Posted on Jun 15, 2018
PFC Indirect Fire Infantryman (Mortarman)
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The wifey wants to know. You know how that is.
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SSG Eduardo Ybarra  Jr.  MS Psyc
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I'll share this with you: in one of my first units we had a CSM who would continuously look at the blotter report and when the members of the BN began to show up more often we would head to the field. Normally our field problems would last two to three weeks, on some occasions our field training lasted a couple months. Overall I would say that it is not uncommon to spend over 200 days a year in the field. Some units optempo are higher than others if you are in a rapid deployment unit you can expect a great amount of field time. Remember though, this is the lifestyle and demand of a Grunt train train train because when you go to the show you should be ready to dance.
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MSG Danny Mathers
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Edited 7 y ago
SGT Sesar's said it best. What you need to do is train your wife. You must be thinking WTF, but what I advise will save your marriage and career. The first thing is how to budjet your pay. I taught my wife how to handle the bills and who the unit's wives coordinator was. The military wives will help your wife on issues as they occur. It will be hard making things work on a private's pay. I had a break in service and came back in as a PV2, BCT, AIT and unit assignment as a PFC. We cut out all vour vices and my wife learned to cook and buy things we needed cheap with the help of other military wives we lived near. Train her to be self sufficient if she is not already that way. Sometimes it is better to wait a while separated which is what I did until I had the pay grade to support my wife and child. Be all you can be and Soldier Hard! I hope you consider some of my advise.
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SP5 Retired
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7 y
MSG Danny Mathers Great advice - especially about the budget. Wasn't anything more heartbreaking than to see a PFC or SPC4 family down and out back when payday was only once a month and the cash ran out a week before payday.
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PFC Indirect Fire Infantryman (Mortarman)
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7 y
Thank you! I will absolutely keep your advice in mind and will sit down and talk with my wife about it. I appreciate your insight MSG!
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SFC David Reid, M.S, PHR, SHRM-CP, DTM
SFC David Reid, M.S, PHR, SHRM-CP, DTM
>1 y
Sounds like she,s trying him!
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SGT Matthew Sesar
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All depend on the unit and your leadership in that unit. You will have long periods of time where you are either in the field or packing to go into the field. Make the best of it. That’s where you will make friends for life.
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As an infantryman, how long and often can I expect to be in the field? Is it dependent on the unit I'm with, or same across the board?
CSM Patrick Durr
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Ordinarily, field training runs in cycles. Post's with Divisions on them use all Brigades and Battalions and some separate companies for post detail. 3 months local training...ie, local ranges, qualifications, squad level type training, then you'll likely get a rotation somewhere...NTC or another maneuver center for live fire and Platoon and Company level certifications and qualifications. You should expect to be gone 4-6 weeks. In todays Army, all this is working up to a rotation is support of a global mission...Afghanistan. Somewhere in there, you'll have a phase dedicated to post detail. guard duty, post cleanup, etc. Every unit is slightly different. Just remember, every day in the field working on field craft and wartime mission, is a day worthy of your time as an Infantryman. Take advantage of it because the bullets start flying you'll wish you had a few more.
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PFC Indirect Fire Infantryman (Mortarman)
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7 y
I appreciate your words of wisdom CSM. I will absolutely take full advantage of all of the opportunities I have.
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CW3 Kevin Storm
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Plan on being divorced in 24 months or less. Lol, seriously, depending on the unit, upcoming missions, deployment cycles, you could be out there a lot, or not. you won 't know till you get there.
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CSM Darieus ZaGara
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You will train often, there is only so much maneuver space out there and all units have to train and qualify. You will do you fare share, but no more than the rest. Thank you for your Service. Divorce is not inevitable.
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SFC Infantryman
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I understand you’re a young private new to the military and the married military life, but you did join the infantry. If you wanted to see your family, you should have picked 42A
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PFC Indirect Fire Infantryman (Mortarman)
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7 y
I understand that im going to be away from my family often, but it was a sacrifice we were willing to make. I chose infantry because it's what I want to do SSG.
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SFC Infantryman
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7 y
I feel you man that’s why I chose it too, but understand your job is to kill the enemy and you need to train non stop to be better at it than your enemy.
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CPT Retired
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Different across areas of operation. In Germany you can expect long excersises away from your home base. Ranging from 15-45 days with a good chunk of that under field conditions. In the US, you will spend 7-14 days in the field, maybe more if you go to NTC or JROTC. Either way, as a grunt expect to embrace the suck!
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SFC George Sease
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As infantry you should expect to have time in the field. If your unit is NOT in the field I would STRONGLY SUGGEST that you GET THE HELL AWAY/OUT of that unit just as fast as you can. The infantry is a unit that has to spend time in the field so that they can get AND keep their edge. If you have a skill and don’t use it then you will lose it. Same thing in the infantry.
Look at it this way, think of all the big lies that you can tell after you get out/retire. I remember one time marching 50 miles both ways up hill and through a swamp in a snow storm and it was 105 in the shade.
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PFC Indirect Fire Infantryman (Mortarman)
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7 y
I was thinking the same thing about a unit not being in the field often. I definitely want to be around the best infantrymen that I can be around. If my unit isnt doing that and is being lazy, id be able to request to transfer to a different unit? Would that be frowned upon and would that be ample reason to request a transfer? Would it even likely happen?
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SFC George Sease
SFC George Sease
7 y
I just don’t know. I lucked up and transferred to a jam up unit and was able to stay until I retired. Admittedly it was a NG unit BUT I had a butt load of veterans and good officers in the unit . I would not trade the unit for any other. I was proud to go to war with these men.
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SGM Bill Frazer
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It depends on the unit- in the 82nd we set a record 1 yr by being in the field (exercises, training, etc.) for 271 days. It boils down to how active the unit is- what deployment level it has. 82nd runs or did 3 cycles- Training, Support, DRF ( Division Ready Force) each cycle 9 wks long. Training 9 weeks in field as much as possible probably weekends in garrison to refit. Support- 9 wks doing Range Control, Drop zone ops, school spt, etc. DRF- on call 2-6 hrs, readiness exercises around the nation, close in training.
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SSG William Bowen
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This is from a thread on Reddit. I did not write it, but it seems pretty on point:

