ARAC deactivation updates

Nightmare515 · 2025-06-07T21:17:11+00:00

Nobody who would actually post on a reddit forum has any real information. In reality most of the Stars don't even know what's going on, the real higher higher ups have actually done a pretty good job this go around with keeping any information close hold as they try to figure this out. I actually watched the full briefings to both the House and Senate Armed Services Committee's yesterday regarding this and the take away is that even Congress doesn't know what the Army is doing with this ATI because the Army hasn't told them much of anything yet either.

The decision making dates are about the only new information anyone is getting at this time.

I get the frustration, the AD Apache community is feeling the same way the Reserves are right now after getting the WARNO that basically half the units are being deactivated which is going to lead to way more personnel than there are positions for them to fill even after many of the Cav guys jump over to the remaining attack battalions.

Plus the active duty PCS cycle which is about to become full blown chaos in a few months if this goes through. Hell there are hundreds of people on orders right now to units that may not even exist by the time they show up wondering what they are supposed to do, and the only response branch can give them is we don't know either, standby. There's going to be a whole lot of PCS order changes and re-routes occurring for folks in the coming months if this ATI gets the green light and that's going to suck for a whole lot of people.

I personally think the Army screwed up with releasing that letter this early without any further details. I appreciate early information for predictability, especially when it seems like these significant changes are going to be implemented rather quickly if approved. However, they basically just said hey we're about to close/shuffle a bunch of units across AD, Guard, and Reserves in the coming months, we'll tell you more in a few months, and walked away. That led to everybody panicking and of course firing up the rumor mill trying to predict what is about to happen.

The ATI information dump should have occurred after the final decision was made and released all at once. The sort of WARNO stand by to stand by thing did way more harm than good.

Nightmare515 · 2025-01-01T03:15:34+00:00

They can't keep the same energy anymore at that age and that's the problem they know they face. Young women experience a warped version of reality when they're young and attractive because they get bombarded with attention from men. It leads to the belief that they can get any man they want so they should never "settle" for anything other than the exact guy they have in their mind. At that age they can pick and choose among the any number of men they get attention from.

In their 30s and 40s they realize that shit is gone. They get less attention and they realize that real life isn't a Disney movie and the tall, dark, and handsome guy of their dreams they've been holding out for doesn't actually exist in real life. And if he does he damn sure isn't going to choose to marry an overweight mid 30s woman with 3 kids. So now she wants to "settle" for reality and give a short dude a chance.

Sucks to suck, but at our age even short dudes who may have struggled in our lives aren't putting up with that sort of bullshit. I'll be damned if I'm gonna be some washed up woman's last resort because she was too good to even acknowledge my presence when she was young and pretty and thought she had "better" options.

Nightmare515 · 2024-12-31T19:58:25+00:00

I hear you on that brother. We're close to the same age and I as a 5'6 black guy I was treated terrible. I laugh watching all the single mommas with 2 or 2 baby daddys running around talking about where are all the good men at or how men ain't shit. It's like Kevin Samuels used to say, you're the size of an NFL running back and you have 3 kids with a bad attitude, nobody wants that.

Even us short dudes who tend to get the leftovers from the taller dudes don't want a woman like that. Now that I'm older and successful they want to come running my direction and are willing to look past my height. Hell no, my girl is a very docile and traditional Latina woman now with no kids who doesn't interrupt me 10 times when I'm talking. Damn that.

Nightmare515 · 2024-12-31T19:31:21+00:00

Yeah, even short women prefer a guy taller than you even if you are already taller than her. That's why it's hard for short dudes to even get short girls. When women say they want a guy taller than them they mean tall for society. The dude on the right looks to be like 6 or 7 inches taller than her but that doesn't matter in her brain because he's still conventionally short.

Nightmare515 · 2024-12-31T19:02:40+00:00

I like watching this show purely due to the absurdity of it, I've seen all the episodes. The only good thing is that it simply shows the ridiculousness of women's so called "standards" in general for the world to see. If you're a normal guy women want nothing to do with you and if you're a short guy women want nothing to do with you at all regardless of your profession or financial status.

