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[Soldat_Américain]

All I'm saying is you should probably join the Bundeswehr...because it is not what you read. I've served with the French. The only people that have solid kit are the ones in Afghanistan...and they turn it in when they come home and it goes out with the next bunch.

[Phoenix767]

I see your point, but my decision is more or less set in stone. The equipment thing is the same or was the same for the Bundewehr in the last years, the modern kit gets rolled to afgh and the guys here have to train with stuff they won't use in the field anyway. Guess that comes with the economic situation everywhere I appreciate your concerns and will surely think about up to this winter when i intend to go for preselection.
If some active Bundeswehr soldiers know that I'm wrong about what I heard, please tell me so.

[digrar]

If you're not running from something, or trying to get an EU passport to escape the third world, I couldn't see the point in serving in a sub standard organisation. Everything that is bad in the Bundeswehr you'll find in the FFL, while having few of the good things that the Bundeswehr will be able to provide you.

[California Joe]

From what I heard still better than what we have here regarding influence of critical media and politicians on military missions like Afghanistan. Not using air support that is available at home due to possibly negative media coverage for example. The boots on the ground suffer for that.

The legion will hopefully give me the perspective I can't find at home right now.

You sound like a delusional dipsh*t. Good luck. By all means join the FFL. Everyone knows that that silly Bundeswehr never did a damned thing....

[Phoenix767]

Not what I said CaliforniaJoe, but I need not justify myself in front of people I don't know personally. I asked since I was curious and obviously not too knowledgeable myself, if that's not possible without getting talked down nvm.

Thanks for your input Digrar, as I said it's still up for decision until the end of this year for me, so I might still change my decision based on what people tell me - I'll keep informing myself and talk to a Bundeswehr recruitment bureau official regarding the situation. Since you say the Armee de Terre is a subpar organisation, may I ask why? Is the equipment situation that bad? Or are you referring to the french governments practice to send the legion in to take the losses they don't want french citizens to take?

[digrar]

I'm talking about an organisation that is sub par, greater than normal elements of bully boy leadership, sub par recruits with conflicting motivation, cliquish ethnic groups within the units.
Examples of Legion ineptitude from "Marching With The Devil": The author attended "sniper" training whilst on rotation to Djibouti. They used rifles that were no longer in service (even in the Legion) and shared one weapon between two, making qualifying shoots interesting. They also considered the author's demonstrations of scanning arcs on patrol and counter-ambush drills as interesting, slightly amusing but not the done thing in the Legion. All patrolling was done head down, weapon slung and in single file.
That might be one man's skewed view, but he had prior service and knew what good soldiering looked like.
Have a think about how decent the basic training is, it's conducted while you're trying to learn French, most probably heavily accented with the instructors Russian accent. Personally I found basic training challenging enough without trying to do it with a language barrier. Everything is lining up to make the whole system a poor one.
Read CFD Ambos's posts in the FFL thread, he's a prior service bloke who went to the FFL for the contacts. The way he describes it, it's not good.

[digrar]

Here's a good one.

Alright, this topic is taylor-made for me

For those who don't know me, or who would be surprised by my sayings : I'm currently serving in the Legion, in operations in Central African Republic. I'll send pictures by the beginning of 2008.

Facts :

-the best, eternal all-times adventurers are anglo-saxon. With their countries being deployed in Irak and Afghanistan, and the Legion just doing the same operations as the normal French Army (=basically a couple of shows of force in Africa), what Army will these adventurers choose ?

-let's face it, the Legion is militarily BAD, because it works on the French model : nothing, NO-THING is standardised, no SOP's, no clear rules, no means (our company had to borrow money from an african contingent last week in order for us to be paid), no leadership (I'll talk about it later), no equipment... The soldiers under 5 years of service are continuously fvcked in the @ss, we have to buy our complete kit, we have to buy gear which becomes forbidden to carry as soon as the regiment commander changes (every 2 years), our field bonuses are always underestimated because somebody somewhere always forgets to account a couple of days spent on the field, etc etc...
So, those who join to become good soldiers (MOST OF THEM UE CITIZENS) usually leave before the 6 months test period. I considered it myself too after 3 months in the Legion.

-leadership is french style, which means that leadership is understood as an opportunity to avoid responsibilities and to live as quiet as possible. Organisation is disastrous, for example a platoon needs a whole morning for each one of its soldiers to shoot 40 rounds, or a whole morning for 20 guys to register at the beginning of a course, etc etc...

-The Legion is NOT hard, any Army in the world is harder in terms of physical stress, lack of sleep, etc. What' s really hard in the Legion is the mood (lazy people always complaining, treating our superiors as if they were gods), the stupid, senseless rules (no car, no credit card, no computer, no telephone contract, no permission to go out, no marriage), and knowing that you're bound to this for 5 years !

That's why people only stay in the Legion for financial and social benefits, MOST OF THEM EASTERN EUROPE CITIZENS, most of them unable to do anything else and very, very stupid.

[Phoenix767]

Wow, I never found that much detailed negative info, this puts a lot more into perspective. On the official and unofficial sites you never read about it in this light, thanks for the heads up. Gotta think about it, but this kind of experiences do not sound like what I hoped/expected to find there. Many thanks man, and everyone who posted the last days in here trying to get me to think about it, I see I was quite a bit ignorant there so I apologize if I seemed like some wiseguy who believes to know everything better, I sure do not. Guess Bundeswehr it is then, thanks for the heads up and trying to push my stubborn self into a better future.

