I currently serve in the IDF. The difference between us is that I was kind of forced to serve. It's the best thing that happened to me desu. I have a really cool service as a battlefield technician and have the training of a foot soldier + i learned a lot of physics.

Being a foot soldier is difficult but truly satisfying-try to get there first..

>>17242255
This is coming from an American
1. You can wear ear protection when your firing your weopans and weapons are being fired around you. Unless yourre going to be jumping out of airplanes then your knees and back should be fine.

2. Go whatever the uk s version of infantry is. Grunt life is best life.

Idk if you'll see action though. Does the uk even go to war? Besides special forces and ops I doubt you'll see any combat anytime soon

>>17242255
Stand by, typing a response but it might be a bit long winded.

us army infantry 11B here
tinnitus is pretty much unavoidable, live fires and all types of loud equipment will take its toll over the years you are in. the best advice to give you to save your joints/back is be as fit as possible before you join
if i could go back, id go for a job that wasnt combat arms

>>17242291
Hey, we served in the Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan. If I recall correctly the second largest force in Iraq was the british after the americans. Pretty much anywhere you go to war, our country seems to follow.

Would combat engineering count as grunt life? I don't think pure fighting is my thing, but fighting mixed with something else might be.

I have heard of earpro and if I join I will buy the best pair, but as for the knees, I hear that even heavy loads combined with marching can fuck them up. Is this true?

And finally, on the topic of special forces - I'm not going to lie and say I think I can become SBS/SAS or anything, but commandos seem interesting. What qualities do you really need to get into the top units? I know you need discipline mentally and i'm really working on that.


>>17242286
I think I will probably opt for some kind of footsoldier role. What kind of stuff does a battlefield tech do?

>>17242317
>>17242255
Right, so then. Former Royal Marine Commando of ten years, I'll try and answer your questions as best I can. I was in for a fair while and we worked a lot with members of the three other services, however some of my experiences will be specific to RM and I've also been a civvie since 2001 so it's not impossible some of this will be out of date.

>I don't have great A level grades (UK) but I have solid A's in GCSE. I was thinking an officer job would be good
AFAIK none of the services will off you the Queen's commision unless you have a bachelor's degree at the absolute minimum.

>but I will take an enlisted role if I have to.
Just a personal thing, but it really irks me when civvies talk about enlisted men like they're "bottom of the barrel" jobs. Anyhow, there is a whole world of difference between being an enlisted man and a rupert, and joining the armed forces is a serious commitment, so you'd be better off making sure you get the right job rather than taking the first one that comes along just for the sake of it.

>I have a year to prepare in any way possible
Do some phys, but not too much. When you do your training one of the big things the DS are looking for is how much you improve. One of the guys on my intake was a semi-pro footballer before he joined up, and although he could run faster than any of us on day 1, the fact that he didn't get any faster (because he was already at peak fitness) got him no end of beastings.>>17242255
>If i joined as a foot soldier in the army, will my body really be broken after my career? I would like to avoid tinnitus, messed up knees/back, etc.
H&S standards have improved a lot in the last 10 years, but it's still a demanding physical job. I have problems with my knees and hips, but to be fair I'm a spit under 6'5" and about 19st, so running was never going to do me a lot of good. You'll have earpro for your range time, but bear in mind that goes out of the window in an actual contact

>>17242395
>AFAIK none of the services will off you the Queen's commision unless you have a bachelor's degree at the absolute minimum

Damn. I heard that you can get a commission from being a soldier to becoming an officer after a few years experience, do you know if anyone realistically does that?

>enlisted men like they're "bottom of the barrel" jobs
I never meant it that way, I was really thinking about the pay when I said that. To be honest, i think the enlisted jobs look a lot more fun than the officer stuff, but the 26K starting pay is pretty nice and would definitely help me out a lot

I guess a year physical training should be alright then, because I definitely won't be in top shape by then but i'll be a lot fitter than I am now

What do you think of the Navy? I was looking at Meteorology Officer (for this, they say it's an officer role but they want you to go study at university for it - would they also require a bachelors? Or are they willing to take sixth form leavers?) and mine clearance diving, both because of the fact that they go around the world a lot it seems, and meteorology officers are so far the only people i've read about that have the chance to visit antarctica


I guess I could get a bachelors degree in some kind of technical field but that's 3 years that I don't really want to spend in that way. I probably am not going to get a place in any decent Unis either - no Russell group unis like Leeds or Manchester or owt but I might get into Sheffield-hallam, Leeds-Beckett, and Aberdeen and the likes.

Do Officers normally need to go to a good Uni? Or is it just the degree that they're wanting?

My priority is firstly to have an enjoyable job, but I also need money and i'd like to try for the best pay first, that's why I wanted to join as an officer

>>17242395
"hold on Seamus, let me find me earmuffs then you can carry on trying to murder me" doesn't really cut it. We'd sometimes have range time without earpro to get used to using our weapons without it, but I thinks that's an exception rather than a rule.

>2: considering the above, if I want some action (not necessarily fighting but at least something adventurous) what is a good job
Unless you really, really want to fight don't join a combat role. Being able to carry heavy loads across long distances over difficult terrain and having a PhD in hurting people is not a marketable skillset. Look at doing a techie job of some sort. It'll get you all of the benefits like foreign travel without having to spend three week in the middle of winter doing E&E on Dartmoor. Look for something you can transfer to civvie life too.
>RAF weapon systems operator
They all have it up the arse 5 times a day.

