My First Day In The Finnish Army...

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F.A.Q.
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• What camera gear do you?•

• How old are you?
34

• How tall are you? •
6ft 3 (or 192 cm)

• Where do you live? •
Helsinki, Finland

• What program do you edit with? •
Adobe Premiere Pro CC

[ilirfazliu]

I was born and raised in Kosovo but moved to Finland for university studies, and became a Finnish citizen after a few years. Having experienced the war in Kosovo as a child, witnessing the Serbian crimes, and knowing how brutal it can be (sota on helvettiä), I free-willingly decided to serve in the Finnish army to make sure I would be prepared in case needed (hopefully not). I served in Niinisalo as a field medic for 6 months. In the beginning it was a bit stressful, being at about B1 level in Finnish, but my English speaking mates stayed close to me, making sure I would understand everything. I had an amazing experience, full of great memories, and learned what great people, and often misunderstood Finns are 🇽🇰🇫🇮 kiitos kaikesta Suomi!!

[Tylran]

Most of the Finnish citizens who live outside of Finland serve in Santahamina. I served in a very multi-cultural platoon. We were jokingly called "Muukalaislegioona" or the Foreign Legion. I remember some somalis, a brit, a canadian, a greek and an estonian. Other platoons in our company had guys from the US, a frenchman and a few germans. The guys got their training in Finnish and we made sure they understand the commands. The got pretty fluent by the end of basic training.

[PleaseBePatient]

Me an hour ago: I wonder when Dave is going to make a new vid about Finnish Army Simulator.

Dave 5 minutes later:

[Aquelll]

Yes. I used to work in the military and one year we had a conscript coming from Australia who did not speak almost any Finnish. That squad communicated mostly in English.

[jukka]

26 years from my Day 1 but this video brought back memories. Not much have changed since. Camo was M62 and M91

[esaedvik]

Finnish Army = Running as fast as you can to wait/queue, only to run some more. Hajotkaa aamuihinne.

[alehaim]

Generally most people go to the barracks on their first day with a bus and are guided all the way. During my first day I went to Kouvola, from where I then got checked and then was on a bus ride until reaching the barracks

The military service is at a minimum 6 month and can last up to 12 months depending on which thing you get chosen into.

Generally the platoon/company you are chosen into determines which branch you serve in. I for example ended up in the maintenance/logistics company

There are definitely English or Swedish speaking people, though they are accommodated for generally, as with exam stuff for example you get an option to have the paper in Finnish, Swedish or English usually

The person most people serving in the army interact with is the "alikersantti", who is in charge of the group of people in the room in most cases. A direct translation for sergeant would be kersantti and for corporal would be korpraali, though the actual translation can depend.

For most things, especially within the barracks, you generally walk in formation which usually the staff sergeants (my used translation for alikersantti) command. Motorvehicles need the truck drivers to drive them and in addition need a fair bit of paperwork, so they are for the sake of monetary and resource limitations only really used for getting to further away places and getting back from them. For example I had to march quite the distance to the place of the last shooting thing of the recruit time, and from there we got then back on truck as I remember it. Oh and the trucks are also needed for delivering supplies like food and ammunition to exercises and such, due to which they aren't exactly always available for shorter trips. However running is very limited to the cooper and whatever movement and action focused exercises, while for the most part your biggest worry is trying to keep in pace with the marching.

I want to say that usually shouting attention is in my experience to the person who is of the rank Sergeant(kersantti) or higher due to the fact that the staff sergeants whom with you literally sleep would get quite bored from it

All the equipment you get is returned during your last days, and I still remember how fun it was to carry all the stuff on my last day knowing I wouldn't need to ever worry about it ever again unless I get called to a recap training(kertausharjoitus).

The cabinet thing is definitely a little excagerated for the sake of the game, as in reality with the cabinets you have more time and only after the initial weeks your cabinet is only really checked during Fridays before you get home. Also you get help from the staff sergeants.

