I wanted to thank E-Leader and the other guys in my squad yesterday for reminding me why I play at TG!

So I just picked up BF3, and had only messed around in the Campaign until yesterday. I used to play BF1942, BF2 and BF2142 quite a lot, but it's been awhile. So in essence, I am having to completely relearn the ropes.

Yesterday morning, I jumped on a random US server to get in my first multi-player rounds. I squadded up with a couple other folks, and began fumbling my way through the controls, learning the map, trying to figure out how to spawn on my squadmates, etc.. In a mere matter of minutes, I had my FIRST KILL!!!! YEAH!!!! Please ignore the fact that I had already died 9 times at this point.

Suddenly, I am seeing one of the guys in my squad typing in the upper left corner:

Them: "Man, do you know HOW to shoot, I mean, like at all?"
<pause to make sure he's talking to me>
Them: "I mean really, you're 1-9....how in the hell do you even do that?"
<pause to make sure I don't use too much profanity in my response>
Me: "If you're talking to me, I have been playing this game for exactly five minutes."
Them: "You mean, like, TOTAL?"
Me: "Yes, I JUST bought it. Ease up dude!"
<pause while they think of something else clever to say>
Them: "Oh, well........."
I left after the round was over.

Last night, I finally logged onto our server, and was put into E-Leaders squad. I immediately spawned on him, and began following orders, trying to keep up, trying to be better at killing than dying, etc.. I screwed up a few times, would spawn halfway across the map, would get lost following my squad mates, etc.. Never was griped at once.

A few minutes in, I was chasing Leader to a flag, and he went down. In TeamSpeak (YAY!), I asked how to revive in this version, because I couldn't seem to do it. Leader kindly just let me know that I just needed to defib like in other BF versions. I let him know I didn't have defib's yet, and he just let me know that was cool....no big deal. Thanks for not making me feel like an idiot buddy! :-)

A few minutes later, the full squad was together, advancing on a flag, and were cramped into a walkway, holding back before we burst in on the flag. We could see enemy movement at the flag, so we were taking shots when available. I made the mistake of strafing while I was mashing the trigger down, and TK'd at least one of my mates. I was expecting them to get PISSED at me, but nobody said anything. I apologized for my stupidity, and what do I hear back? "Hey, not a problem. Don't worry about it."

Since 2142 died, I haven't really had an opportunity to squad up with much of the TG community, and I honestly started to forget what it is like. My love and respect for this community and it's members was 100% affirmed last night! Thanks E-Leader and the other guys in my squad (sorry I can't remember your names.....I was a little busy being overwhelmed)!