What is the latest time you've ever stayed awake for?

[Hazy125]

A few days..... This happens too often, I have problems

[alpenwasser]

isnt it the case that in your country everybody has to do militairy training?

In theory, yes. However, you can do something we call "Zivildienst" (lit. "Civil

service") and "Zivilschutz" ("civilain protection" maybe?) if you're unfit or

do not wish to go to the armed services for moral reasons. What you actually do

there can vary quite a bit, but it's often related to support in case of natural

or man-made disasters (clean-up, building dams, etc.), but you can also end up

(or choose to do, should you feel so inclined) helping old and disabled people

around for a time and stuff like that.

I think I recall reading that about 40% of people of any given year of birth actually

perform military service nowadays, not completely sure on that one though. But it's

far from all, of that I'm sure.

EDIT:

Sorry, got my numbers mixed up. For 2012, it was like this:

Persons evaluated: 40,082

Persons fit for military duty: 24,814 (~61%)

Persons fit for civil service (not fit for military service): 5,870 (~14.6%)

Rest: unfit

source (in German)

/EDIT

Plus, the number of servicemen has been substantially reduced in the past few years

and is likely to continue to do so in the future. During the cold war, we had

something like 600,000 men at arms (about 10% of our polulation, so that's quite

a lot), last I checked it was about 120,000 plus 80,000 reserves (of which I am

now a part since I've completed my service). It might be even lower, but that was

the state of things when I left in 2007.

 

Fellow soldier here, US military though, staying up durring feild training is a whole different thing than just staying up playing BF4 (which I would do for fun).  You dont get tired, sleep wise, when moving around, but when you have to lay prone at night staring down the barrel of your rifle after walking for the last 12 hours carring 50lbs of stuff at least, that is when it gets really hard.

Yeah, whenever we had a few minutes of downtime during our field ex we just nodded

off practically instantly, it was like hitting an off switch. :lol:

Luckily we didn't have to perform guard duties during that time, we were pretty much

always on the move (for which I was actually quite thankful; as you say, being physically

inactive when you're exhausted but need to stay awake is a bitch).

[coen113]

-snip-

I consider joining the Reserves when i am 18

[alpenwasser]

I consider joining the Reserves when i am 18

Have fun!

I don't know how the reserve system works in the Netherlands, but here I don't think

you can join the reserves as such, you just join the regular army and when you have

completed your service you are put into the reserves for a few years. At least it

works that way for me.

[coen113]

Have fun!

I don't know how the reserve system works in the Netherlands, but here I don't think

you can join the reserves as such, you just join the regular army and when you have

completed your service you are put into the reserves for a few years.

here the reserves are not that demanding, its basically just 1 weekend/month of training, and tests you dont have to pass

[Askew]

2 days is the max I'll do voluntarily, obviously if there is some kind of emergency I wouldn't deliberately abandon that situation to sleep but if there is no emergency 2 days and I'm looking to sleep.

 

I could stay awake longer but some sleep would be needed, normally I sleep 8 hours per night and I dislike losing sleep.

[javelance]

About 30 hours, not impressive but still not fun.

[TopWargamer]

24 hours

 

Although one time I stayed up for 15 hours I believe it was, took an hour nap, and then stayed up for another 24 hours straight.