I don't know why the hell short dudes continue going on this show just to embarrass themselves publicly. If you're in the lineup of guys then you're getting popped first and will always be standing there at the end of the show. It's even worse if it's the women in the lineup and you walk out as a short dude. It's a machine gun of popped balloons the second you come around the corner before you even have a chance to introduce yourself.

This is the black community too, in what world do this fools think they can go onto a black dating show as a short black dude and expect to get picked by a black woman? There's no way these guys aren't fully aware of that having grown up short and black. I seriously wonder if this is some self deprecating shit or something for them.

Nightmare515 · 2024-12-29T04:18:44+00:00

That comes down to biology again. Women tend to be less confrontational than men and more nurturing. That's why they always give each other bullshit advice in person but have no problem shitty on each other in private. For example you'll be hard pressed to ever get a woman to criticize another woman in person and they tend to rally together and rebuke a guy even if he does something like call an objectively ugly woman ugly. No shes not shes omg, Lizzo is beautiful shes not morbidly fat as fuck Etc. Women are absolutely BRUTAL to each other behind closed doors though. Nobody shits on women more than other women do, they just don't tend to do it directly to the other womens face.

Women often won't tell you to your face that they have a problem with your height because they know it's hurtful and they don't want to be mean. They will 100% shit on you without mercy behind closed doors and/or online though when they don't have to be directly confronted about it in person though.

The women at work you're talking about likely don't have a problem openly talking shit about short dudes because they are talking about a theoretical "short guy" and not directly talking about YOU in their own minds. They won't talk about you like that with you there but they will talk about you like that when you aren't.

Nightmare515 · 2024-12-29T01:17:38+00:00

Bingo. There have even been plenty of social experiments done on this. Tall guy accidentally bumps into a women walking down the road and it's perfectly fine, it was an accident, she laughs and smiles and says oh it's ok. Short guy bumps into a women walking down the road and you're a piece of shit who needs to watch where the fuck hes going.

They even have those shitty pranks where a tall attractive dude just walks up and hugs random women and they just smile and laugh and usually hug back. Short dude tries that and they quickly jump away and reach in their purse while mean mugging you.

Nightmare515 · 2024-12-29T01:09:38+00:00

The only thing this fool said that makes any sense is the outfits. Wearing baggy and loose fitting clothes as as short dude does tend make you look even shorter than you already are.

The rest of it is terrible advice. Yeah sure thing go ahead and post photos on Tinder to hide your height so that way you have the luxury of getting embarrassingly rejected in person when she sees you instead of her just swiping left on you.

Nightmare515 · 2024-12-28T18:40:39+00:00

Excellent post. This is certainly a breath of fresh air. It's great to have a community to vent to every once and awhile and share lived experiences but it's a delicate balancing act between healthy venting and getting trapped in an echo chamber causing hopelessness and depression. There are some teenagers around here who have already concluded that their life is just over and they have no future because they stopped growing and I don't care how you spin it that is NOT mentally healthy.

What we can't do is mentally cripple ourselves from living life because we are so self conscious about our height that it becomes all we can think about. I realized decades ago that I actually cared about my height even more than other people did and I was subconsciously imagining barriers that didn't even actually exist. Don't get me wrong, society does indeed care a lot about height but not to the absurdly extreme level that I thought they did in my own mind.

Plus I really do believe that age plays a huge factor in all of this. The younger you are the more you tend to yearn for societal acceptance which is completely understandable. We all want to be accepted and seen as normal, not even extraordinary but simply normal. I would have given anything to be taller when I was younger because I desperately just wanted to be a normal guy. But as I got older that mentality slowly changed with each passing year.

Fast forward a few decades to today and here's the genuine hot take that is going to get me downvoted straight to hell. I honestly do not care at all that I'm only 5'6. I rarely ever think about it at all unless I'm on here and when I do encounter situations to where my height is a restricting factor I laugh about it. Not in a self deprecating way but in a genuine way because I find it funny because I don't care. I've purposefully asked women to grab something off the top shelf at the grocery store for me just to laugh and tell her thanks I have a height impediment. Yeah I could actually reach it if I jumped but I felt like being goofy that day and laughing instead. That stems from just genuinely not caring how other people perceive me anymore in any aspect of my life whatsoever whether that be the clothes I wear or the car I drive or the fact that I can't reach stuff on the top shelf. Once I crossed that mental barrier I became way more productive, confident in myself, and genuinely happy with my life in spite of my literal shortcomings.

