Originally posted by Chaobam Armour
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1. I was rather keen to go into Armour myself but I was sold out by my recruiter who lied and said everything was full except Infantry. My first preference was actually OP Assisant with the Royal Artillery.
2. The Royal Irish, for a variety of reasons, I suppose mainly I chose them over the other Regiments because I'm half Irish by rather distant ancestry, whereas I have no connection at all with England, Scotland or Wales, and because they get a lot of work by virtue of being part of 16 Bde. Rather unconventionally I ended up being sent straight to Support Coy and am currently an "Anti-Tank Missileman" which means I've basically identified myself by name to anyone with friends in the Regiment. I quite like this gig, and I enjoy being in a platoon with so much collective experience since I'm constantly learning.
3. Highly unlikely I'll be doing FP, R Irish spent the last tour on a combination of mentoring and warfighting, depending on which Coy Group you were in, which for me could be any given my role. Not to big myself up but there's no way they're going to leave me on rear party unless I'm downgraded.
4. You only need to hear it from some of my friends to know war is not a great experience, although I think you have to go through it to really understand the fact. This Bn got very lucky to only have one fatality during the last tour, but we were insanely close to losing a few more. To put it bluntly, I'm not afraid to deploy with the SNCOs and Officers we have in charge of me, because by all accounts, including those of people from other Regiments, they're quite good.
5. As for commissioning, I never really considered it before I joined up, however every Officer I've served under has been driving at it because of my education, and I was apparently given written recommendations when I finished training. As happy as I am here, I do feel I'm capable of more, if I don't make the cut for whatever reason then I'm happy to stay put and fight for an NCO cadre and a language course as my future projects. As for commissioning from the ranks, it doesn't happen in training, they send you to battalion with a recommendation and its up to you to fight for it from there, I was told I'd probably have to keep pushing it for at least a year or two before I'd even be able to go in front of a Board. I seem to be lucky in that my superiors are helping me rather than hindering me, but I suppose we'll see how it goes over the remainder of the year.
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