See What Rings True

Guys.

I think you lot can relate to this ... you may LOL but OMG it's SO true!

You know you've been Defence institutionalised when ...

• You think that a collared, button up shirt (tucked in), chinos and >brown shoes (and may be a v-neck sweater) looks 'casual' on someone under the age of 40
• You use target indication to point out hot chicks
• You use the term 'chicks'
• You insist on dancing like a dick, whilst your civvie mates insist on trying to dance 'properly'
• Your civvie mates don't understand any of the terminology you use such as 'no dramas', 'squared away', 'take a knee' etc
• You can't help saying "Roger", "Say again" and other snappy bits of RATEL
• You use acronyms thinking your civvie mates will understand what you are talking about
• You don't have any civvie mates
• You cringe, and mutter under your breath 'haircut', when you see men with long hair
• You walk at a ridiculous pace and are physically incapable of walking at the shopping pace of your girlfriend
• You refer to personal organisation as "admin"
• Your girlfriend is stored in your mobile phone address book as 'Zero Alpha'
• You use patrol hand signals in a night club if people can't hear you
• You always use the 24 hour clock
• Nothing soldiers do shocks you any more
• You can't watch war movies without giving a running commentary
• People in prison have more contact with women than you do
• Whenever you spell something out you use the phonetic alphabet
• You don't trust your mum/wife/girlfriend/any woman to iron your kit because deep down you think that your ironing is better
• You point using your whole hand in a karate chop motion
• You find that the conversation somehow always comes back round to you, because you're more interesting than most topics of conversation
• You think not shaving is a treat
• You get really irritated when people you don't know call you 'mate'
• You can read a junk mail catalogue from cover to cover and refer to everything that is useful as a Gucci bit of kit
• You refer to smoke as 'a double edged sword'
• You spend hours wondering where in civvie street you can get an equal disposable income and at least 6 weeks holiday a year, by completing an inversely proportionally tiny amount of tangible work
• Your blood boils when you see civvies wearing DPM
• Going out on Thursday "international army night out" wherever it may be, or whichever course one is on, involves forming the ring-of-steel, talking about ourselves and the army and aggressively staring at girls; who if they don't immediately come over are obviously lesbians
• Should any man dare break this ritual, and despite talking to theprettiest of girls - as we would like to do, if it weren't for the fact we tend to chew our own tongues and dribble - he is clearly gay!
• You come out in a cold sweat if you find yourself still working after lunch on a Friday
• You have to stop work at 10am for mornos or else you might not make it to lunch
• At least half of your DVD collection are war movies
• Even though your disposable income is twice that of a civvie you still manage to spend it all, every month, with nothing to show for it, about a week after you've told all your soldiers that you 'can't believe how much money they waste on the ****'
• You feel guilty about wearing jeans in front of senior officers in the mess
• The sight of rolling countryside makes you scan for 'enemy depth'
• You think that eating every meal for a week with the same spoon that you licked clean and kept in the pocket of the same shirt you've worn all week is perfectly normal
• All of your food has to be prepared by a chef because you're incapable of cooking anything that can't either be boiled in a bag or eaten cold
• You lie when people ask you what you do for a living
• When leaving your phone number on a voice message you can't just give it once, has to be repeated
• When surveying open ground (when not looking for enemy in depth) you think, good tank country
• If a forestry block - I could get a platoon in here
• You survey open ground
• When you are pointing out some natural feature you begin with "Reference bushy topped tree etc etc"
• Your girlfriend has started saying "admin" and gave you the "Chop" when telling you to put the bin out
• When meeting mates in a pub you always turn up 5 minutes early and are secretly angry that nobody else has
• Worse still, if it's a venue you haven't been to before, you turn up 15 minutes early to put in a CTR, in order that you are definitely there 5 minutes early
• You subconsciously red-pen everything you read

So very true Rob mate!!!

That's so funny - and I know someone who does a lot of those 20yrs after leaving.

The haircut and the shaving thing is absolutely true:laugh:

Nice one Rob!!! I had a laugh reading it in work, its all spot on mate.

Rog

How true is that........................scary!!!!