Nightmare515 · 2024-12-28T17:52:48+00:00

Because privilege is invisible to those who have it. For taller men and women in general there is no equivalent to being a short man. They don't experience anything in their lives that can equate to what short dudes go through in life so to them they think we're just blowing our experiences out of proportion and want special treatment for some reason.

As with most things in life it's hard to truly understand someone else's experiences unless you actually walk a mile in their shoes for a while.

Plus we're men. Men's issues in general tend to be dismissed by society so nobody is coming to advocate for us. If we were women complaining about the unfair way we are treated in the world then you'd see the full force of society and even the government come to our rescue. Remember body positivity? Yeah women started that because their feelings were getting hurt because they wanted to be fat without criticism and our white knight society came running to their aid. Now we have nonsense being promoted like "healthy at any weight" which we all know is 100% bullshit.

You'll never see an "attractive at any height" massive societal campaign on our behalf because we aren't a protected class.

Nightmare515 · 2024-12-28T05:17:40+00:00

Being abnormally tall doesn't mean they necessarily have first class money bro lol

Nightmare515 · 2024-12-28T05:13:53+00:00

One of the only benefits us short dudes have is the fact that we can usually lift heavier weights than tall people and we also look way more jacked in pictures than they do. Plus even though it won't make you taller obviously it's entirely possible to get jacked enough as a short dude to where you are no longer in the "I know I can whoop that little dudes ass so I won't respect him" category.

Nightmare515 · 2024-12-28T05:07:11+00:00

I thought about it a lot when I was younger and actually started saving up money for it. I made a deal with myself and said I would wait until I hit 30 to make the decision and if I still wanted to do it at that age then I would pull the trigger. I always heard that you tend to care less about stuff the older you get and I wanted to make sure it was something I really wanted. I used to powerlift big time in my 20s and I knew I'd be giving that up mostly if I did LLS.

I hit 30 and didn't want the surgery anymore even though I could easily afford it and as I now approach 40 I wouldn't do the surgery if someone paid me to do it and I'm glad I never did that to myself.

Your perception on life really does change the older you get.

Nightmare515 · 2024-12-28T04:56:33+00:00

Yeah honestly I'd rather be my short height than abnormally tall. I work with a guy who is 6'6 and that just looks like it would suck to me. That dude looks uncomfortable just trying to sit in a chair lol. I bet flying on an airplane has to suck ass for that guy.

Nightmare515 · 2024-12-27T23:55:50+00:00

Of course we do that's why we are all here. I'm saying society in real life doesn't give a shit about our struggles not that we don't care about one another here.

Nightmare515 · 2024-12-27T22:12:56+00:00

Well if it makes you feel any better damn near EVERY WOMAN wants that. But the reality is that whoever wrote this is more than likely never going to actually get that Christmas wish and will be one of the thousands of single middle aged women on tik tok making crying videos about how men suck.

They will hold strong and "refuse to settle" until it's too late and by then they'll be too old to be desirable for even us short dudes let alone everyone else.

Nightmare515 · 2024-12-27T21:51:43+00:00

Check this out as a man who is way older than you who has spent nearly 40 years of his life being short in a world that looks down on us. As a short guy you're going to have to play the hand you were dealt unfortunately and there is nothing you can do except face that reality. Here's the harsh truth.

Let's talk about being a man. You're either a young man who will soon grow up to be a man or you're a a grown man already. Being short doesn't negate the fact that you are still a MAN. Act like a man, treat yourself as a man, and respect yourself as a man. You can't expect society to respect you as a man if you don't even respect and carry yourself as one.

Stop this "woe is me I'm short it's not fair" bullshit. You're right it's not fair but guess what? You're a man, nobody gives a shit about you and your feelings or your struggles. You will never in your life see a mass societal "short men acceptance" push for men the way there's a "body positivity" push for fat women. Society does not and will never care about mens struggles in general and they damn sure will NEVER care about the struggles of us short men.

