The first time I ever "stood to" was intense, you're expecting at any moment for shots to start getting fired. Sometimes they did, sometimes not but it's a long long time to maintain that hyper awareness. It's an experience for sure.
I imagine that a "hit" is much more painful too, since you simply don't see it coming, it's an even more unpleasant surprise:D
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You don't really take a hit as you're working with blanks in training but honestly there's a state of permanent readiness that your body kinda just adopts when your in field. Woken up by firearms? No problem, saw it coming, sods law ofcourse when you're trying to sleep is exactly when contact comes. I'm sure it's deliberate 😂. But yeah it's rare you train with any kind of projectile, unless it's accuracy based drills. We wouldn't put people in a position to accidently take a hit. And you can't really get safe projectiles that require you to go through the same reloading drills, unjamming drills etc etc, it's not really worth using something like BBs or even Rubbers, you're not training to hit something there... You're practicing field skills and weapons drills, and patrol skills/recce. You practice hitting something on a range not in the field... Usually.
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Yeah, sounds awesome but not my kinda lifestyle, I've joined the reserves though, that's enough military for me :D
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It's definitely an experience. That's for sure.
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