Infantry is awesome. At the end of the day, you work harder and are more disciplined, combat-competent, filthy, sweaty, exhausted, freezing, broiling, hungry than any other regular job in the military. You get to become proficient with a plethora of weapons, mind-boggling communication systems, tactical vehicles, and drilled-into-you tactics that you get to doing instinctively without even thinking about it.

Infantry sucks ass. You are treated like shit by high-level leadership. You enlisted to kick doors and shoot people in the face, but there you are picking moss out of the cracks in the garrison sidewalk because General Fucknut is coming to give a 3 hour speech about whogivesafuck. You embark on an 18-mile roadmarch; 26 miles later, your feet are hamburger and your 16-pound machine gun feels like it weighs 56 pounds. You stand guard at a weapons range in the sub-freezing temps for hours on-end, hours after the range went "cold" (no more firing), on a secure garrison, because you "train like you fight." You show up for formation in the freezing rain; one guy forgot his gloves; everybody has to take their gloves off. You get your long-awaited weekend snatched away for CQ (charge of quarters = barracks desk duty) or battalion/brigade staff duty or courtesy patrol (even though there are such things as MPs) or a work detail or because your leadership fucked up scheduling and the ONLY day open for the weapons range is on the weekend.

You deploy and live in dust-caked tents while a hundred meters away, personnel clerks and finance desk-jockeys who will never leave the FOB are living in air-conditioned housing units. You go on patrol for 6, 8, 10, 12, 24, 48 or more hours at a time, come back to the FOB and get in line for a hot meal; too bad, says the dining hall guard: your uniform is too dirty to come inside. You are moved out to a combat outpost with no running water and no electricity (other than the radios at the command post) and live there for a few weeks at a time; when you're not on-mission, you're in a guard tower, or fixing vehicles, or burning shit in oil-drums, or digging ditches, or stringing razorwire, or filling sandbags, or rolling out on QRF (quick reaction force) to help a patrol who got hit, or you're cleaning your weapon. If you have time to eat, masturbate, sleep, and wipe your asscrack off with babywipes, you do it.

You train for 14 weeks to earn those blue disks, crossed rifles and blue cord (if you're a Marine, you train for 26 weeks, and I don't know what infantry-specific accoutrements USMC infantrymen get, forgive my ignorance, fellow grunts) and train for months or even a year further at your line unit to deploy to combat. You learn how to use almost every gun we have, you learn how to drive (and maybe gun) Humvees, Bradleys, Strykers, MRAPs (unit-dependent) and practice shooting with night-vision and infrared lasers, or night-vision or thermal scopes. You and your buddies give each other IVs with night-vision in the back of a moving Bradley for combat-lifesaver training. You itch for the day you deploy, while the veterans around you roll their eyes, having already seen what you yearn for.

