Jack's military background

[Texane]

Re: Team makeup

Originally posted by Rowan
I just learned very early on to accept the 'shudder factor' [the way your body shudders when you watch something you know isn't right? I do that a lot with military and medical shows] and go with it.

I hear ya. I don't see legal movies for just that reason.

Rowan, ya gotta learn to jump! (I'm not military; I just love skydiving!)

 

[catgirl]

I have been to the official stargate site at mgm, and it says that O'Neill was an "exceptional airman" and was then transferred to the special forces. In fact, the Air Force has a special forces unit. I actually looked it up onthe internet. I t is awesome!!! He has always been in the Air Force, never in the Marines. (That would explain why he can fly a plane) By the way, on an unrelated, well kind of, thing, a really cool site is allexperts.com

Just search for stargate. The best person to ask questions about Stargate is Hammer. It is really great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Rowan]

Comments

Originally posted by catgirl
I have been to the official stargate site at mgm, and it says that O'Neill was an "exceptional airman" and was then transferred to the special forces. In fact, the Air Force has a special forces unit. I actually looked it up onthe internet. I t is awesome!!! He has always been in the Air Force, never in the Marines. (That would explain why he can fly a plane) By the way, on an unrelated, well kind of, thing, a really cool site is allexperts.com

Just search for stargate. The best person to ask questions about Stargate is Hammer. It is really great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Airman" is a generic term for anyone in the Air Force, the same as 'soldier' is for the Army, etc. He wouldn't have been transfered to 'Special Forces' as there is no such thing. TheArmy has a 'Special Operations Group' and the Air Force has a similar intensity of command, but they deal with Combat Air Control, Medical Pararescue and that sort of thing. He may have been 'attached' to various special operations units throughout his career, but I doubt he was assigned to 'Special Operations Group', Ft. Bragg.

The various military services 'lend' folks to each other all the time. The history 'created' for the character of 'Jack O'Neill' would be much more plausable if he were a Marine in a unit like 1st Marine Force Recon. It's harder to 'make it fit' with his being Air Force.

BTW: We don't really know tha Jack can fly, we assume. We also assume it's a military license and flight training. The badges he wares are not pilot wings. *I* can fly some forms of planes and I was an Army medic and nurse. I've done military jumps and I'm not Airborne or Special Operations [and I don't see the day coming fast when they'll let women into Airborne Infantry or Special Forces commands.].

Jack, in some ways, requires you to 'suspend beliefe', which is okay by me. RDA plays the part well enough for me to go along with that.

Rowan <21+ Army, E8 - MSG/1SG

 

[CynVision]

Re: Comments

Originally posted by Rowan
BTW: We don't really know tha Jack can fly, we assume. We also assume it's a military license and flight training. The badges he wares are not pilot wings. *I* can fly some forms of planes and I was an Army medic and nurse.

Jack, in some ways, requires you to 'suspend beliefe', which is okay by me. RDA plays the part well enough for me to go along with that.

I've not assumed that he can pilot either. They would have "done" something with it by now in a story. As of season 4, IIRC, "Watergate" quotes him as doing jumps "hundreds of times" which was possibly a reassuring exageration to fool Teal'c on parachutes effectiveness... Only time we get a hint Jack could fly is "Serpents Venom" where Jacob has him take the controls of the shuttle for a brief time. I assumed that was more video game type flying, keeping the dot in the box, and not real piloting. And they cast Jack as knowing a lot of what to do in second seat in "Tangent." I don't know enough AF to know if the guy in back still has to know how to fly as backup to the pilot? or if two seat jets work that way at all...

Pretty bad that I don't know, I have fic with a pilot who transfers into the SGC I'm winging it.

 

[Rowan]

'stuff'

My husband likes to say he's been in 'hundreds of take-offs and olny 4 landings'. That's not quite true as the Army fle him to a lot of assignments and such, but he's referring to jump flights. He's got I don't know how many jupms in his log.

Landings: of the 4 he mentions, 1 crashed on takeoff [A caribou for a small unit tac jump], a helicopter [again, on a take off for a low insertion jump] and a couple of secure landings [everything stayed in place].

He said the worst one was the Caribou... not for the impact, but becasue the pilot muttered something to the effect: 'Bugger all, this is exactly what it did the last time...".

Not what a young, macho airborne Sky-God wants to hear. Again.

Rowan

 

[Sj Shortea]

Here is alittle picture of Jack in his unform.

 

[Sj Shortea]

And another one.

