POSER III

[therevjay]

My first enlistment I wanted to go to Korea. The Army sent me to Germany. My second enlistment I wanted to go to Ft. Lewis WA. The army sent me to Ft. Story VA. I actually liked it there. So, of course the Army transferred me to Hawaii. I liked it there even better. In fact I think everyone liked it there. So, the Army sent us all to V.N.

The point is I learned early on the Army, Navy, Marines etc. Really (I mean REALLY) don't care at all what you want!

 

[Rastoff]

That's why they call it a "dream sheet".

 

[Stephanie B]

I spent most of my four years active duty in the engine room of a destroyer escort(DE).

One of the 1052s or a 1040?

 

[pineappleshooter]

21 years (12 active 9 reserve) and no combat. I served on two different submarines USS ALBANY (SSN 753) and USS BREMERTON (SSN 698). Did shore duty as an Admiral's aide in Washington, DC and then spent 9 years in a NATO reserve unit full of senior officers and enlisted (We had 5 O6's out of a unit of 21 people). My reserve unit was a senior staff unit and I worked in the Protocol Shop so we were in charge of ceremonies, parties, change of commands, and cocktail parties - best duty I ever had. Remember NATO stands for Not After Two O'clock.

The closest I came to combat was when I was transferring from my first ship to shore duty. I was home on leave and plopped on the couch next to my Dad one morning (o.k. 11:45 a.m. is still morning) all hung over with a cup of coffee. Dad flipped on the news and we watched the opening salvos of Dessert Storm. Dad (who was severely claustrophobic) looked at the tv, looked at me, looked at the bombs and missles going off on tv, looked at me, looked back at the tv and said, "Submarine huh, you ain't as dumb as you look!".

 

[Cyrano]

My first enlistment I wanted to go to Korea. The Army sent me to Germany. My second enlistment I wanted to go to Ft. Lewis WA. The army sent me to Ft. Story VA. I actually liked it there. So, of course the Army transferred me to Hawaii. I liked it there even better. In fact I think everyone liked it there. So, the Army sent us all to V.N.

The point is I learned early on the Army, Navy, Marines etc. Really (I mean REALLY) don't care at all what you want!

I had Europe on the top of my list the whole time I was in the Army. They did the best they could, they sent me half way; to Thule Greenland!

 

[GKC]

I was a hospital corpsman in the Navy. I never left the US during my enlistment (except for some expeditions to Tijuana when I was stationed in San Diego...to buy souvenirs, of course.) I spent the last two years of my enlistment at Cherry Point, NC, being assigned to the Naval Hospital at the MCAS there. I stood duty on the weekends in the ER, and felt like I was in a war zone most of the time. There were about 10,000 Marines there at that time, and about 9,900 of them got into fights on the weekend. The MPs would always bring any injured by the ER to have them checked out before taking them on to the brig.

We stood duty from 1700 on Friday to 0800 on Monday. In theory, we were supposed to be able to sleep sometime in there, but in actuality it wasn't uncommon to be awake the entire time. (We all had regular duty stations...mine was the Eye Clinic, as I had been trained as an optician. I had also been trained as an OR tech.) One weekend, I was on duty and we had been just swamped...I was fighting a nasty cold, was exhausted, and as I headed into a treatment room to sew up a guy who had been in a fight, I guess I passed out. The MPs were posted outside the room, but heard the clatter (I fell into a trash can.) It wasn't unusual for these drunk Marines to be belligerent drunks, and want to fight us, even though we were trying to help them. Apparently the Marine had come over to see what was going on with me...when the MPs opened the door to the room they saw him standing over me, and me on the floor...so, they assumed he had hit me. They worked him over and dragged him on to the brig!

We got it all straightened out later, but I always felt bad for that poor guy. That is my "combat" story from my service.

 

[Maze 686]

Here is one that got some people transferred. Some folks frightened. And everybody mad as hell.
In Germany we would serve QRF and BRF on a rotation for terrorist or civil unrest. Most times we would deploy around the Kasern to areas like the tennis court or vehicle park to show readiness. This way we were out of the limelight. One bright Lt. decided to stage a bank robbery on payday for the QRF to deploy.

We responded fully locked and loaded and did a dynamic entry into the building, first securing the burger bar of all patrons. We would have everybody including the Col. and his wife secured and cuffed up in short order. All of the sudden the Lt. Comes out waving his arms and telling us to stop. He was promptly rifle butted and secured too. Had there actually been a bank robbery the robbers would have given up in my mind at just the sight of a platoon pointing all that firepower at them. Not to mention the amount of blood from some of the people's noses that did'nt move fast enough when we told them to get down. Shortly after that they moved some MP unit in and the Lt. Was sent packing.