[Roebuck]

Try asking the ROTC office if your campus has one; they will be more than able to enlighten you about the subject.

The only ROTC offices near me are AF and ARMY. Army ROTC office said that, i can attend all four years, but they don't know if i can Commission since it's competitive+ there's no room they said.
I haven't talked to the Air force yet, My brother was in it. But for some reason he said it wasn't gonna work out and Left AF ROTC altogether.


Another option I've thought about is SNP.


One option i've explored is going Marine Reserve, and transfer to a University after college and enroll in NROTC-marine option' and/or PLC.

Does the Coast Guard also participate with NROTC? said NROTC campus is 6 hours away.

AFROTC as i understand doesnt do Reserve/ROTC simultaneously but the ARMY does =SNP. Correct me if I'm wrong!

[Soldat_Américain]

The legion beats the crap out of their recruits. If you ended up getting to 2e REP, good for you because they are legit. 3e REI is also legit but they don't do much outside of their jungle. The rest of the legion I could not tell you about...but yes things in the French Army have gotten better...but unless you're in SF you'll find issues. Granted my OJE is three years old.

[khalifah]

MOS 2800, Ground Electronics Maintinance. Im stuck with this MOS right now and kinda pissed off nobody wants to trade off a combat/combat support contract. Especially since a $10,000 bonus comes with it. Ive got 4-6 months to ship out, but im already praying some other pooliee gets a DWI, breaks a leg, or something.
/rant.

[Dodderynut]

I didn't think this was thread worthy but I'll post it here since we have a lot of vets here I thought it was worth asking.

I'm trying to join the Marine Corps DEP in June and I'm in shape and have a pretty perfect bill of health and I'll probably need an experimental marijuana waiver down the road but my biggest concern is my vision (or lack thereof). I have a prescription that exceeds -8.00 (by .50) to correct both eyes to 20/20, my other eye is -7.50, and one eye is -8.50. I actually was wearing contacts with -7.00 and -7.50 and was seeing fine but my eye doctor upped my prescription to the other spherical numbers to get me at perfect 20/20 and so now I apparently exceed the spherical cutoff.

However, my recruiter says he thinks the cutoff is -12.00, which according to the official military entrance requirements it's -8.00 or +8.00, so I'm not sure if he thinks I'll be waiverable or if he's flat out wrong. I also asked on leatherneck.com how things would look for me and I was told the requirements and cutoff but that it is waiverable. I'm 16, and in June I'll be eligible to DEP and I'm wondering if any prior Marine or any branch have experience in this sort of thing. I realize I probably would be fine had this been a few years ago when the Marine Corps still needed to get more men through the door but with the downsizing I'm a little concerned that my dream might be in jeopardy. Like I said, my recruiter seems to think I'm fine, but with all respect to him, he doesn't exactly need me so I doubt his heart is as concerned as mine is. So did anyone else have terrible vision but got waivered through MEPs? If I can't go Marines I guess I'll head to the Army but I guess both are kind of at risk at this point. So anyone with any more information would be helpful, mostly any blind bats that got in or any current military recruiters would be helpful. My uncle (former Marine Major) seems to think my ASVAB scores will decide whether they will put the extra effort to keep me since he thinks I'll be outscoring a lot of people and he thinks I'll be fine but he served in the 80's so I just don't know.

Edit: Got off the phone with my uncle after shooting him a text about it (Fmr. Marine Major, USNA grad) and he had some words of encouragement. He had 20/600 going into the Academy and in the Marines he was an infantry company commander and a Abrams Tank Company Commander and he told me he thinks I'm going to be fine and that when he was in it seemed like anyone with vision correctable to 20/20 did just fine. Also found out he knows one of the officers at the main recruiting station in Phoenix and he told me he would shoot him an e-mail about my question. Feel a lot better now, but still if anyone has any experience it would be cool to hear some more.

[Mr Taylor]

Got my offer of service with electronic warfare as my trade, now only thing left is the w.o.f. two days before i jump on the bus to waioru on the 6th of March cant wait!

[Roebuck]

The only ROTC offices near me are AF and ARMY. Army ROTC office said that, i can attend all four years, but they don't know if i can Commission since it's competitive+ there's no room they said.
I haven't talked to the Air force yet, My brother was in it. But for some reason he said it wasn't gonna work out and Left AF ROTC altogether.


Another option I've thought about is SNP.


One option i've explored is going Marine Reserve, and transfer to a University after college and enroll in NROTC-marine option' and/or PLC.

Does the Coast Guard also participate with NROTC? said NROTC campus is 6 hours away.

AFROTC as i understand doesnt do Reserve/ROTC simultaneously but the ARMY does =SNP. Correct me if I'm wrong!

anyone here got any pointers?

[Soldat_Américain]

It's called SMP, you don't necessarily have to attend bootcamp...but you'll make more money. You can contract with both the guard and ROTC during your sophomore year, you attend monthly drills and ATs. It gets you drill pay and a monthly stipend from ROTC. You can do it with either the guard or reserve.