Shit, I wish all I had to be was self-sufficient.
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I have zero weight here as far as saying that Slims' suggestions are based on real life experience as I'm a nobody; my dot of experience doesn't even show up on the map compared to his Texas-sized chunk, but what you need to remember in all this is that you're going to be in the
regular army. I know regular army (that's all I know) and based on my experience his suggestions are good but not all are necessarily applicable to your individual situation. What you carry in the regular army is limited by certain retarded DoD policies, asinine unit practices, and the cold God MTOE (a list that dictates what items you'll even see) that will dictate what you do and how you do it. I mean, you don't get to choose how many mags you carry and what type of sidearm you want. They'll tell you what you have to have and sometimes where it goes. They'll probably say something like: "
You will carry a basic load of 210 rounds 5.56mm and a M9 with 45 rounds 9mm." You won't be able to wear your own body armor (say hello to the 30 pound vest and the infamous dick flap for me) and you certainly won't be doing the same types of missions that our eccentric insomniac does... no, you'll be engaging in police call in the desert, laying out the Zodiac in the sand, and Monday morning vehicle maintenance... in your best uniform. Always keep that in mind.
In the regular army, whenever common sense and the rules clash, the always rules almost always win in the end. Even if it gets people killed.
You need to put overlay your mission with your requirements as a Velcro couch camo guy that remains bitterly subservient to desk jockeys.
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If you're wondering why I have the kit that I do given the job that I have, it's because the mentality of the military gets carried over by brainwashed paperpushers. I don't get a choice here either. If I had a choice I would be running a rig more similar to that of the gnarly sand surfers listed in this thread. You've seen the rig I run at classes... it's light, flat, and doesn't have any extraneous bullshit: no Rambo knife, a small BOK, four AR mags. When I get the urge to buy another armor setup (fuck you, SC), I assure you it will be very similar to what I've got going on in the pictures below.