>Navy meteorology
Best job on your list by far

>Intelligence officer
Oxymorn, second most boring job in NATO (submariner being the first)

>artilleryman/officer
These two are in no way related - it's like comparing a hospital porter to a surgeon. Also, even if you ware the world's supply of E A Rs it still won't save you from the noise of the 105s.

>ammo tech
No one wants to be an armourer mate. All you do is sit in a little cage counting weapons all day and complaining they haven't been cleaned properly. Also 95% of weapon repairs are either done by the user (broken firing pins, that kind of thing) or by the manufacturer (cracked bolt face and the like), not by the armourer. One day, you'll tell the CSM the weapons haven't been cleaned right at 14:00 on a friday, the blokes will get called back to redo them, then you'll go down town that night and someone will give you a proper shoeing.

>artillery/special gunfire observer.
The arty blokes won't like you because you're too much like infantry, the infantry won't like you because you're too much like arty, and because

>>17242474
there's nothing for you to do 99.9% of the times most of your career will be spent sweeping the floor.

>>17242474
>>17242479
Thanks for the 'views' on what each job is like. What do you think of mine clearance diving in the Navy? It seems like Meteorology and mine clearance are the 2 jobs I might be left with after crossing all the others off

Also, what's wrong with RAF weapons systems operating? It seems like a fun job to fly around in helis

>>17242255
If you aren't prepared to be potentially wounded or killed, you probably aren't prepared to go into the army.
I've known a lot of people who served in the armed forces, all of them were wounded at some point except one, all of them saw someone they worked with get killed or maimed.
If you have a decent level of fitness then you will be physically prepared for most of the training, otherwise you will struggle with tabbing and your PT might not show you how to do things properly.
There is no almost definite safe job outside of admin, one guy I know worked in the RAF loading weapons onto planes and got hit by a RPG which left a lot of shrapnel in his shoulder and arm, he needed years of rehab just to move it again and he still has problems.

If you want to make friends for life, get your fitness up and leave home, at the cost of missing your family and friends as well as risking being maimed/killed or seeing shit that you never get over, then go for it.

Otherwise, look at going to university to do a policing course, you can do 3 years living at uni, patrolling the area and there is a placement for a few weeks before you get a decent paying job with numerous benefits.

>>17242436
>I heard that you can get a commission from being a soldier to becoming an officer after a few years experience, do you know if anyone realistically does that?
No mate, that is never, ever going to happen. Ever. There's a couple of solid reasons for this:

First off, a good officer candidate and a good soldier candidate are wildly different men. Officers are concerned with things like understanding parliements instructions and how to carry them out, legal matters, budget management, that kind of thing, whereas soldiers need to be happy with being cold, wet, hungry and tired for 3 weeks just so long as they get to give someone a proper shoeing at the end of it. Someone who has an aptitude for one won't have it for the other.

The other issue is cost. Military training is hueley expensive. Admittedly it's the longest mil training course in the world, but the cost for the RM Commando course was upwards of £200,000 per man - in 1989. They're not going to put that sort of cash in training you for one job only to pull you out two years later and spend the same amount again to train you for another.

The only enlisted men who get commisioned are those who've reached the rank of WO1 (or equivalent) and wish to stay on past 21 years service. They get promoted to captain (or equiv), but are unable to prgress past that rank.

>What do you think of the Navy?
I reckon it's a good choice. You'll get the most travel, and next to the Marines the have the best uniforms. Boats reare really, really fucking boring though.

>but the 26K starting pay is pretty nice
That's not bad money for a young lad. Just bear in mind that you have to pay mess bills, and officers mess bills can be huge depending n where you serve. For cavalry officers at 1LT their mess bill is around 80% of their total pay and at 2LT it's about 65%.

>Do Officers normally need to go to a good Uni?
No, absolutley not mate. As long as you have a degree of some sort you're golden. I once knew a Tornado pilot

>>17242559
who had a degree in horticulture.

>>17242512
>What do you think of mine clearance diving in the Navy?
To the best of my knowledge that's not a direct entry job. You'd have to join as an EOD man, spend 10 years proving that you're far more skilled and dedicated than every other man doing that job, then kiss the correct asses to get selected for the course. Of couse, that's on the assumption that there is a vacancy in the first place - I spent 6 years trying to get on the combat diver course, and the whole time there were 3 openings, each of which had upwards of 300 applicants. Also, underwater EOD is all done by robots these days, not divers.

>Also, what's wrong with RAF weapons systems operating?
Nothing really, I just don't like crabs because they all wear dresses and sit down to piss. Again, it's not a direct entry job, and it'll be something where vacancies are rarer than elvis riding a unicorn and each opening will have hundreds of men who all want it.

>>17242559
>>17242587
Thanks for all the info man, this is exactly what I was looking for - a proper insider perspective.

>>17242534
I'm willing to take the risk as long as the job is worth it. As for policing, that's something I might look into as well, but if i'm really honest I don't want to be too involved with the law because I occasionally enjoy some illegal hobbies and it'd interfere a lot with them. I can put them off for a period of time for the military, but not for my whole life for the police.