is this common ??????

[digndeep400]

i was on a dive boat in Florida a month ago,on the ride out i was listening to a man talk about being in the military and how they taught him how to dive and so on.......... to listen to him you would think he new everything there was to know about being under water ! he was even giving people advice on diving (scary).then when it came time to dive you would have thought he had never seen scuba gear before ,another man had to put it together for him .do ya ll see this a lot ?

 

[tc]

Simple but unfortunate answer- Yes.

 

[Gary D.]

If everyone who claimed to be a Military or Navy Diver was one there would be more than 10 times the total number of divers than there are. :11:

I’m just amazed at the number of SEALS there are out there. Some were so deep under cover that their service record was destroyed in the interest of national security.

Then there are the mid 30 year olds that were SEALS AND SNIPERS in Viet Nam and killed thousands of the enemy.

You know the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. So are actions.

Gary D.

 

[Katamuki]

Dive combatant school for the USMC LAR and Scout types is a grueling mixture of US Navy dive info, repeated dives under a divemaster and the occassional "sharking" session. SEAL instruction is about the same. The intensity of the "dive" program however is unbelievably harsh and merciless. I dont know the fellow your talking about exactly but his experience may have been with closed circuit systems after all.

My regular recreational dive partners are (1) US Navy diver who was drafted in 1968 and is now instructing, (2) a USA SF type and (3) a SEAL and a former LAR-5 diver. The only two who had "institutional" training equivalent (much more than equivalent in my humble opinion) are the US Navy diver and the LAR diver (LAR is an amphibous recon marine). The Army SF type is one of 3 "divemasters" who function as dive officers in water related activities like parachute drops over open water. The SEAL type has a regimented buddy check system he uses with me when he hit the water which would make the average onlooker wonder just how much experience he has. Needless to say my buddy has hundreds of hours in the water, under piers, under boats, in and out of subs and just hanging out in the big blue.

Overseas the military dive card is recognized at the MWR facilities for off duty rental as equivalent to an Advanced Dive Cert like PADI or NAUI offers.

 

[Richesb]

It's not only "military trained" divers. On almost every dive trip we encounter "an experienced" diver who barely has the skills to safely dive. This is why certifications don't carry a whole lot of weight. Actual recent diving experience is all that really matters.
I have personally seen/dove with people who had multiple advanced certifications and did not manage air consumption.
Pretty scarey

 

[herman]

You will hear this from time to time. My basic rule is if the diver is doing a lot of talking about how good he is, how well he is trained, is military trained or is being overly helpful to other "less experienced divers" I figure he is full of BS. Truly good divers don't talk that much......ya know, I may have met that guy....several years ago I met a fat 50+YO who was a Navy Seal diving instructor, flies every kind of plane the military has (just walks on base and borrows one...they all know him so it's ok), wears an extra 10 lbs on every dive to save the poorly trained divers all around him, smoked like crazy and has buoyancy skills far above those of mortal men. This was actually kind of funny until I realized there were a couple of young divers who were believing his BS. Amazing how a couple of well placed questions will shut one of these guys up.

 

[Zoomer]

Maybe you misunderstood, "I was in the Navy and got trained to be a diver" actually means "I was in the Navy and went to the local dive shop to get my cert last week"

 

[The Kraken]

"Amazing how a couple of well placed questions will shut one of these guys up."

. . . well said, Herman.

the K

 

[Alex777]

i was on a dive boat in Florida a month ago,on the ride out i was listening to a man talk about being in the military and how they taught him how to dive and so on.......... to listen to him you would think he new everything there was to know about being under water ! he was even giving people advice on diving (scary).then when it came time to dive you would have thought he had never seen scuba gear before ,another man had to put it together for him .do ya ll see this a lot ?

on Caribbean dive boats, it's an almost daily occurrence! That's why, as others have said, no one accepts certifications as proof of anything (except for liability purposes). You have to see a diver in the water to judge how experienced they are.

Now, if I just had a dollar for every diver who said he was "trained in the military" or "full-cave certified" and then proved to have buoyancy problems, I would ...

 

[GotNoOcean]

You will hear this from time to time. My basic rule is if the diver is doing a lot of talking about how good he is, how well he is trained, is military trained or is being overly helpful to other "less experienced divers" I figure he is full of BS.

I used to be a paramedic. We called this the 'Beltbuckle Phenomenon', wherein a person's actual ability is inversely proportional to the number of beltbuckles, coffee mugs, and bumperstickers they own proclaiming themselves to be :11: 'Master Medics' :11: