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Career Advice

For Artillery mate the gun line is great and all but having worked with the artillery a lot and knowing a couple of artillerymen the real goochie job that everyone wants is to be part of a FOO (Forward Observation Officer) party.

Quoted for maximum truth.

Pretty much all of the rest of that is what was told to me as well. Only other things I'd add is that right now British Gunners spend a lot of time in the infantry role too so be ready for that - and I've lost count of the amount of Facebook messages I've seen despairing about what the squaddies have done now and how they're going to have to deal with it. My favourite being a mate who spent a weekend driving half of England and back because one of his men made a bow and arrow from radio antenna and shot another guy with it.

That, and that infidelity during tour is rife.
 
The PSNI will be recruiting later this year which is a one to look out for.. Take it you play rugby so you are in decent shape, good pay and it'll set you up for life. I heard that the security concerns isn't too bad anymore (although everywhere you look people has been saying its starting up again for like the past 5 years lol), I don't know if you are Catholic or Protestant but if you practice the catholic faith you have a higher change of getting in as they try to even up the ranks...
Just a thought.. sorta like a less extreme army.
Also try furthering your degree that will give you more options a masters or PhD will set you for work if you wanna get into history writing like Russel Rees who also lectures at UU I think...
 
Another thing I didn't mention was the ranks is great and you will meet a lot of great people but being a man with a little bit of education and probably a solid family foundation you will definitely find it a struggle at first. For one thing their are a lot of great soldiers with good heads on their shoulder but their are an equal number of **** poor soldiers who are only there to make up the numbers. The military and especially the army is full of all sorts of miscreants who if they weren't there would probably be in jail. Being an infantry officer and having dealt with some of these characters believe me when I have said I have seen it all. Spousal abuse, assault, rape, rampant alcoholism and drug use, the list of stupid **** I have seen is endless so if you do decide to go in the ranks keep your head clean and don't get sucked into all the aforementioned bs.
 
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Some options here which I thank everyone for, especially for the army advice. I've gone in a slightly different direction and have started to apply for the police, which officially makes me a dick. The idea being the hands on approach but not the tours to the Middle East. But I'll need to see what happens, but still open to ideas. Such as a graduate job in advertising.
 

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