vagabond3636

That is a tough question to answer. In many ways, its sort of disgusting to think about. By the time I left (in December), the vast majority of people were gone. I was lucky enough to be using a 2011 Suburban as my vehicle for getting around post. This is a ~$50,000 vehicle. I was later told as we turned it in to be "sold" to the Iraqis that it was being sold for ~$5,000. I have a feeling that we sold a LOT of shit for extreme discounts just to get it off our hands.

I will say that one remarkable thing that happened was when we turned over the bases to the Iraqis, the moment we were off-base Iraqi Army folks would come on base and basically pillage everything. They were taking Air conditioners, copper wiring, etc. We took all of our sensitive equipment out of theater, but im sure millions upon millions upon millions of dollars worth of materiel was left behind. Thats sort of a reality of leaving a theater.... we're talking hundreds of thousands of tonnes of equipment that had to move out in ~3 months. It was crazy - they had been scaling down for an entire year but for the last 3 months we were still pushing tens of thousands of truckloads out of theater.

I think Iraq is a mess. I think anywhere that we destroy an Army and then rebuild it is going to have growing pains. I met some hardcore Iraqi Army Soldiers, but for the most part I was not impressed. The insurgency has died down but I know they still have a lot of terrible shit going on. Towards the end of our time in Iraq the insurgents were mostly attacking Iraqi govt and Army/police. The shitty part is that the insurgents have infiltrated so many parts of Iraq. I read/saw a video post from last year where 10-15 insurgents drove to a town dressed as Iraqi Police and provided warrants to "arrest" the local police force. After the police force had surrendered (maybe like 20-30 guys?0 they bound all of them and then shot them all in the back of the head. So yea, shits not good over there.

We don't leave weapons and ammo behind. The Army is really good about not losing shit like weapons. Ammo we brought out with us but worst case they probably blew it up if we couldnt take it for any reason. But leaving a weapon is sort of out of the question, that would be the commander's ass on the line.

I once had a Soldier who left his rifle at some base because he was a piece of shit.... I got woken up at 2 AM and spent basically the next five hours chewing the ass of the Soldier, my lieutenants, my NCOs, and then I went and got MY ass chewed by a lieutenant colonel and a colonel for a few hours. So thats kinda how important weapons are to us. And this was just a rifle :/ But i cant speak for every unit.

he was a lieutenant. I posthumously promoted him after the vet put him to sleep. RIP :(

MR now, but yes I feel strong on the subject. LEARN as much as you can but dont get too absorbed into all the bullshit they try to feed down your throat. I ENJOYED college and partied/drank/etc. There were a LOT of cadets who made ROTC their life. They got the ribbons for honor guard and they were in special clubs and all that crap - all that means nothing once you are actually commissioned. I made a distinct decision to enjoy my college experience before my service started.

With that being said, learn as much as you can. That sounds obvious, but having strong foundations from ROTC will help you as an officer later in your career. I was a dirtbag in ROTC, but I learned as much as possible. People thought just because I didnt care about ROTC would mean I would be a bad officer, but in the end none of that crap mattered. I knew kids from top of my ROTC class who were shit officers (one got discharged) and then there were guys like me who got consistently top ratings from my superiors and had strong careers. At the end of the day just make sure you are happy with your ROTC-Student life balance, because you never get your college years back. Also make sure you get good grades. I got an "E" at camp and was top 5% in the nation but my grades were so bad from having too much fun that I placed 40% overall or something due to grades being factored in. I wanted to be a tanker, but got ordnance (later logistics corps) and still loved it. Good for you going to UMass Amherst btw!