 

[Dennis The B]

I was originally ordered to MCB7 in 1969, and they were going to Viet Nam. I had experience on my high school and reserve center drill teams, so I was issued a set of permanent rear echelon (PRE) orders, and went to the public relations staff, 3rd Naval Construction Brigade. I was assigned to the drill team. One of our duties was to provide funeral details for Naval personnel deaths, and most of those deaths were from Viet Nam.

We had some great tours, especially traveling with the Blue Angels in the summer 1970. The worst were the funerals to which we were detailed, and having to present the folded flag to a widow, parents, etc. I've never really gotten over the view of grief suffered by the families.

No, I didn't have to go, but...

 

[OFT II]

My first enlistment I wanted to go to Korea. The Army sent me to Germany. My second enlistment I wanted to go to Ft. Lewis WA. The army sent me to Ft. Story VA. I actually liked it there. So, of course the Army transferred me to Hawaii. I liked it there even better. In fact I think everyone liked it there. So, the Army sent us all to V.N.

The point is I learned early on the Army, Navy, Marines etc. Really (I mean REALLY) don't care at all what you want!

My experience was just the opposite of yours. After training I requested posting to the Eighth Infantry Division, Seventh Army in Germany. Some dyslexic clerk in the pentagon cut orders for me to go to the Seventh Infantry Division, Eighth Army which was in Korea.

 

[gdnagle]

I got no problems with cook's. Great guy's to be friends with. We had a commutations site with about 40-50 personal located between a AF base and backing up to a Air America base, you know one of those civilian bases. Any time we got drunk or whatever we made sure the cook was with us. He had the keys to the mess and we would go in and cook some food to cure the munchies. Great guy's as far as I'm concerned. No matter where you were at or what you were in you played a important role in the overall picture. Word of caution we went into the jungle to take a photo of a downed Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane the CIA lost, well apparently they have a free kill zone around their base. Needless to say we didn't go back there anymore and thank God for telephoto lens. And for the guys in CA and CO you wouldn't believe how high the cannabis grows it that climate and it is guarded better then our base was by the local military.

 

[Mr Pokeyman]

I joined the Navy Reserve at the end of the 11th grade in 1963 in Lima, Ohio. The recruiters had come to the school and all the 11th and 12th grade boys had to go to the gym. Vietnam was heating up we were all psyched up to go kill the commies. I took some papers home and begged my Grandma to sign to let me join. She did but she was bawling like crazy. Me and half the guys in the 11th went to Great Lakes boot camp that summer and got paid too! I loved it. We went there on a train and the windows were sealed shut, it had to be over 100 degrees on the train. Then during our 12 th grade, every Saturday we went to the Navy Reserve Center and trained some more and got paid! We marched around with fake rifles, as if we were going to shoot the commies in the Navy. I was given classes in Supply and learned how to tie knots. After graduation I ended up on an old WW2 era Destroyer Escort at the old Phila Navy yard. I was assigned to Ships Stores and when I wasn't carrying boxes of stuff I was working in a supply store on the ship (selling toothpaste and soap, cigs etc). The Captain was a Lt not much older than me. I asked him when we were going to Vietnam and he said never. He said the ship was too old to go anywhere and if it was untied from the dock it would probably sink. I thought I had been lied too and asked to be transferred to a ship going to Nam. He said I was nuts. I worked Mon-Fri, 8-4 like a banker, and if I really wanted a transfer to go to Personnel. I ended up on an Aircraft Carrier and did a West Pac tour in 1965 (selling cigarettes and toothpaste). We were actually attacked once by Migs in the Gulf of Tonkin. I could hear guns being fired by our Destroyers. We launched our planes and the "commies" changed their minds and ran away. It was pretty exciting. We went to the Mediterranean in 1966 and nobody tried to shoot at us. If I had it to do over again, guess what, I would do it all over in a heartbeat! Oh, the memories.

 

[dcxplant]

I once calculated the amount of time I actually spent doing my job, working on J79's and GE F404's (F4's and F/A-18's).

Of my 4 years in (exactly to the day!):
3 months boot camp.
4 months of vacation.
4 months of sitting around waiting for stuff to happen, not training, not working, but showing up every morning and polishing stuff.
1 month of mowing grass.
1 month of washing dishes.
6 months of aviation training.