You get there and the enemy hides in civilian clothes; he uses women and children for human shields and spotters for mortar attacks. He kidnaps people from opposite tribes/sects and rapes women and murders children and tortures people with power drills to their kneecaps and cheeks and he cuts the tongue out of a 13 year old boy because the kid chatted with you during a halt on-mission. He kills your friends with sniper rifles and IEDs and you rarely, if ever, even see him face-to-face. You probably won't get the opportunity to kill him; rarely will you get the opportunity to even shoot at him. When you finally get that chance, you won't feel a thing. You won't be happy that he's laying there in front of you, bleeding and moaning on the pavement. You'll see dead people... civilians killed by them, killed accidentally by us, indigenous security forces (cops, military, local hired militia), bad guys... you may see people die right in front of you, within mere meters. At the end of it, you'll be dull. Numb. Desensitized. You'll wish you fired your weapon more.

You'll come home and be unable to relate to the friends and family who clapped you on the back and wished you well when you left those few short years ago. You'll know that you were the very top of the food chain; only special operations direct action teams trained more, did more, saw more, and were in more danger than you were. And your future college classmates will find out you were in the military and say things like, "Oh, my cousin is in the Navy, I think he does something with computers. He went to Iraq; it must've been SCARY." Or, "My buddy Joe joined the Army. Did you know him?" Or, "Did you KILL ANYBODY?" Or, "I support you guys, but I oppose the war. You didn't really believe in what we're doing over there, RIGHT?"

The highs are higher; relationships are more passionate (and more quickly burned out), weekends and block-leave periods are cherished, and days you somehow don't get put on the tower guard roster are things to behold.

The lows are lower; I think I already summed them up.

Caveat: tankers, scouts, combat engineers, and arty guys (the other combat-arms MOS) are cool too. And medics/corpsmen, EOD, dog handlers, psyops, civil affairs, JTACs, and pilots. I don't mean to seem like I'm marginalizing every other military MOS aside from Army/USMC infantry.

The beer I'm drinking right now is one of the best beers I've ever had. Because it's Labatt-Infantry-Blue, bitches.
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LTC Jason Mackay
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Depends on the unit, your units assigned mission, and your leadership. I was OPFOR at NTC and it was 2-3 weeks a month, 11 months a year. Then there was Germany with 45 day gunneries and other missions. At Ft Carson there were 30 day+ pinion canyon rotations once or twice a year depending on NTC prep. most units are usually out a week or two.
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Sgt Wayne Wood
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A lot depends on the unit... a lot depends on where you are in the train->deploy->maintenance cycle... a lot depends on how ‘hot’ your unit is...

And then, you can always volunteer or extend your tour/deployment

};-)
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SPC Infantryman
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Soooo it’s going to all be dependent on your unit. But quite frequently if your in the lower 48 like Bragg and Campbell. If your in cold weather like drum, wainwright, etc expect a lot of field time in the summer months and a few during the winter for cold weather field training.
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SGT Infantryman
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Unit dependent
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SFC S1 Personnel Ncoic
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There was a field problem that started in 1942 that went all the way to 1945. if you find yourself in the field for any duration shorter than this.....you're in good shape.
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SPC Anthony Kueneman
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All depends on the unit. Don't worry though, the field is where you will have the best time.
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2LT Brian L.
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Three to eight months out of the year...not what you wanted to hear IM sure but count on this.
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SPC Casey Ashfield
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I was part of some units where 30 days (not annual total) in the field was a short rotation. And a "fun" field problem we did with 10th Mtn had us in the field, hiking up a mountain chain over 21 days with "light packs" of 65-ish pounds. Compared to the heavy packs of 90+ Welcome to the infantry.

On a personal note, divorce rates among combat MOS and veterans in general is incredibly high. That is something BOTH of you need to aware of.
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SPC Bradly Martin
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Safe bet would be 220-280 in the field. Battle drill 1A for dayssssss. Especially since the only deployments now are Africa. Just train, train, EIB, train, Djibouti rotation, train, PCS, train, EIB, so on and so forth :)
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