What I'm looking for is your personal experience with American soldiers, not by what you think of them from the news.

From my experience the soldiers from the US army were very friendly, polite (despite them initially wearing their head dress in the mess hall, a BIG no no in Commonwealth countries because the Queen's picture is there) and very laid back (apparently they must get at least 8 hours resting time per night.)  However, they are not well rounded and too specialised.  I remember a joint patrol during an exercise at Fort Drum, NY.  During an ambush the RadOp, a US soldier, was killed and the Americans wanted to abort.  A master corporal (my section commander) demanded the radio (he was also navigator) and that the patrol move on.

As for US marines, their doctrine is nearly identical to Canadian doctrine, emphasising well rounded soldiers for multi-tasking.  In fact I remember my buddies talking to them about the National Guardsmen and asking them if they also get a minimum 8 hours rest.  They said "No!  We don't do that.  We are marines, Hoo rah!"

None really,with the exception of me and some buddies from my platoon,went up to Fort Bragg to see a friend of mine who I went thru school with,he was in the 82nd Airborne(and a ' tabbed ' RANGER).We got into a brawl with a bar full of them(not smart,and neither was my platoon buddy that started it).We got the " bad " end of it,needless to say,as at first I tried to play peacemaker,then said the hell with it.(after being hit in the face with a rather large fist and having a beer bottle thrown at me).You can't put Marines and Army guys under the same roof and alcohol be plentiful.Talk about striking a match and throwing it on gasoline...bad chemistry experiment.

They comeover here occasionaly for shooting comp's and such, their alright, maybe a little limited in their military cross training, but they do have the strange habit of constantly wearing their kevlar and body armour while on the range or even around our barrack's,

(GLAINE AR GCROI, NEART AR NGEAG AGUS BEART DE REIR ARM MBRIARTHAR)

Seems to be the main limitation of the US Army is they aren't cross-trained like the British Infantry is.I feel in the Marines I was alot more prepared for multiple types of situations/scenarios than would be a US Army soldier.

Strange how the US Army guys wore their Kevlar/body armor constantly,however,maybe they were under certain restrictions regarding their use of body armor.We were always instructed to train like the real thing so maybe they were/are under a similar condition.

My first encounter with Americans was at the age of 7.
My father at the time was a Major in the German Army, he was the Liaison officer at the Sembach air base, which was mostly made up of Americans.
We lived about 5 Km from Sembach in a town called Sippersfeld, across the street from our house was a very small apartment building(six family) occupied by Americans.
We got to know all of them very well, and became very good friends with them.
They were the reason I have become to love Pork n Beans, I know, it's sad, but I do like them. They really liked to BBQ almost every week end, and I liked the way they had parties. They all were very respectful to us, my father had no problem with me hanging around with them, I credit them with most of my English skills( Not sure if that was a good thing ). In my opinion, I thought they were nicer than my neighbors( My relatives, LOL). My family still has contact with all but one family, one couple stayed, and retired in Germany, and bought a house further in town, and they are not treated as foreigners, but as locals.
My over all opinion of Americans is most positive, can't say one negative thing about them.

lol...I don't know if what you call the " American dialect ",English or not.Americans have taken a perfectly good language and slaughtered it..lol

Nice to hear of your relations with the Americans in Germany.I have a friend whose cousin is in intelligence,thats attached to one of the Special Forces Groups(10th? I think)(hes not a tabbed Special Forces soldier but they " LET " him wear a Green beret?!..go figure)anyway,he was in Kosovo for awhile then was sent to Germany(forget where) but he has since met a German girl and he likes it there ALOT!Shelly(my friend)said that he sent her pictures of the Bavarian village where shes from,and the pictures he sent from Christmas time there.I have yet to see them but she said it was like a fairy tale,indescribable,so she says.With the lights and the snow,does sound neat.Seems he wants to go back there as soon as his next assignment is finished.

They are always polite, never act as if they are better than you and always wants to buy the Norwegian winter pull-over boot warmers... lol

they always buy the drinks! they'll do for me



On the 8th day God created Ben-Britain and he took over!


"when I get home people'll ask me,'hey Hoot, why do ya do it man? Why? Just some war junkie?' Ya know what I'll say? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand it's about the man next to you, and that's it. That's all it is."
SGT 1st Class Norman Hooten

I am going to use this thread to ask Paljoey (or any other former/current member of the US military) some questions.  Seeing as how soldiers from both the US army and USMC were involved in attacking Fallajah, were they really merged at say, the company level?  And again, if in the heat of a battle a USMC platoon loses half of its platoon, including the platoon commander and 2IC, and a US army company is right behind at a critical juncture, wouldn't the remaining Marine soldiers simply be amalgamated into the US army company?  Or would they still act as though they are from different nations? 

Tough question,as we would never be " technically " cut-off,in the sense of the word,thanks to modern comm,but we would more than likely defer to US Army command,provided we had lost our officers(more importantly platoon Sergeants).

My impressions are we were severly overrated or else , the world is underrated.

most of us wanted nothing todo with our sgts who were simply there to take up space if there was a detail during red cycle (red cycle is when your unit is placed to do the hard work for a division/Brigade)
The sgts would more than likely stand there while 2-3 privates worked while the specialist or cpl. joked with the sgt.


There were a Lot Of Guys who were over eagre to catch a bullet or serve, most of us simply wanted to do our time.


concerning our training while some might want to present themselves as experts able to do everything as though jacks at all trades, I was in the 2/8inf bat as well as 1/22 during the land warrior project I spent a year solid in the field (coming in one single FN weekend every other month)after a 3 month tour in bosnia
more often than not we played spades, if not we ran gunnery tables 8-12.

for me the training was bs.


runing a lane with NVG that didnt work, or trying to clean a weapon with dirty rags is no way to run a Platoon.

even though I have carried a dragon and even fired one, on a range I still habe no idea ho wto hook the bottles up to the sight.


concerning our radious Ive been on both the singaars and the asip I can zero them, as well as well as download the latest frequency hop from the thingie. (I forget its name)

I was very impressed with the British soldiers who I ran into during a Trip to NTC, they served as the airborne for the opfor,

they basicaly lined up and voley fired against our bradleys and I myself was forced to sit on the top of the hill and die.

I will never forget them beating the sides of a bradley with their bare hands and helmets trying to figure out how to get inside when a driver shoutesd some epithet against their queen., Nor their reaction to my gaelic curse of Tradipaidh ar la. (the Ira Motto).