And this is a low estimate. I probably only worked at my "job" no more than 2 years.

I was one of the last people to get a 4-year hitch in aviation, soon after I joined up they made aviation hitches 6 years. I remember saying "Syanara suckers!" to my buddies that came to the squadron within weeks of me that still had 2 years to go. By the time my buddies got out, I was a commercial rated instructor pilot with half of my college completed!!

I don't regret my time, I needed it, but I am thankful my hitch was only 4 years!

 

[Stephanie B]

Went through a winter storm in the North Atlantic as a rider on a 1052. It was intense enough standing watch on the Bridge and seeing green water wash over the pilothouse- 65kt winds and 50' seas. The bow would lift far enough out of the water to clear the sonar dome and when the bow came back down, the entire ship shook like a terrier shaking a rat. When the ship rode down into the trough of the waves, we couldn't see over the next one coming.

The captain secured the after lookout watch, for if anyone was washed overboard, they were gone. The XO went nuts afterwards about all of the footprints on the lower interior bulkheads ("walls", to you Army guys), for the ship was rolling up to 50 degrees and, if you were walking down a passageway, you'd end up walking, in part, on the bulkheads. Being in an athwartships passageway when the ship took a heavy roll could be fun.

Then the Main Propulsion Officer said that the Oil Kings couldn't check the fuel storage tanks for contamination prior to pumping them to the service tanks, because the contents were so agitated that nothing showed on the samplers. That was a concern, for if the fuel was contaminated enough and the boilers lost fires, the ship would lose steerageway and then would capsize like some destroyers did in a typhoon during the war.

I can't begin to imagine what it must have been like on a sailing ship to be out in heavy weather. (Though the book "Two Years Before the Mast" can give one a pretty good idea.}

 

[MSG Glenn]

I spent 6 years in the Navy starting in Submarines, then to the UDT & eventually over to the SEALs when they were formed. When I was in my late 30s I went in the Army as a Paratrooper (too old for the SEALs). There isn't enough space to list all of my "adventures" but I can tell you that 27 years in the Military were exciting for me & I'd do it all over again without the slightest hesitation.

 

[dcxplant]

One would have to be a bit insane to join the Navy and live on a boat!

You squids are crazy!

 

[MSG Glenn]

One would have to be a bit insane to join the Navy and live on a boat!

You squids are crazy!

One of the reasons I went into the divin', jumpin' & shootin' Navy. Does that make me sane? lol

Most of my Marine friends spent much of their enlistment on big Navy ships except for my Recon buddies.

 

[FishingPilot]

My first enlistment I wanted to go to Korea. The Army sent me to Germany. My second enlistment I wanted to go to Ft. Lewis WA. The army sent me to Ft. Story VA. I actually liked it there. So, of course the Army transferred me to Hawaii. I liked it there even better. In fact I think everyone liked it there. So, the Army sent us all to V.N.

The point is I learned early on the Army, Navy, Marines etc. Really (I mean REALLY) don't care at all what you want!

I was always told that if you want to go somewhere specific, then ask for a place in the opposite direction. For example, I wanted to go to MCAS Cherry Point so I asked for 29 Palms (didn't want to go there). I got 29 Palms anyway. Someone played a cruel trick on me........

 

[GKC]

One would have to be a bit insane to join the Navy and live on a boat!

You squids are crazy!

For some reason, that made me think of the line from "A Few Good Men" when Keither Sutherland's character said: "Sure, I like all you Navy boys...every time we go to a fight, you give us a ride." (May not be an exact quote, but something like that.)

 

[Bozz10mm]

I joined the Texas National Guard in 1968. The 71st Abn Bde, in Austin. Went to basic, jump school, and parachute rigger school. The Brigade was downsized and redesignated several times through the years, and by the time I had made my last parachute jump in 1985, it was down to a Company size Ranger unit. From there, I transferred to a Support Group. That unit was activated in 1997 and we were sent to Hungary in support of Operation Joint Guard in Croatia. After we were demobilized, I spent a couple more years with the unit, and retired. I must say, I saw a lot of the world in those 22 years. Never saw any combat though.

 

[Rastoff]

I was always told that if you want to go somewhere specific, then ask for a place in the opposite direction. For example, I wanted to go to MCAS Cherry Point so I asked for 29 Palms (didn't want to go there). I got 29 Palms anyway. Someone played a cruel trick on me........

Believe it or not they really do try to put you where you want to go. So, when you put down a place that no one wants to go to, you're almost guaranteed to get it.