Any Military Veterans Here?

Are You or Have You Been in Military Service?

  • Total voters
    32
DRE said:
lol!!! I used to play tackle football too until some dude's arm got broken and they forbade us from doing it anymore. How the heck did he fall off the pier? That's a kodak moment.
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He was running the ball to the left, ran out of real estate and when he reached out to brace himself against ships hull he discovered it was farther away from the pier that he had anticipated... SPLASH!!!! into the oily debris floating between the pier and our ship. It was not funny at the time because he could have been seriously injured or even have died. We got him out and quickly dispersed back onboard the ship as we were not authorized to be out on the pier to play football in the first place. The scene on the pier was like Indiana Jones movie with guys walking camels, old deuce and a half driving by, etc. They were very curious to watch us burn off all that energy
 
Well firstly, a thank you to all of you that served. I personally haven't, not that I am not considering it.

I'm currently in college and am very much considering joining the USAF after or doing AFROTC. I was originally going to do after high school (had taken the ASVAB and gotten a 96 and then none of the Armed Forced would stop calling) but my parents have made it clear they want a son with a college degree, which I plan to get anyway.

I'll have to see, either way, I will always have respect for anyone who has ever served.
 
I'm lame. I still have all my old uniforms. I have every single item required to stand inspection by Marine Corps standards. All pressed, all shined, all perfect.

I may not fit perfectly in them all right now... :whistle: but I have them. Hehe.
 
Sheldon said:
I'm lame. I still have all my old uniforms. I have every single item required to stand inspection by Marine Corps standards. All pressed, all shined, all perfect.

I may not fit perfectly in them all right now... :whistle: but I have them. Hehe.
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I wish I had them now to show to my son.
NOTE As retiree I am still authorized to wear the uniform and I can buy everything at the base, but probably will never do that. I have all my medals and ribbons in a shadowbox and I am sure to have conversation with my kids about that. They have no freakin idea about any of that stuff
 
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Eoj Nawoh said:
Well firstly, a thank you to all of you that served. I personally haven't, not that I am not considering it.

I'm currently in college and am very much considering joining the USAF after or doing AFROTC. I was originally going to do after high school (had taken the ASVAB and gotten a 96 and then none of the Armed Forced would stop calling) but my parents have made it clear they want a son with a college degree, which I plan to get anyway.

I'll have to see, either way, I will always have respect for anyone who has ever served.
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Consider this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force_Pararescue

Everyone knows about SEALs and Green Berets, but Superman School is bar far the toughest of the US SpecOps training. Two of my classmates were former SEALs. Both were washouts. Don't get me wrong, they get the toughest missions, but ours was the longest and most difficult training of any SpecOps in the world.

Two of my rescues were SEALs. They leave no man behind because guys like me had their back.

Make it through the pipeline and there is no challenge life will throw at you that you won't be able to handle.
 
Fred Sherman said:
Consider this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force_Pararescue

Everyone knows about SEALs and Green Berets, but Superman School is bar far the toughest of the US SpecOps training. Two of my classmates were former SEALs. Both were washouts. Don't get me wrong, they get the toughest missions, but ours was the longest and most difficult training of any SpecOps in the world.

Two of my rescues were SEALs. They leave no man behind because guys like me had their back.

Make it through the pipeline and there is no challenge life will throw at you that you won't be able to handle.
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cool .. never heard of any of that cause we were always haze grey and underway. I do know that I would never disrespect a SEAL, especially to his face. Every person that I have ever known associated with SEALS was built like superman. Why do you need to make SEALs look bad in order to promote your specialty training in the air force... just curious.
 
I'm not making them look bad. I trained with them. I worked with them. I did overwatch on several ops where they were the primary operators. I even rescued a couple of them.

Honestly, the SEALs in my class were at a disadvantage. They were used to dealing with water as an operating environment, but not as a rescue environment. One rang out on drown proofing. Our version was much different than their BUD/S training. We were bound, hands and feet, blind folded and dropped into a 20 ft pool. A single snorkel is at the bottom and we had to buddy breath while instructors tried to disrupt us.

