Originally Posted by
cynicalint
The padre at the time I was there convinced a lot of yanks that our reflective belts were issued colour coded according to rank - Yellow = junior enlisted, Blue = senior enlisted, Silver = junior commissioned, red = senior commissioned. Caused wonderful confusion with SACs being saluted by US Majors just because the SAC was wearing a red reflective belt, which were issued in a random manner - colours being those belts available at the time.
When I was out there my sgt armourer kept on getting saluted as his initials are MAJ and guards looking at his 1250 either thought he was a major and threw one up or a sgt-major and, not knowing how to deal with such a beast, threw one up any way.
On the food front, I found a jar of marmite livened up breakfast as all food there, while of good quality and certainly of majestic portions, had been through the 'blander' before being put out and becomes excessivly repetitive afterthe first two weeks.
Mmmm, chicken salad...
Look out for the Doha rugby club - an excellent night out with a good chance of playing an odd game.
I saw in a recent RAF News the guys out there now got to play in the Dubai 7s - all we managed was a touch 7s tornament against the Aussies, the yanks, a Doha side and some guys from MND(SE). Good crack, but make sure the lads don't get too out-of-hand in the reamrkably home-like bar afterwards. The reason we couldn't get much by way of playing organised was just before I got out there some lads came back to the base pissed and OC Admin put a stop to anything being organised down at the rugby club for a while.
And of course the Aussies who are sanity savers and always oppose the same things the UK does; they have a similar sense of humour to us and while every American that you have dealings with is exceptionally friendly and usually more than willing to assist you, their system often lets them down. Sympathise with them and you have a friend for life - they have no option but to take the inane and barking mad directives from their bosses. All in all, with a positive attitude it could be the best and easiest det to that part of the world, but happiness remains the call of 'V1 - Rotate' on the way out.
Seconded.