-Me, Tukimies 2/22

[jaskajokunen]

The point of the army is to be as stressful for the conscripts so that they get used to it. It's not gonna be anywhere near as stressful as it would in the real situation but it does get though after you've been a week or few on a camp, worked your ass off every single day, had to keep guard for at least an hour every night and if you weren't lucky, had to change the tent position during the night...
So, you learn how to deal or handle stressful situation, learn some discipline, how to handle guns and how to take orders. What you aren't taught but you kind of learn as you go is to sleep anywhere at any time.

[civzation]

Ofc I want to see you to play the game through. Keep up the good work cave dad!

[mikoske]

Definitely seems pretty realistic, you walk everywhere the first days, but for equipment there were some trucks, but I remember dragging the gear walking. Only unrealistic thing seems how fast you made the bed and the pile haha! Using the fork for eating was a nice touch.

[vtimari]

At least back in the day, during the first days recruits didn't run around or excercise at all, until physical examinations and vaccinations are done. This is called "vauhtipiikki" or "speed injection", only after the examination the conscripts are cleared for harder excercise.

[utes]

4:30 "Alikersantti" is literally "Undersergeant", they are the conscripts who choose to go through leadership training and stay in the military for 12 months and get to boss around the new recruits after their 6 months is up. Since there's no real equivalent to Alikersantti in English, I guess the translator here decided to go with "corporal", but there is also "Korpraali" which is derived from Corporal in Finnish, so it's all a little confusing.
The ranks mentioned go in the order from lowest to highest:
Alokas - Conscript
Korpraali - Corporal
Alikersantti -Undersergeant
Kersantti - Sergeant

[teme]

Back in the day when I was with the navy. We had one kiwi in our squad. Nice chap. After 20 years we still are in contact. We served 9 months since we were specially trained

[FrostaegisStreams]

nönnönnöö is a hypothetical somebody. it's like saying "mr. or ms. so-and-so"

[teropiispala]

That was surprisingly genuine. It's very typical that minutes are not even close to minutes. Sometimes much less and sometimes much more. There's always very hurry, but many times just for wait hours before moving on next place.

[paterikki]

I served with guys from Australia, Germany, US and few UK dudes. The Australian had ever been to Finland before arriving to service in January 2010 and havent even really seen snow before. Young men living outside Finland with the nationality just get a letter with the start date of their service. If they don´t show up to service but visit Finland before they turn 30 yrs they are immediately taken custody at the border or airport when arriving to Finland. At least at 2010 half of them left home after the first two weeks of service which was the time those who did pass the start of service medical and interview left. Like one of the US guys in my squat just said in the interviews that he dosnt really feel like a Finn and there for lacks motivation to serve was released from service. So if they want Finns abroad get out of it pretty easy but they must first come to Finland and start their service.

[DerMacko]

@3:00 even back in 1999, we had a dude from kurdistan, well, some where there abouts, he worked here as a translator, so he did understand the language very well, but even so, he did prank some of the younger officers with the normal: "me? wut... no! temperature?" routine...

anyways, he showed us, that if you drop the orange peels on the hot stove, it gives a really nice aroma in the the tent (with 20 sweaty mens)... it is better than nothing. nice guy.

[MirkoK]

Please keep the conversations in the vid. Loved this so far

[MultiTeppi]

Hi Dave, I was in the Finnish army for 6 months in 2015 and the service time at first is presumed to be 12 months for everybody but then you will be ordered to some specialization and after that your time will actually be 6, 9 or 12 months depending of your specialization. I was trained as armour jaeger ( panssarijääkäri) and when you said about the walking and running, there is very much marching and running in the military because of course it is a good exercise, but of course you also will get to be in many different vehicles, especially many different kinds of lorries or Infantry fighting vehicles, or sometimes even in tanks. My specialization job is to be transported to the battle in a tank or Infantry fighting vehicle and then fight in the front lines.

[Karrvapallero]

When i was serving, we had a guy in our "Medical-NCO - school", who didn't speak finnish. He was a swedish-speaker from the Coastal Jägers, he had no problems with the training, i guess he only understood finnish, but didn't speak it.