a stupid idea?

[scooby64]

That's it, enough of being a bit of a Walt and reading everyones posts, I'm going to (try and) join 4 Para. Why? From what I've read and heard, with the current massive TA shortages, most units will take almost anyone. Despite what they claim, my local unit (Royal Artillery) is still a "fat boys drinking club". Its not what I want.
If I'm going to join, I'll try and join what is arguably the best- the Paras.
A couple of questions... 1. I don't mind travelling some 80 miles to my nearest Para unit for weekends, but do I have to make all the drill nights?
2. On the infamous Channel 4 programme P-Coy, I remember the recruits having to climb and walk across the top of a girder-type bridge. Fall one way (a long way) and it was tarmac, fall the other, and an even further drop into the river. Personally I think H and S is mostly s***e, but now the trainasium has safety nets, do they still do the bridge?

[MrC]

1. I don't mind travelling some 80 miles to my nearest Para unit for weekends, but do I have to make all the drill nights?

No you don't, 99% of the time drill nights are purely fizz, as long as you train in your own time they don't care if you never attend a single one, they care about the weekends. You should try to make sure you attend every single weekend upto CIC.

When I was there, a few lads lived too far to attend drill nights and it never did them any harm. Soon as you start missing weekends however, you start to fall behind and it's very hard to catch up as you may miss key lessons.