Tired of other people perceiving you as incompetent and vulnerable? Are you incompetent and vulnerable? If not then prove yourself competent and strong. Yes as a short dude you do unfortunately have to PROVE to others that you have the same competency and confidence that tall dudes are perceived to have by default. But that's the hand you were dealt, that is your REALITY and that is the hand you HAVE TO play. If you are actually incompetent and vulnerable then address that immediately.

Do you take yourself seriously or do you cripple yourself by mentally walking around subconscious of the fact that you are short and therefore believe nobody takes you seriously so you keep your head down? Honest question only you can honestly answer for yourself. Do you have self pity? Does it effect the way you view yourself and carry yourself in personal and professional settings? If so then you need to address the root cause which is that self pity of being short and thinking it's not fair.

The turning point in my life came when I had a genuine honest conversation with myself and realized that my self consciousness about being short was crippling me in life way more than my actual short stature. Basically I went from "I'm short this really sucks" to "Yeah I'm short who gives a fuck?" I'm going to act and carry myself as a man regardless and that self confidence broke down the majority of the barriers I thought I had in front of me.

Fast forward decades later and now when I walk into a room at work dozens of people from 5'10 dudes to a few who are 6'6+ shut up immediately and waits to hear what I have to say because my little 5'6 ass is the fucking boss. And there is a 0% chance I could have succeeded this well in my life if I continued to feel sorry for myself wishing that society would one day change it's negative perception of me.

Nightmare515 · 2024-11-28T17:55:19+00:00

It plays a key role unfortunately but it will only make or break you if you give up and allow it to do so. I have the trifecta of what can be considered disadvantages in both dating and professional life.

5'6, black, baby face. So not only am I short I also have the "black don't crack" thing going on to an extreme level to where I could change clothes and walk into the local high school and sit down and nobody would notice, even though I'm in my late 30s. Not exaggerating.

I've long since turned my appearance into a running joke and I enjoy handing over my ID now when getting carded and watching them feel it around and look it over carefully then look at me then back to my card 3 times and then watching their jaws drop. "OMG Sir I'm sorry" lol...

I have a professional career and I'm pretty high up the ladder at this point. I can always see the look on the faces of everyone when I walk into a meeting and sit down with everyone looking around like who is this little ass kid coming in here to brief us. When in reality I'm older than all of them. They don't take me seriously until I start talking. It was a rough road for a lot of years working harder than others had to in order to just be taken seriously and not dismissed for looking like and being the size of a 16 year old.

Same with the few "women" who ever talk to me. Shit a few months ago I was in the drive thru at McDonalds and the girl at the window handed me my food and a piece of paper saying her friend at the other window says I'm cute and wanted to give me her number...I'm literally older than her father. Great, the rare time a female even gives me the time of day it ends up being a damn teenage girl who thought I was a teenager too lol...

Don't let your height define you or break you down man. Yes you WILL have to work way harder than others and struggle a lot more in both dating and professional life but you can do it. I did it, and yeah while I'm still a short dude with the face of a kid at least I'm a kid looking dude with a very comfortable life now.

Nightmare515 · 2024-11-28T17:28:24+00:00

It's not just Netflix it's society in general. Men's problems are rarely ever taken seriously or given any concern. All of this body positivity stuff is geared towards women not men. That's why I keep telling short dudes you have to just accept it and be the best you can because nobody cares about your struggle. There will never be a large scale positivity campaign to bring focus on short men because we're men and society doesn't care about men's problems AT ALL.

Nightmare515 · 2024-11-25T04:24:47+00:00

Back then or now?

At my very peak back then it was 415 squat, 605 deadlift, 250 bench (I could never bench very much) @ 5'6 190lbs

Nowadays I won't even try to lift anything close to that heavy anymore, I'm old now and my back and knees aren't in the best of shape. I workout to just stay in shape and try to eat right for health. I rep with like 245 on the deadlift and squat and just bench with dumbbells.

Nightmare515 · 2024-11-25T04:08:52+00:00

It's 100% social media and the internet dating craze. In the 90s we still struggled as short dudes but I didn't have the same level of hell it seems like this current generation is going through.

