;quot; soldiers without proper use-of-force training were involved in the torture incident in the prison at Abu Ghraib.</text></comment>