They talk but if a person is there that hasn't experianced what they have, they talk about things that are funny, minor or not-traumatic. We don't include people who are not part of the actual "club" that we belong to. For example I have PTSD, that makes me part of a group of soldiers with certain experiances and memories. We do not talk about or include others in this discussion that do not have it. Even my wife has no idea of the specific events that I experianced, only the effect it had on me and the actual clinical details of the illness.GStone wrote:
But, she did say that the social interaction part in the military came to her in part from the people she was around when she was growing up. Haven't you ever heard two old soldiers talk after they got together? They're discussions that at times seem to have no end. And that's from just being a listener that's outside the conversation.
The combat "club" is even more exclusive but I'll quote CmdrWilkens who says it better than me:
A unit never REALLY discloses what it is like to outsiders. Sure even now I can talk a bit about what my tours in Iraq were like. I might even open up and tlak about the absolute pile of crap I felt like after knowing one of the guys in my company blew himself away or how I felt after three guys were turned into confetti by a raodside bomb with steel pellets that literally shreded their bodies like cheese. I can tell people that but tis still just a front or a facade. There is nobody who I really talk to or connect with and actually SHARE what the experience of a combat zone is like except for those people who were there or whom I have admitted through shared expereince into the limited fraternity of people who have seen the shit. Even within that exclusive community i am an outsider within the smaller community of "I had to shoot people" and "I felt the pulse die in my buddies neck." People who have been there and done that do not share willingly or easily with those who have not. For all that Traviss claims a comraderie with the military it is through here defence correspondence work. Without evidence to the contrary I can't help but point out that the average soldier at the company level does not talk to defense correspondent. The people who converse with the media have lots of shiny brass and are, despite occasionally being decent, much further removed from the circle of the been there done that. I don't mind her claiming military experience because she does have some. What I do take umbrage with is her claims of extra authenticity based on that experience. She is claiming memership or, at the least, affinity with the been there done that club and I for one cannot see her membership being accepted.
Of course there is physical and weapons training in Basic for all trades and branchs. What you fail to understand is that beyond that (what you get is the bare minimum) you get the actual relevant weapons and tactics at your trade course. For an infantryman this will be intense, for a clerk it's "lets go to the range".I'm not that familiar with the inner workings of the british navy. Several year ago, I had a cousin to be the first one of our family to join the US navy. All the other military people in my family chose the marines, air force or army. But, from what I do know of the US Navy, there is physical and weapons training in basic. There are obvious differences in certain aspects of training, if you're gonna be on a ship or driving a tank, but there are many similarities. There has even been cross training between US navy and army people, so that some of the navy can act as relief for the army people in Iraq.
And the Naval personnel in Iraq is a system where they are taking personnel in non-critical trades and using them as convoy drivers. They get relevant training before they go. They don't have it to start.
And how is her family (apperently Navy men) relating this going to help her writing?It doesn't matter what her father was, since she had access to many other family members and nonfamily people that she could ask. When I was growing up, I'd ask my father specifics about planes and vehicles and weapons and he'd tell me about them. He'd get me pictures of carriers and fighters and such at the nex.
What I was pointing out is that living on base will not automatically give you insight into the military. In fact a great deal of military parents try to shield their kids from the military as much as they can.And she has said that the social interaction information she got was largely from where she grew up and who she grew up around.