I always wonder what it means for enlisted soldiers
In: Other
Depends on your job and where you are stationed.
Could be performing maintenance on APCs to keep them in operational shape; could be supporting local troops; could be r&d of new systems; could be drilling different situations; could be filing normal payroll documents and equipment requisition forms
For everything except the combat arms fields, they’re doing the exact same thing they’d be doing during wartime. For a lot of the military, the job doesn’t change, just the location and relative chance of you being shot at. Mechanics are still working on vehicles, pilots are still flying their aircraft, intel weenies are still writing reports, etc. The combat arms fields do training. LOTs of training. They go “to the field” for a month at a time, or do a rotation through the National Training Center in the Mojave Desert or the Joint Readiness Training Center in Louisiana. Troops that otherwise would have been deployed get sent to leadership schools, or advanced schools for their jobs. Other troops take the opportunity to knock out a few college classes towards their degrees or certifications in their chosen fields.
Preparing for war. Starting to train and figuring shit out after you are already at war kinda sucks.
The policy of the US military is to be ready to fight two large scale wars on two separate continents at the same time.
And that’s what they are preparing to do.
Training. Do Post beautification days. Training. Paint all the rocks around the buildings. Training. Spend all day at the Motor pool. They also Train…budget allowing.
Basically if they’re not fighting they’re getting ready to fight to the greatest extent the training budget can handle.
If they aren’t training there’s always busy work.
Edit: spelling
If you are part of an aviation squadron that has any aircraft, then the majority of enlisted personnel attached to that unit are doing maintenance. All the time. I was shocked when I realized how much maintenance went into the average aircraft.
A lot of it is just regularly scheduled inspections. They are scheduled at different intervals and vary in intensity. As parts fail/decay/weaken, they are replaced, which occasionally triggers things like rerigging controls or rebalancing, etc. Then you need maintenance check flights to make sure the aircraft functions as expected. And the sometimes, you have to do a functional check flight just to get the aircraft to the point where it can be flown for an hour, so it can then be torn apart again for a different maintenance inspection.
There are reasons the accident rate for military aircraft improved so much over the last 80 years and better quality maintenance is one of the more important ones.
Physical training, combat training, maintenance, etc. You’d be shocked at how much maintenance even a tank requires regularly to stay operational for several decades of service.
But you’d be surprised how much bullshitting, sitting around, and busywork happens, too. It’s a tradeoff for losing half your weekends to training and spending a year straight in a warzone, oftentimes with only a brief period home before going back again (might be less the case since the two forever wars are now over).
Answer: pre 9/11 vet here we would pick up cigarette butts in parking lots mow and weedeat areas of the base, wax floors, daily maintenanceon our vehicles, weapon certifications, funeral details etc etc
Practice for going to war. Show everyone their big guns so they don’t have to go to war. Have some small battles so they don’t have to go to war. Go to bases all over the world with their big guns and airplanes and radsrs,so they don’t have to go to war. A standing army is a pretty big deterrent to actually having to go to war.
Well, I know about the Canadian military and what they do in peace time.
First, they are prepped to handle emergency situations. If there’s a massive natural disaster, the military may be called in for relief/evacuation. Militaries are very good at deploying places quickly, so they are great for emergency situations.
The military is involved whenever major political figures attend events. For example, I knew a navy chef who cooked meals for both Prime Minister Trudeau and Queen Elizabeth. They might also be on guard at these events, but local police is more often used. I met a cop who told me that he attended a political event the Prime Minister was attending, and his job was to stand in front of a door and not let anyone through for 8 hours.
They also do lots of training during peace time, so everyone is prepared and ready in the event of a war. You gotta make sure no one gets rusty and forgets how to do their job when war breaks out.
The Navy will do patrols, sailing around Canadian waters and making sure no one is trying to invade or something.
I was a Horizontal Construction Engineer. No fancy math, just digging holes and making roads.
When not talking (pleading) with the mechanics, I was digging. If not digging, mopping. If not mopping, shooting guns. If not shooting guns, staring at the ceiling, my phone or technical manuals because I got caught staring at something not a manual. I mostly did the latter.
Latest Answers