The Military Thread

You mean the same reflective belts that are used through out all the armed forces?

Not sure when you were at Eglin, but nowadays everyone is required to be in the PTU whenever doing official formation PT. Of course, it's always possible that there were large groups of folks that just worked out together on their own time. I mean, I've known folks who dressed up like animals for fun, so my threshold for "weird group behavior" is rather high.

And yeah, for as long as I can recall, Army guys PT'd in their grey workout uniforms with reflective belts. The Air Force PT Uniform has reflective patterns built into it to create 360 degrees of high-vis, so in theory, we shouldn't have to wear the belts at all.

Naturally, it's required at some bases, like Sheppard.

Marines pt and march with those stupid belts even seen the navy wear them.

Ah, but the trouble with trying to look fabulous in the Wehrmacht was that you always had to worry about Herman Goering bursting in and upstaging you. Nobody could compete with him.

I mean look◊ at◊ this◊ shit.◊

Everyone looks so inferior next to him and they know it

By the end wasn't he just constantly inventing new awards to give himself for the sake of more bling?

I like how in the last one◊ even Hitler, himself no stranger to Bling of War^note Exhibit A: this fucking thing., seems to be going "seriously?" There's a good anecdote about Hitler and Goering going to inspect the pocket battleship Deutschland. Goering got there first, and started the tour without Hitler. When Hitler arrived, Goering poked his head out of one of the windows and shouted out to greet him. Hitler supposedly muttered "he's surpassed himself this time - he's found a way to fit a whole battleship round his neck!"

He invented whole titles, or picked long-defunct historical ones and had Hitler convey them on him - Reichsmarschall, Reichsjägermeister, Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan, etc. There was a popular joke referring to this proclivity of his for giving himself awards: "A new unit of weight has been implemented: 1 Gör: the maximum weight of metal a human being can hold on his chest without falling over."

The thing about Goering is that he was actually a legitimate flying ace from WWI who had earned the friggin' Blue Max. He didn't need the Ruritanian uniforms: a simple tunic with his Blue Max at his throat would have been enough to impress most people. His problem was his narcissism. My pet theory is that the uniforms were an attempt to try and remain physically imposing and impressive despite his expanding waistline.

edited 29th May '14 4:41:08 PM by Achaemenid

...Drunkest man in the empire? >.>

He preferred the morphine, actually. But it's funny you should say that - according to Jäger's Wikipedia page:

Hitler looked positively austere and dignified in those pictures.

That's not a sentence I ever expected to say.

edited 29th May '14 5:11:01 PM by TheHandle

He was. He made a point of limiting himself to the bling he earned fighting in the First World War.

Though some would say that when you are surrounded by men wearing glittering uniforms, the simple uniform is a form of bling in and of itself. The aim and effect - to draw the eye to the wearer - are the same. Hitler certainly put a great deal of effort into the appearance of his armed forces and party, he pored for hours over plans for flags, uniforms, styles of marching, and so forth - Welthaupstadt Germania being an obvious example. The supposed austerity was simply another facet of his egomania.

edited 29th May '14 5:21:18 PM by Achaemenid

Documentary on the Super Gun maker Gerald Bull

Supposedly, until the later years of the war, Goring tended to react to jokes at his expense (fat jokes were common) by treating them as being Actually Pretty Funny. He is said to have ordered the release of entertainers who had been jailed for mocking him because folks were laughing at him because they liked him. He'd entertain Luftwaffe crews by trying to squeeze himself into cramped fighter cockpits, a nod to his career as an Ace Pilot.

The attitude soured as the war continued, of course.

Also, Jaegermeister is an inspired title for the commander of the Luftwaffe. Please tell me that's still a thing.

edited 29th May '14 5:22:15 PM by AFP

For kicks and giggles: Could you pass a US citizenship test?

I got a score of 96%

Sadly not, the job had nothing to do with his command of the Air Force - he was literally the man in charge of hunting animals throughout the Reich. He had the title given to him because of his passion for hunting, for which he built several MTV Cribs-worthy "lodges" throughout Greater Germany.

Doing the test now.

Option A is Austria-Hungary, Japan, and Germany...sounds like a kickass alternate history waiting to happen.

edited 29th May '14 5:36:34 PM by Achaemenid

Indeed, Warner Brothers did a documentary about one of his hunting expeditions:

Don't forget the Wolf's Lair and Hitler's Bunker.

Normandy 70 years latter. For all the talk of the "Theory Of Ruin Value", none of Speer's building lasted. The bunkers did, as war memorials, to the Allied victory. The Soviets did use marble from Speer's buildings to build their memorial however. Irony...

edited 29th May '14 5:51:29 PM by TairaMai

I only got 89%.

*pouts*

X5, I'm British and I got 88%. Though some of those questions have inaccurate answers, the colonists didn't come for freedom (beyond the freedom to burn Catholics at the stake) and the states didn't declare independence because the British were evil.

edited 29th May '14 5:59:05 PM by Silasw

Historical Revisionism, my friend. It wouldn't serve the idea of freedom very well if people knew that the nation was founded out of a desire to create a repressive theocracy.

It's quite difficult to lie about it being a "quick and easy victory" when your soldiers are still fighting in December. That was only the policy until around early November of 1941. So then they had to scramble in December 1941. Hence the combat medal for the campaign of late 1941 to early 1942 got its own nickname..."Order of the Frozen Meat".

And I've read something ridiculous. A very obvious myth that the PLA (and thus the Chinese gov't) continues to propagate. It's the Korean War, and a T-34 (presumably with an 85mm) was able to "hide" in the bushes undetected for 2 days, even though the tank was fired at right before the tank went to that particular bush. It was then able to "confuse" 3 Pattons, even falling in line with them while the three were advancing, and then "disabled" those tanks.

edited 29th May '14 6:16:36 PM by entropy13

A scene which was memorably recreated in the 11th episode of Girls Und Panzer via the Student Council's Hetzer.

Stupid putting the previous Speaker of the House and current Speaker of the House

edited 29th May '14 6:12:12 PM by Dorkus

The puritans wanted a theocracy. The Redcoats showed them what being under a theocracy would have been like. Hence that pesky "freedom of religion" clause.

Now the quartering of troops, that leads to some strange things in the US. When the NY National Guard was called in when prison guards went on strike, the guards got paid. The NY Guard took over the dorms where the guards lived and thus their "quarters".

Daddy and I were on vacation and we passed through Montana waay back in The '80s. A mosquito outbreak caused their governor to call out the national guard to help with wild fires and spraying. Aside from Daddy's "Hand to stinger combat" jokes, we agreed that the motel owner made bank on that. Since, per the 3rd Amendment and US code, the state had to pay him per day that the Guardsmen were lodged there.