9/1/2023 0 Comments 19k mosAnd you work way way harder on tank maintenance if you're doing your job right. Jokes on them though, you're a lot cozier when you're not getting rained on or can pack a whole lot more for the field. Prepare to be made fun of by folks that have to walk places about your MOS who might call you fat/lazy/etc and make fun of your future tanker boots. Combat deployments for everyone are on the decline so you may see a waning 'sense of purpose' from yourself or peers who joined to culminate with "going to combat" but I'd argue it's a good thing overall that folks aren't putting their lives at risk these days as much. Deployments will be rotations to Kuwait, Poland, or Germany and you will likely not see combat unless something serious breaks out and we find ourselves in a large scale combat operation again, but you'll be away from your family for 9 months regardless, and it is stressful in that regard. We call this 'high optempo' (high operational tempo) it's where you're going from platoon training, medical training, small arms ranges, training on formations and vehicle identification or small arms maintenance to training for gunnery, gunnery in the field for a week or two to qualify your crew (tank of 4) to another week of qualifying with your platoon (4 tanks of 4) to returning from the field to do maintenance and refit on your broken equipment, to prepping for a BN or BDE Combined Arms Live Fire exercise in the field for 15 days or more, to the national training center in Fort Irwin, CA for a month spent in the field validating your BDE for deployment, to a bit of block leave before you deploy for 9 months, to return and get leave before you do it all over again to a different spot. The army doesn't do a great job balancing work/home balances so expect to be in the field a lot, and when you're back from the field you're doing layouts, maintenance, or getting ready to go back into the field. Some amazing memories with hard working folks across all walks of life and relationships I maintain to this day.Ĭons- Work/home balance. Awesome seeing it fire and hit the target while commanding 3 other tanks, and very rewarding doing training with just my platoon in the Kuwaiti desert when we'd drive over a few old abandoned cars, stop, and play football once "away from the flagpole" in the middle of the training area to relax a bit from all the maintenance we'd be doing. specifically I was always blown away at the internal computer calculating ballistic solution before a sabot was fired at a target 5K away. Gunnery, despite tedious and stressful can be a lot of fun and rewarding if you've got a good crew who practiced hard, share the work load, and are motivated when you qualify. Whatever you can fit on your tank your crew allows within reason. Pros compared to other branches are you aren't walking to get from point A to B so you can carry more, you can therefore pack a lot more clothing, food, niceties to have in the field, chairs, grills, etc. You see a whole lot of landscape more so than any other branch because you travel faster and farther than infantry generally, and you close with and engage the (training) enemy (since no armor is doing that these days, nor are any other branches for the most part). It's incredible when done right and with a well-oiled crew who work well together. Pros- cruising around on a multi-million dollar piece of equipment, firing a 120mm cannon that is so technologically advanced it accounts for wind speed and direction, altitude, target distance, type of round, and other variables before you take the shot. What do you see as the pros and cons of being a tanker over the other combat arms (I.E Infantry, 19D, Air Defense)? Armor was also recommended to me based on some of my character traits by my ROTC instructor at the time (confident, detail-oriented, hard working) Fondest memories are of driving down the desert at NTC as a rotation ended and just admiring the scenery from my tank as my gunner scanned the turret from side to side. I also thought driving around and commanding/shooting a tank sounded incredible (it was). Wanted to do combat arms followed by intel (to set me up for a career after the army if I didn't want to do 20), but something about being exposed to fire if in a combat environment as an infantryman (unless in a bradley) rubbed me the wrong way. What made you choose this particular MOS? Former 19A (Armor Officer) who was on tanks for 4 years before I switched to intel as a captain.
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