Funny. I was aprehensive about revisiting this thread, since I had precious little experience at the time I wrote my posts. I do not have that much more experience now, but it seems I was not that far of the mark.
As I sit here in KAF, part of the platoon formerly know as the GS platoon, now know as the KAF platoon, I find myself in the exact position I feared a couple of years ago.
Here I am on a tour, which people have quoted me would have been impossible to mount succesively without the reserve augmentees, doing patrols, trying to learn SAMPIS(got my handle today) and generally trying to bring myself to a workable level of knowledge.
I get kicks out of my Mcpl answering that I should be doing normal shift routine when I ask her what I should be doing. *Epiphany* "Oh yeah, you wouldn't know what a normal shift routine is". No, I definatly don't, but I'm learning.
I consider myself very lucky to have good knowledgeable(and enthusiastic) MPs here to draw from. I still think it would have been better if I would have had exposure on this before getting to theater.
Still, the feeling that this is a waste of what I am really good at, is hard to shake off.
One thing is for sure, reservist will never get respect from the regs MPs, not since they have a hard time respecting each other. I might have a lot of "immature" troops in my home platoon, but do I ever miss them. Immaturity is a whole lot easier to manage than big egos.