 

[catgirl]

Sorry if I get stuff mixed up--I'm just going on what I've been told, and that was a while ago. But remember in the episode (I can't remember it's name, but it was in season 4) where they went to a planet in a civil war, and the planet needed heavy water, and all that, they had crafts that you could fly from the ground, and Jack and Teal'c each 'flew' one. If Jack couldn't fly, why didn't Carter take one of those things. We know for sure that she was at least in a plane- she said she had 100 hours in the Gulf War.
Who knows, I guess. Somebody should ask the producers and writers about Jack's background. I like to imagine him as flying at one time.



Catgirl

 

[CynVision]

Re: 'stuff'

Originally posted by Rowan

He said the worst one was the Caribou... not for the impact, but becasue the pilot muttered something to the effect: 'Bugger all, this is exactly what it did the last time..."

LOL! ROFLBO! Hurtling along a runway at takeoff speed?! I'm sure that was a terrible thing to hear!

 

[CynVision]

Originally posted by catgirl
they had crafts that you could fly from the ground, and Jack and Teal'c each 'flew' one. If Jack couldn't fly, why didn't Carter take one of those things. We know for sure that she was at least in a plane- she said she had 100 hours in the Gulf War.
Who knows, I guess. Somebody should ask the producers and writers about Jack's background. I like to imagine him as flying at one time.

"The Other Side" is the one I think you're thinking of. It is one episode that I have missed and I'm doubly regretting that if it's got Jack sticking a aircraft.

As for why it's a bit unreasonable for him to offically be both, Rowan has pointed out on other threads that Jack knows too much "on the ground" deployment stuff. Too much about how to shoot and blow up stuff "by hand" to also be a fighter pilot of any sort. It don't mean he couldn't have learned to fly, but it's not his true calling. At least shouldn't be. We do get a tantalizing line that "Air Force One and I go way back..." and this could hint at a number of things.

The producers will never talk. They've created the character they need and it's not something that is admitted to exist in the "real" American Air Force.

 

[catgirl]

Oh well. whatever he is, ya gotta love him! I love all the on the ground stuff he knows, especially when he totally startles Daniel and Carter by actually knowing something. They seem to think he is an idiot. I personally think he is faking. I mean, come on. Someone who was really as dumb as he acts sometimes would not have survived that long in the combat situations he appears to have gotten into alot.
I think it is really interesting when various characters, usually nasty, make references to "his file". Like Maybourne in Chain Reaction "I know you have a strong stomach Jack, I read your file" Or in the episode where Carter gets taken over by the Entity, where he says that he will send M.A.L.Ps, that the Entity has "read his file". Exactly what is in that dreaded file? Obviously something he'd rather not think about. He doesn't really mention much about his past. I t would be cool if they had an episode similar to Gatekeeper, where they totally explored his past. Oh, to be a script writer.
Thanks for yakkin'

Catgirl (meow) (oh by the way, "meow" is cat for good bye, good luck, etc.)

 

[CynVision]

Originally posted by catgirl
especially when he totally startles Daniel and Carter by actually knowing something. They seem to think he is an idiot. I personally think he is faking. I mean, come on. Someone who was really as dumb as he acts sometimes would not have survived that long in the combat situations he appears to have gotten into alot.
I think it is really interesting when various characters, usually nasty, make references to "his file". Like Maybourne in Chain Reaction "I know you have a strong stomach Jack, I read your file" Or in the episode where Carter gets taken over by the Entity, where he says that he will send M.A.L.Ps, that the Entity has "read his file". Exactly what is in that dreaded file?

Technically, given that Jack has said that if anyone knew what he's really done he'd have to kill them, his file at the SGC would not actually have much of what he's done. I'm expeciting that information is on paper somewhere in a filing cablinet elsewhere in the country.

As for acting stupid. I am familiar with wanting to selectively forget the past. Jack says outright in the series pilot he's good at forgetting the events surrounding the death of his son. I bet it's easy when he'd been forgetting all the bad stuff he got into for years before that. Other times, when he's got a flash of insite, it's surfacing out of a lot of common sense and book learning. Like the "Ben Franklin thing" in "Torment of Tantlus" episode. Motivated by death looming over him, he's gonna pull bright ideas.

 

[catgirl]

yeah, I loved the "Ben Franklin thing" line. Jack is my favorite character, and I think that he is really a very smart guy. Maybe he's just hiding it- I dunno, maybe he really likes that element of surprise thing. I agree that he soes seem to always be able to pull something out when necessary. For instance, in the entity episode, he was acting all weird "I think it likes me", "Do I look fat" etc., but, when the entity started taking over the malps, he could tell by feeling and smelling that the door had been welded shut from the inside. hmmm. I'm seeing slight inconsistencies here.
Maybe he's really just trying to make light of situations like he always does, but everybody else just doesn't get the joke.
Whatever the reason, I still think that he's great, and that everybody seems to underestimate him. Oh well.

