See What Rings True

**rob jones 60** · 19-07-2007, 19:02

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