servicemen

[sargeant]

Lomu gotcha me to in fact i forgot to put that in my first post, servicemen in general dont vote unless by proxxy and i would never trust anyone with mine
I also think you know my next point of view you didnt vote the bad ones out either
A charge of which i myself am guilty as charged malud
I tried to be a hippy a few times the last quite recently it still makes me cough like a bastard though

Steve g if i could get ice as cold as my goolies have been i could save a fortune here for years i consoled myself i was a sperm bank

[Big Boy]

Sargeant wrote:

At lower ranks level not especially good xchange rate dont forget they cant go on strike and the govt always have better things to do with the tax the squaddies pay like buying votes

The xchange rate has to be put in to perspective. A lot squaddies are quite illiterate, and have taken this career path as an easy way to security. If they were prepared to work hard, I agree they would probably earn a lot more labouring on a building site for example. But job opportunities would be limited.

Sargeant also wrote:

BB i reckon you suffer from sport envy

Not exactly sport envy, but I do find it quite frustrating when we've got a rush job on, and half of the office disappear to play football.

[Jaime]

I agree they would probably earn a lot more labouring on a building site for example. But job opportunities would be limited.

Not sure about that - there are plenty of opportunities. The reason we have so many Poles etc. here is because there are not enough British people prepared to do manual work or learn a trade, despite boom time in the property industry over the last few years. Nothing to do with servicemen so apologies for straying slightly off the original topic.

[STEVE G]

Big Boy wrote:
Not exactly sport envy, but I do find it quite frustrating when we've got a rush job on, and half of the office disappear to play football.

Ah, you are working with the RAF, now I begin to see where your point of view comes from. During the first gulf war, I had just left the Navy and I ended up working at RAF Lyneham as a contractor on C130s. I was amazed that they were still having sports afternoons while there was a war on and we were working 16 hours a day to fit anti-missile systems and get aircraft back out to the gulf. It was a very different attitude to that in the Navy.

[sargeant]

BB the sport envy was TIC It frustrated the living crap out of me and i was in the cake i would constantly loose guys for sport and was still expected to do the job on a tight schedule without them When my son was born i wasnt allowed home but 2 guys were sent back to play of all things bluddy ping pong so i understand where you are coming from

Illiterate i think is quite harsh but just because they cant achieve accademic qualifications doesnt mean they are stupid and as you said in an earlier post their innovation is amazing.As for the exchange rate i put it in perspective i was earning as abaggage handler way in excess of what i was as a staff sgt and working hard i couldnt believe how easy it was and how little i had to do to earn it and perks as well.
As for an easy way to security let me assure you it aint easy those 5 mins of terror and the sights squaddies see makes sure of that.

Steve G & BB i hope this wont turn into an inter service thing that isnt what i started this thread for I was trying to explain why servicemen are different and why i come from mars

[STEVE G]

Sargeant wrote:
Steve G & BB i hope this wont turn into an inter service thing…

No problem there Sargeant, the senior service is saving the big guns for the civvies’!

[dane48]

Sargeant wrote:
Steve G & BB i hope this wont turn into an inter service thing…

No problem there Sargeant, the senior service is saving the big guns for the civvies’!

That's why we stay clear

The civvies



But interesting thread

[Big Boy]

STEVE G wrote:

Ah, you are working with the RAF, now I begin to see where your point of view comes from.

and

I was amazed that they were still having sports afternoons while there was a war on and we were working 16 hours a day to fit anti-missile systems and get aircraft back out to the gulf. It was a very different attitude to that in the Navy.

For the record, 28 of my first 30 years service was working with the RN. It is only in the last 2 years that I've been working for a tri-service organisation.

I know I made the quip about sailing ships, but when did you leave the navy? The guys I've worked with have always had their afternoon sport once a week, and a 'make amend' (half a day off) at least one other afternoon per week. They never seemed to start until 8, lunch was 90 minutes, and generally they knocked off by 4. Friday afternoons did not exist in their working week.

The above is still correct now I've moved tri-service.

And yes, I know they make up for it when they're operational. But I still maintain, when they're not operational, its a good life.

Sargeant wrote:

Illiterate i think is quite harsh but just because they cant achieve academic qualifications doesn't mean they are stupid

I have no problem with illiteracy, but a prospective employer might. You've already read what I said about their innovation. My wife is about 90% illiterate, but she is one of the cleverest ladies I've known.

and

As for the exchange rate i put it in perspective i was earning as abaggage handler way in excess of what i was as a staff sgt and working hard i couldnt believe how easy it was and how little i had to do to earn it and perks as well.

A lot of these guys join up straight from school. How many school leavers were being employed as baggage handlers? If there were any, were they on the same salary as you? You can't beat work experience, and unfortunately work experience as a school leaver is not easy to get. Yes your job paid OK, and kept the wolf from the door, but do you really think your service career did not influence your employer?

Jaime wrote:

there are plenty of opportunities. The reason we have so many Poles etc. here is because there are not enough British people prepared to do manual work or learn a trade

The skilled amongst them will have completed an apprenticeship, and deserve what they get. The unskilled will be on virtually minimum wage, and live 20 to a hovel. Have you seen the polava of getting an apprenticeship in the UK (outside of the services)? Yes, you can get a so called apprenticeship, but you then have to persuade somebody to buy your skills before you've learnt them. I know several young men who thought they'd cracked it when they were awarded their modern apprenticeship - how wrong they were.

