What do you wish you knew before deploying that you found out the hard way later on?

Shalom,
Brandon

hahahaha....

the meaning of life beyand (or without) any religion.

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I haven't been deployed but back in June I went on a month long FTE at Ft. McCallean. I guess my biggest lessons were bring LOTS of Gold Bond Powder that one should be self explication to anybody who has had swamp butt. The second would be that MRE's are good for a couple of day maybe even weeks, but chow that was cook that day was a lot better. The third would be that telling people to shut the hell up in the bays at night would have been a hole lot better that PTing at 2300 in the rain and mud. The last and final thing would be that you need to clean you weapon daily if not two times a day. No matter how clean you got that weapon sand will find its way into your M4 and mess you up at a really critical moment.

No offense, but really...training can't compare to deployment, lol

Once thing I learned the times I deployed was who my real friends were. It's amazing who shows you support.

Another thing is that you learn who people really are when you spend as much time with them as you do.

I also wish I knew how hard it would be to adjust to come back. A lot of people can't understand why you would want to hang out with people you spent so much time with when you get back. Family and friends who weren't there can't understand that you all bonded over things they can never understand, you just need to be with people who "get it".

Those are just a few things.

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Armygirl4ever,
Proud Army Veteran 1993-2004
Now Proudly Serving in the Silent (okay, maybe not always so silent) Ranks

Great answer Armygirl. I GET IT... seriously.

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OOH RAH!