What are your thoughts on mos's that don't deploy to "combat areas" without choice? What about referring to soldiers as "pogs"?
What are your thoughts on mos's that don't deploy to "combat areas" without choice? What about referring to soldiers as "pogs"? Do people believe that it's a soldiers personal choice where their unit deploys to?
The last sentence in your second paragraph and your last paragraph, I'm completely on board with, and they are the reason I will never go Airborne or Air Assault.
Well put SFC Rapach,
I love this becoming the victim. I have served with Support, Infantry and SF units. In most they realize that they cant do the jobs me and my Soldiers do or they wouldn't have us. most of the time just doing the best job you can and the problem will correct itself.
I did hear of support personnel being used as Infantry. It was a unit of the 10th Mountain Division. All the Infantry types were already out on mission, and a crucial area needed to be secured. So they gathered up all the support personnel, outfitted them with full combat loads, and a CONEX full of gear and supplies, and dropped them into the contested area for 3 days. From what I heard, those support Soldiers did an amazing job securing and holding the area. Let's not prejudge people just because of their MOS.
You should take them all to the PX and use them to pay for your purchase. I knew a guy who bought a big-screen TV with pogs. Would have loved to watch the clerk count out those things!
Through all the bluster, it is funny (to me) that Infantry Soldiers tend to complain the most about everything having to do with their MOS. For example, they have to sleep outside in the elements, get shot at, hump ridiculous amounts of gear, don't get to shower often, don't sleep in beds, etc. I simply smile and ask them if someone held a gun to their heads at MEPS when they chose their MOS.
They also make fun of everyone else who has access to a PX, yet (on deployments) when the Infantry guys roll into a major base, they beeline for the PX and clean it out like a plague of locusts.
I also ask them if Aviation Soldiers are POGs as well, when they come to extract their butts from a hot LZ. You can almost hear the crickets.
Airborne types: Yeah they call non-Airborne Soldiers "Legs." The truth is, most Soldiers with Airborne wings on their uniforms have likely not jumped since Airborne School and have a whopping 5 jumps to their credit. Whenever I hear the "Leg" moniker being used, I ask the Airborne trooper what he does once he hits the ground. Yeah, they walk just like the rest of us. Having known quite a few Airborne qualified people who actually have more than 5 jumps, I have been told that it is not IF you get injured, it is WHEN and how badly. Eventually the jumping will catch up with you in the form of lower extremity and back problems. So who comes out ahead in that respect?
I don't care who calls whom what. I was a Corrections Officer prior to the Army, and have been called everything that there is out there, and those names were a lot worse than POG or LEG. So bring it on. I don't care.
I do what I do, and no one calling me names is going to change that.
Sticks & Stones...
Plus, if someone were to dare to call me a leg, I'd just politely pull that little black card out of my wallet with the Korean writing on it and the huge #1...and show them what I use my 'legs' for from time to time. ;)