[sargeant]

Up to a point i agree with you BB in my early days i taught a couple of guys to read and write (Guess I can hear you coming). As for leaving school and going into the services i am sure you know largish numbers are guys from military families i counted 17 males in my family from ww1 on.It is also one of the first careers on offer in schools (or was) the army recruiter giving his talk
And lets face it it isnt an old mans job.
As for prospective employers they do seem to like ex military for their discipline, most times its their age when they leave the cake that holds them back
I did 20.5 years my pension is just 1,200 quid a year (i Pay 183 quid tax a month) i retired at 50, but and here is the big but only 250 quid of that is army all the rest is from the 12 years i worked at heathrow 450 is AVCs money i saved, the difference is from the doubling of my BA pension as part of a severence package. I couldnt have recieved my army pension until i was 60 if i hadnt transfered it to my BA pension so as i say not much of an exchange rate from my perspective.
As for school leavers At BA the 50 guys i was in charge of were all school leavers agreed they were in their 50s but they all joined from school just about wild horses 3 bullocks and a couple of changs couldnt drag them out
i understand where you are coming from ref remunerations if you are doing the job you should be paid the rate but if you are standing in for a wing commander you are way up the pecking order to me but i dont want to get into a lower ranks v officers or service against service debate on this thread and i want to assure you i respect your contribution to the military as equally as the servicemen

[STEVE G]

Hi BB, I have no argument with you, as the Sargeant says, you have obviously made a large contribution to the services, I just wanted to illustrate my experience with the forces was not as an overpaid sportsman, I left in 1990 because I couldn’t afford my mortgage (or my girlfriends, as things turned out), and I was never one for “gamesâ€

[Rider]

I'd joined the forces as a bright-eyed 18 years old and left seven years later. What a shock I got leaving the forces!
The pay and conditions I was on in the forces was a massive difference to civvy st!

I think for me a change was the different mentality between civilian and army. I found the forces life to be typically right-wing and we all tended to have a 'Might is Right' approach.
I think the civvy attitude in 2003 to now is more center-left, left wing than it was when I joined so adjusting to it took some time (although constant visits to Thailand helps!:))

The quality of troops coming into the army nowadays is a very different one to the 1980s to 1990s. The lads tend to be of the playstation generation and even after the've been through basic and phase 2 training, once they get to a working units they need a lot of work to get them up to scratch. On the plus side I think that bullying is almost unheard of in most army units and the army is more 'civilised' than before.

[Jaime]

Jaime wrote:

there are plenty of opportunities. The reason we have so many Poles etc. here is because there are not enough British people prepared to do manual work or learn a trade

The skilled amongst them will have completed an apprenticeship, and deserve what they get. The unskilled will be on virtually minimum wage, and live 20 to a hovel.

I don't understand your point here BB. I was simply pointing out, contrary to your assertion that there are no opportunities on building sites, that there are indeed plenty and have been for quite some time. The Poles are here because our own fat, lazy, chip-scoffing, play-station zombiefied, Bacardi Breezer drinking muppets are all in call centres. I work in the construction industry and the skill shortage is real, not a government smoke screen. The yoof of today just finds it too much effort to labour next to an old hand for a couple of years before or whilst taking up a building trade. Then they moan that a Polish family has moved in next door!

[Rider]

Jaime wrote:

there are plenty of opportunities. The reason we have so many Poles etc. here is because there are not enough British people prepared to do manual work or learn a trade

The skilled amongst them will have completed an apprenticeship, and deserve what they get. The unskilled will be on virtually minimum wage, and live 20 to a hovel.

I don't understand your point here BB. I was simply pointing out, contrary to your assertion that there are no opportunities on building sites, that there are indeed plenty and have been for quite some time. The Poles are here because our own fat, lazy, chip-scoffing, play-station zombiefied, Bacardi Breezer drinking muppets are all in call centres. I work in the construction industry and the skill shortage is real, not a government smoke screen. The yoof of today just finds it too much effort to labour next to an old hand for a couple of years before or whilst taking up a building trade. Then they moan that a Polish family has moved in next door!

Its sad but true. On the rigs its the same. A nasty scouser I had to work alongside would be spitting feathers when it came to foreign workers on the rigs, but as Jaime has highlighted, its the Eastern Europeans who focus all their energies into the work.
With fewer and fewer brits wishing to get cold and wet in the hard work orientated construction industry its a sign of the times. The average age of the construction industry is about 48! And its going to get higher the way things are going.

[Guess]

The quality of troops coming into the army nowadays is a very different one to the 1980s to 1990s. The lads tend to be of the playstation generation and even after the've been through basic and phase 2 training, once they get to a working units they need a lot of work to get them up to scratch.

How long before the trooper is replaced by an autoplilot and the Playstation interfaces to real weapons?

The Poles are here because our own fat, lazy, chip-scoffing, play-station zombiefied, Bacardi Breezer drinking muppets are all in call centres. I work in the construction industry and the skill shortage is real, not a government smoke screen. The yoof of today just finds it too much effort to labour next to an old hand for a couple of years before or whilst taking up a building trade. Then they moan that a Polish family has moved in next door!

This is a surprising trend when there is another trend for pepole to lead more healthy lives. The building trade has been marred to two problems in my opinion which has left the enormous void in skills available in the UK and to a certain degree the US is that

1. The trade is seen as not centrally managed and contract based without the larger corporate benefits that a Call Centre or IT Office provide. This will work at the low labouring/semi-skilled end but not so well at the skilled end.
2. Employees are generally self employed when in many cases they do not have the administrative skills or time to carry out the necessary additional tasks.

The services however can offer all the healthy options alongside the comfort of PAYE.

[sargeant]

howdy guess

Healthy options

WMD friendly fire collaterall damage spent nuclar fuel rounds and all the injections to counter them

I luv your sence of humour cracks me up you must be an ex grunt