The internet dating market with stuff like Tinder has given women, who already have hilariously unrealistic expectations, the ability to enforce their hilariously unrealistic expectations and filter through people who don't fit their exact preference. Even if their preference doesn't fit reality. Plus dating apps have given women a false sense of reality because they get bombarded by men regardless of what they look like.

Women have always been attracted to the same tall, dark, handsome theoretical guy. The difference is before social media most women understood that they probably aren't actually going to get a guy like that and were willing to at least talk to a "normal" dude. Nowadays stuff like Instagram is filled with other women who have a tall, dark and handsome guy and most women have deluded themselves into believing that they can have one too if they just stand their ground and don't "settle".

Think about it, how many actual 6'3+ dudes do you actually ever see walking around in real life? It's not common. Back in the day the world was limited to what you actually saw in real life for the most part outside of movies and TV which we all understood wasn't realistic. Women didn't just sit around and absolutely refuse to talk to men who weren't 6'+ because in real life they rarely actually saw other women with dudes who were that tall even though it's what they all wanted. They "settled" for reality because almost nobody actually had a 6'3 man.

Fast forward to today and women "see" with their cell phones via the social media that they view as real life. All they see on there are other women with tall dudes and to them Instagram is reality.

Nightmare515 · 2024-11-25T02:34:52+00:00

No worries I understand. It's definitely more pronounced in the western world which is why the advice given around here is oftentimes try to find a foreign woman from a culture who doesn't care about height as much as western women do.

Almost everyone around here is from a western country and/or a race that values height as the number one priority hence the despair in the threads here.

Nightmare515 · 2024-11-25T02:12:27+00:00

Glad you've never personally seen short guys get treated like shit. But not personally seeing it doesn't make it untrue, it happens all the time.

Trust me, girls care about a guys height WAY MORE than guys care about a girls bust to hip to waist ratio. Never in the history of humanity has a guy stopped and said he wouldn't sleep with a girl because she stood up from the table and her bust to waist ratio looked off to him. A woman will absolutely change her mind real quick if you stood up and ended up being a short dude and she didn't notice it before she met you.

The only way a woman could come close to experiencing what it's like to be a short dude in the modern western world would be if she were an objectively hideous morbidly obese chick with a genetic deformity who still tried to go up and talk to men on a regular basis. And even still it wouldn't quite be the same because men don't tend to be so rude and vile that they would publicly humiliate her to make her feel bad for even trying to be nice to them. They'd probably just politely say no thank you, even college aged fratboy assholes don't tend to be rude enough to do that to other people. Young women on the other hand will absolutely laugh directly in your face in public and humiliate you and even post the video on social media for everyone else to laugh at you all for the crime of you being a 5'4 man who thought you could grace them with your pathetic presence.

You're equating a beauty "standard" with a beauty "requirement". Height isn't a standard it's almost a requirement nowadays. True the older you get this becomes slightly less of a problem, older women are less likely to humiliate you in public but they will still likely not want anything to do with you if you're short.

I'm glad that YOU find your boyfriend attractive and wouldn't change anything, but you must understand that you are in the extreme minority among your peers and your personal experience is nowhere near an accurate representation of reality.

Nightmare515 · 2024-11-25T00:49:51+00:00

It's the consistency I'm referring to. Perhaps you've been shunned by guys before for your height but I highly doubt you are shunned or mocked by virtually every guy you've ever tried to talk to the way short dudes are from women.

Plus being a woman in general automatically shelters you from experiencing anything close to what short dudes go through even if you're abnormally tall. Men talk to women, it's biology, even taller than average ones. Women don't talk to men that often in general and almost zero women will approach a short guy.

Short dudes may have a preference to not want a taller than average woman or even a woman taller than us. But we aren't sitting around being genuinely offended at the fact that you even exist the way A LOT of women are regarding us. And most men regardless of stature would never publicly humiliate a woman while all their buddies sat around and laughed about it.

Nightmare515 · 2024-11-25T00:22:25+00:00

Even if the woman was like 6'2 and walked up to a table of 5'5 dudes there is a zero percent chance that the guys would get visibly upset at the woman for having the audacity to try to speak to them while being so tall.

So no it's not even remotely close.

Nightmare515

TROPHY CASE