The other made it through until EMT training, but got set back twice on his cardiac block. It is what it is. 92% washed out. We started with 107. At graduation, 9 of us made.
 
Fred Sherman said:
I'm not making them look bad. I trained with them. I worked with them. I did overwatch on several ops where they were the primary operators. I even rescued a couple of them.

Honestly, the SEALs in my class were at a disadvantage. They were used to dealing with water as an operating environment, but not as a rescue environment. One rang out on drown proofing. Our version was much different than their BUD/S training. We were bound, hands and feet, blind folded and dropped into a 20 ft pool. A single snorkel is at the bottom and we had to buddy breath while instructors tried to disrupt us.

The other made it through until EMT training, but got set back twice on his cardiac block. It is what it is. 92% washed out. We started with 107. At graduation, 9 of us made.
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is that training part of the SEALs training pipeline??? I know that they go to jump school at FT Benning. Have you graduated BUDs training? UDT???
Have you been to SERE training? All training for special forces is tough, designed to break you, exceed your physical/mental limitations, only the mutants remain standing.
 
UDT has been disbanded. The equivalent is the combat diver phase. We do the same airborne training at Benning as the other SpecOps, but then we also went to Yuma for advanced jumper/HALO ops. SERE has three phases. We graduated from all three, but then also have to attend the advanced arctic, desert and jungle schools.

The most important things I learned:
  • Mental toughness beats physical toughness, every day and twice on Sundays.
  • Nothing worth doing is ever easy, so if something is hard, be glad - it means its worth it.
  • Pain is not your body's way of telling you to stop, its a test your brain puts you through. If the pain stops you, great. But if you keep going past the pain, your brain knows this is serious and releases strong neurochemicals that will kick in and help you, but also increase your chance of injury.
  • Never quit, ever. Make them eliminate you, never eliminate yourself.
  • Sometimes, you have to only exist in the moment. Don't look ahead a day, an hour or even 5 minutes. When things are really bad, just breathe and stay in the moment.
 
Anthony Parsons said:
I converse with a lot of US veterans, often daily, and they beg to differ on your view. To them, a veteran is someone who has served in a combat zone on active service, not someone who has served in the military or who served doing little to nothing away from anything scary. Dropping bombs from an airplane, yes... firing guns in support of ground troops from a ship, yes... cooking food in the rear echelon away from 99% of risk... NO.

I think you need to speak with more veterans quite honestly... they beg to differ on your opinion from within the USA.
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My experience is mostly limited to U.S. Navy (was Aircrew, but was also attached with the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing (3rd MAW (MAG-39/16)) while IA in Iraq), but I can't think of a single veteran I know, Navy or Marine, who saw actual combat (including myself) who hold this view.

If anything, I had respect for any person who's role helped me accomplish mine, whether that was the parachute riggers who prepared my flight gear, the airframer who troubleshooted an issue with the utility hydraulic pump, the plane captain who did the DTA inspection ensuring the aircraft was safe for flight, the cookies who made sure I didn't go hungry, etc. We were all on the same team, regardless of whether one might consider their job less "glamorous" than mine, ship's company or air wing, and as such I consider them just as much a veteran as I.

Edit: typos (well, those that stuck out).
 
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AFG-070125-003.jpg

23rd Special Tactics Squadron: The emblem's blue and yellow are the Air Force colors. Blue alludes to the sky, the primary theater of Air Force operations. Yellow refers to the sun and the excellence required of Air Force personnel. The globe stands for the worldwide commitment of Special Tactics Combat Controllers and Pararescuemen. The two shades of blue signify night and day deployment capability. The parachute and the dagger denote infiltration and commando operations respectively. The arrows represent triple threat capabilities—land, sea, or air. The lightning bolt indicates quick action medical and communications capabilities. The lamp of knowledge reflects the civic action role of the unit, i.e. the unit functions as teachers and medical providers as well as warriors.
 
USN subs here, nuke electrician on both a boomer and fast attack, left in '95. It was a great 6 years of my life and the nuke/sub culture played a huge part in my civilian career success.
 

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