How many of you guys here have served in the military. I know of a few but I thought it would be interesting to know which service you were/are in, rank, and years of service. Maybe it could turn into a funny story thread.

Enlisted medical in '91, went to Ft. Jackson for Basic and Ft. Sam for AIT. Reclassed signal in '95, ETS'd on 27Apr00 as an E-5.

I was 17th on the USCGA waiting list in 1994. I would've had to wait all the way to the end of summer to know if I would have moved up that list and been offered a place in New London, and I had to other college offers to commit too.....

Even though I didn't attend the USCGA, I've always been very proud of being accepted to the waiting list because the USCGA is numbers wise the most difficult academy to get into because it has the smallest enrollment and freshman class sizes. I think the freshman class size was only around 250, compared to the Naval Academy of about 1,000 plus per class, as an example.

I would have joined the regular, non-academy military, (probably the Navy or the Coast Guard) even out of college, but the mid to late 90's weren't exactly prime "join the military, serve your country" time, plus I had a fair number of athletic scholarship opportunities offered to me to go to college, and a state government job in the Legislature lined up right after college. Timing is everything, forks in the road etc, and I regret not serving right out of college when I could have gone in as an Officer.

My dad is ex-miltary, but not a career guy, and my parents retired to a gated community close to a large military base, so many of my parent's neighbors are high ranking officers and (current?) or ex-special forces members. So of course like a good son I haul my family down to the parent's house for Christmas each year, and there are numerous Christmas parties to attend in the neighborhood.

Since I am civilian, most of the conversations go like this:

LS: "So, what do you do?"
Military guy in Santa hat "I am not at liberty to discuss."

LS: "So, who do you work for?
Military dude wearing Elf ears: "I'm sorry, I can't tell you that."

LS: "So how was your time in Afghanistan / Iraq / Kuwait / South Korea?"
Military guy wearing a Rudolph nose: "Interesting."

Everything devolves into a conversation about sports / and or / the weather. Oh well.

Enlisted second week of first semester of college in 06. Went to Cape May for boot (2nd worst time of my life), non rated at Kodiak (worst time of my life) and went to OS A school at Petaluma. Went reserve in Jan 2010 and just made E-5.

(10-03-2011 03:14 PM)Rebel Wrote:  Enlisted medical in '91, went to Ft. Jackson for Basic and Ft. Sam for AIT. Reclassed signal in '95, ETS'd on 27Apr00 as an E-5.

Never woulda picked you for a relaxin Jackson man.

(10-03-2011 03:46 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  

(10-03-2011 03:14 PM)Rebel Wrote:  Enlisted medical in '91, went to Ft. Jackson for Basic and Ft. Sam for AIT. Reclassed signal in '95, ETS'd on 27Apr00 as an E-5.

Never woulda picked you for a relaxin Jackson man.

The travel agent didn't give me a choice between basics.

(10-03-2011 03:56 PM)Rebel Wrote:  

(10-03-2011 03:46 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  

(10-03-2011 03:14 PM)Rebel Wrote:  Enlisted medical in '91, went to Ft. Jackson for Basic and Ft. Sam for AIT. Reclassed signal in '95, ETS'd on 27Apr00 as an E-5.

Never woulda picked you for a relaxin Jackson man.

The travel agent didn't give me a choice between basics.

The only thing I know about Army basic is that they have push-ups down to an art.

US Navy
Commissioned: May 15, 2009
LTJG May 15, 2011
Designated Naval Aviator (1310) Sept. 30, 2011

Cdr (O-5), USNR (Ret.), Vietnam to Desert Storm