Catgirl (meow)

 

[catgirl]

I guess that anything Jack knows would have to be alot of common sense anyway. If he joined at age 18, as the official MGM website states, he couldn't have gone to college. In other words, he only has a high school education, while he's hanging out with people who pretty much have spent years and years studying specific things-astrophysics, archaeology, that's gotta take some serious school time.

Catgirl (meow)

 

[CynVision]

Ah, but the Air Force is known for only drafting the smart ones. And, never having been there or know anyone directly who has, I think we underestimate what they teach in the Academy. IIRC, Jack had to pass a test to be pulled in at 18 and he must have been smart as a tack type of guy. Sadly, Jack's hazy smarts now might be the result of result of his age Everyone slows down as you get on...

 

[catgirl]

Hey, that age thing had better be a joke!
I still say that he is faking stupidity. Maybe he just feels intimadated by all these really smart people around him. I'll always think that he's an awesome guy.


Catgirl (meow)

 

[CynVision]

Originally posted by catgirl
Hey, that age thing had better be a joke!
I still say that he is faking stupidity. Maybe he just feels intimadated by all these really smart people around him.

Well, there's a joke we had around the scene shop back in college. When you're in charge you're Stuper-vising. I've heard bunches of CEO's say you get the smart people to would for you, you've won half the battle. Thing is those employees then start thinking the boss don't have no smarts what so ever.

So maybe Jack stupervises until no one has anymore bright ideas.

Oh, and someone said that if Jack joined up with the AF at 18 he didn't have a college degree. That's got to be wrong. They school the officers they recrute. IIRC from a conversation I had with the show's military advisor last Sept. at Gatecon. ( I'm wishing I'd taken notes. I was so nervous taking up his time. )

 

[Rowan]

Jack's mil Hx

Don't worry, Cyn. Tom has all the time in the world to spare. The Air Force pays him to stand around and talk. :}

The 'only' way Jack would have entered the Air Foce at 18 and comissioned 'without' a degreewas if he took his degree at the Academy and entered as a 'cadet' [A 'sorta officer but not quite']. This could have happened.

Also, to promote above the rank of Major, he would have to have at least one Master's Degree and have taken 'Command and General Staff College'. The program is given thru the US Army and grants a master's degree in Military History, Tactics and Command via West Point. All the branches of the serve go through this program. So, Jack would have to have a Bachelor's in something and a Master's in something - enev if they were 'only' the two military programs.

There is no way the man could be a dunderhead. Not and stay anywhere in a special operation slot. At the first sign of poor judgement or loss of 'facilities' he'd have been 'down checked' from field assignments, no matter how good his history was.

Fact of life in today's modern military. No education? No Promotion.

Row

 

[catgirl]

Wow, you guys both have great points! My apologies on my own density. I (obviously) don't know anything about military etc. I guess that he is "stuper-vising". I don't think it reflects well on the smarts of Daniel and Carter that they haven't figured that out yet. Someday O'Neill is gonna scare the heck out of them by coming up with some genius idea that they would never think of. I think that O'Neill might also be modest. For instance saying "the Ben Franklin thing". Also, maybe he's just trying to get Carter and Daniel to be independent. If they ever get into a dangerous situation on their own, they won't be relying on him to get then out of it.
I again apologise for my obvious stupidity. Keep posting!

Catgirl (meow)

 

[CynVision]

Originally posted by catgirl
Also, maybe he's just trying to get Carter and Daniel to be independent. If they ever get into a dangerous situation on their own, they won't be relying on him to get then out of it.
I again apologise for my obvious stupidity.

Oh eee! Don't go puttiing yourself down. I've just learned a bunch from Rowan's post! It's going into my Jack history file.

I'm sure the whole teamwork vs. personal smarts thing is what makes the show so fun. I'm sure the whole "pull yourself out of danger thing" applies, but just like any job, when you're stuck you hope your co-workers have the best solutions.

I'm very much waiting for the day when the writers let slip what Jack is degreed in (if it's other than the programs at the Academies, I guess). I can't think it's very scientific related, the history thing is intreguing.

I guess this means that in-characterly Sam Carter would have to get shipped out and off the team to take classes before progressing much more. It's a long commute from east coast to Chyenne.

A whole lot of schooling going on. Msgt. Giannazzo is a great example. His degree(s), IIRC, are broadcasting and journalism related. Before Gatecon I'd never imagine that someone with that would work around to a posting where that degree would be useful. He gets to combine the two and tell film producers how best to present the AF on screen.

Rowan named the first way, passing high tests out of HS at 18 and going FT into cadet system, the second way of entering the command system is already having the degrees from college and then you work on from there. They're choosy about what sort of people and degrees they look for.

The third way... ouch. Msgt. Giannazzo told me but I forgot. Rowan? Promotions? exceptional merit? uhmm?