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[gridlore]

What military aircraft are you? F/A-22 Raptor You are an F/A-22. You are technologically inclined, and though you've never been tested in combat, your very name is feared. You like noise, but prefer not to pollute any more than you have to. And you can move with the best.

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Comments

[firestrike.livejournal.com]

And you have the yellowon-white blog-superiority color-scheme for your descriptive text. Let's hear it for passive stealth features!

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

(gridlore: we've bumped into each other a few times on Usenet, but you probably don't remember me)

Somewhat tangential, but:

My little brother has just been accepted into the Australian Navy. He's signed up as a clearance diver, and hopes to eventually make it to the SAS.

Got any advice you'd care to pass on? He's a good kid and pretty bright, but he's got the usual 18 year old's invulnerability and omniscience delusions...

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Start working out now. Seriously, even if he's in good shape, he needs to be in excellent shape.

Learn to be invisible. The last thing he wants is for the Drills (or RAN equivilant) to learn his name. We had one guy at Fort Benning who was so good at this the Drills were still reading his nametag at graduation. Me, on the other hand...

The most important thing is to listen. Learn not only the lesson, but how it is presented. Observe how the cadre and other sailors act, and learn from their examples.

Finally, the instructors are not out to get him (a common feeling among trainees.) Nothing they do is personal, it's part of the job. Accept it as part of the process.

I didn't realize the SAS recruited out of the Navy. Is this an Australian thing?

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

Start working out now. Seriously, even if he's in good shape, he needs to be in excellent shape.

He's a gym junkie and a trophy-winning surf lifesaver; over six foot tall, next to zero fat and a ton of muscle. His dad was a first-grade rugby forward, and he got all of the athletic genes.

I'm sure that he's still gonna suffer during basic, but he's got a substantial headstart on most folks.


I didn't realize the SAS recruited out of the Navy. Is this an Australian thing?

I dunno how the Brits do it, but the Australian SAS draws from across the ADF. You're officially part of the Army if you make it in (and most candidates come from the Army commando units), but you can apply from other parts of the military.

That's my understanding of it, anyway: I tried digging around on the web to confirm things, but the SAS are secretive to the point of paranoia [1], so there's not much info out there. If you go to the official military websites, in the lists of "Units in the Australian Army" they just omit 4RAR(Cdo) without explanation, and likewise with the SAS.


[1] There was a great moment during the invasion of Afghanistan where the US ambassador was giving media conferences praising SAS actions over there, while the Australian government were still "refusing to confirm or deny" that the SAS were involved at all.