Army?

[Karenas]

Anybody have any recent experience in the US Army? And willing to help me get the Army-related details right in my next story?

Thanks in advance!
Karenas

 

[emap]

I'm confused, your first story you are an Army brat, did you forget?

All joking aside, watch Blackhawk Down, copy what they do and that is basically it. It still works because a gun is a gun. Usually the guys shooting at them are using an AK 47, thing was designed after WW2 probably from a gun used by the German paratroopers. He denied that of course but well they are rather close to carbon copies. not saying it isn't possible he came up with it on his own but almost seems too coincidental.

Anyway, besides certain things like equipment carried that movie is exactly how the Army of today operates.

Course if you want to look it up yourself Army has a website and they do get rather in depth on things. Now if you are thinking of doign a story in boot camp, military channel has boot camp shows. I think it's Marines but boot is rather universal.

 

[Karenas]

Thank you for reading it!
I am re-vamping that story and wanted more details. Things like what rank the boyfriend and the dad should be. I was an AF brat so I know some, but I also know some things are different.
Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[emap]

Oh well see Air Force came out of the Army after WW2 so the ranks are about equal really. Course read up on Marines if you want do be a Marine brat, they have four or was it five sergeants I forget now. I'm not kidding, there's regular sergeant, another sergeant, gunnery sergeant, staff sergeant and I think one more after.

The rest of them have sergeant and then lieutenant so you know go figure. Oddly enough besides that Marines work the same as Army once you get them off a Navy boat anyway.

I looked it up, I was curious about it after watching Battle: Los Angeles, I mean the main guy is a staff sergeant so it's what the heck. Awesome movie and if you haven't seen it watch it because they move the same way in that.

 

[bashfullyshameless]

Thank you for reading it!
I am re-vamping that story and wanted more details. Things like what rank the boyfriend and the dad should be. I was an AF brat so I know some, but I also know some things are different.
Thanks for the suggestions.

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/theservices/a/rankchart.htm

The links there are pretty accurate. You could also Google up a current pay chart pretty easily (but remember military personnel get "free" housing, medical, dental and other such stuff, so those pay rates are a little deceptive).

Things to remember about rank:

*There is only one E-10 for each service. He (or she?) spends a good deal of time in Washington advocating for servicepeople and their families in political circles and such.

*Technically, you can give orders to anyone you outrank, but anyone at E-3 bossing around anyone below them is kind of a joke in most settings. I wouldn't be surprised if the Marines took that seriously, and in an emergency it might really matter, but often nobody's really gonna care a whole lot between those ranks. E-4 may be a huge step in authority or it may also get largely ignored depending on the setting. Once someone is at E-5, you generally can expect some regular bossing responsibilities.

*Television and movies have a great love for officers, but generally speaking it's the enlisted guys who actually make things happen. Officers are like suit-wearing executives while senior enlisteds are the middle managers who get things done.

*By and large, officers are college (or academy) educated. Some enlisted people are also college-educated, or get their degrees by taking college classes bit by bit while serving, but enlisted folks don't have to have any college. This is mostly true of the military after WW II; during and before that, it was a little more arbitrary.

*If you're an enlisted and you're talking to an officer, it doesn't matter if you've been in for 20 years and he's just out of Officer Candidate School; you call him sir and you follow his orders. That said, a fresh young officer who ignores the advice and input of a senior enlisted is probably gonna A) lose the respect of his subordinates fast, and B) catch hell from senior officers who know better, 'cause experience still counts for an awful lot.

*Officers get saluted by anyone whom they outrank, and then return the salute unless they basically want to say "fuck you" (or they're so busy they don't even notice people saluting as they walk by... which is weird). Enlisteds do not salute other enlisteds.

Past that... who you work for and see regularly according to rank can vary greatly. For most of my time in the Coast Guard, I interacted with officers pretty rarely. It just depends. I haven't read your story, but if you threw out a general job description (are they all guys working in a garage? in a clerical field? are they infantry types?), we could probably work things out just fine.

 

[bashfullyshameless]

Also, if it matters:

Romantic/sexual relationships between officers & enlisteds of any rank is forbidden. It's called "fraternization." I suppose you might get away with it if they were both enlisteds who got together and then one of them got a commission (became an officer), but that's an awfully rare case.

Romantic/sexual relationships in any direct chain of command, regardless of ranks involved, is also forbidden. I've seen it result in serious disciplinary action. Dating within one's particular office/department/whatever is pretty much frowned upon, too. This isn't that different from the real world (you're generally not supposed to date your boss), but because it's the military the rules are especially firm.

When I left the Coast Guard in 1998, my base literally had flow charts posted to help people figure out whether or not dating a fellow Coastie was okay. I'm not kidding. It seemed insane to me (and still does), but sadly the military doesn't always trust its people to act like adults.

 

[Karenas]

Bashfully, I have a soldier dating the daughter of his superior. Think that would be a problem?

 

[emap]

Only if dad tosses up a fit. Soldiers have restrictions on dating fellow soldiers. A soldier dating anyone else is allowed so long as it's not running out to see him/her during boot camp.

 

[bashfullyshameless]

Bashfully, I have a soldier dating the daughter of his superior. Think that would be a problem?

On my first ship while I was in the Coast Guard, I had a shipmate -- a lowly E-3, just like me -- who had been dating the daughter of the Commandant of the Coast Guard just a year before. No issues arose. I'm sure Dad would've preferred his daughter date an officer, but I never heard about it being anything to worry about.

Now, there were tons of layers between my shipmate and the Commandant, so it wasn't like there were likely to be any issues of favoritism or retaliation that'd be connected between the two. If it's a guy dating his direct superior's daughter... well, again, you can get into ugly territory depending on Dad's level of maturity, but that's all up to his ability to be a rational adult and not an issue of chain of command or anything like that.

 

[emap]

What he said with an addendum. Coast Guard is not Army.

I'm teasing but anyway it all boils down to what you want to have daddy say and do. It is possible he can get the boyfriend shipped off to a new base. Base commanders get leeway and he can make it up. Also anyone in the armed forces can and probably will get called to serve overseas besides base commanders and above.