Retired US NAVY

A (married) female friend, and a cousin, and a bunch of guys at church. Sorry Mansons, no juice there. (sigh)

 

Arctic Circle and Equator. Different times. Both sucked.

 

No surprise. Stinking hot on one end and freezing cold on the other. At least no one was shooting at you at the time...I hope.

 

Well, on the upside, you have something to look forward to!

 

None who serve un-state their oath and so we, who care, have never actually left.

 

So it's not just Marines who get out feet first?

 

????

 

Carried out - feet first........................

 

She couldn't have meant that.....

 

It's said that old Marines don't actually die; they just go to Hell and regroup.

After knowing a couple of guys who were in the Corps during WWII ... yep. Feet first is about it. You can be discharged for 40 years, but as far as I can tell they never actually get out.

 

Well you know what they say about old sailors......they don't die....................they just get a little dinghy.............

 

What if it was a preexisting condition?

 

Ain't dat da truff! I come from a (very) long line of military men (and a few recent women) and most of them lived the rest of their lives as if reveille were about to be sounded any moment. The Army vs Navy game was the annual call to arms in my family, while the Marines sat on the sidelines looking smug..................

On the paternal side of my family, mine was the first generation since the American war for Independence that has males (three of them) that did not enlist or do any military service of one sort or another. But two of those three were in the diplomatic corps.

 

A lot of the males in my family tree did a hitch in one service or another too. My paternal grandfather got skipped however; he was registered for the draft in WWI but was never called up, and was too old to get drafted into WWII. My other grandfather walked into a recruiting office in 1917 and volunteered. Dad was Army too. It affects how you see things for the rest of your life.

 

One of the most important things you learn, maybe THE most important, is that 'it' isn't all about you but others and in that others depend on you for their very lives and you on them for yours.
This means those beyond your immediate situation as well.
My first test of that was US Navy fire school on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay.
In that building, which partially resembled the upper structures of a warship, there were 4,000 gallons of, I think, fuel oil with 1,000 gallons of gasoline on top of it. It was started with a spark plug.
When it lit off you could barely see the structure!
In there the fire was fought from two ends and each team had the potential of this inferno creeping around behind them!
We walked on steel decking above this a few feet as in an engine room.
It was very easy for uncontrolled flame to zip right past and cut off the other team which would then be surrounded by flames.
This training started on Monday morning. It was a massive conflagration!
We looked at each other like these crazy people wanted us to go in THERE!!!???
By Thursday they had to keep us out until they were ready!!!!
We learned in this teamwork that everyone was responsible for, and depended on for at the least, no injuries much less death.
There's more to all this such as patching and shoring up damage to a hull such as with the USS COLE (bombed in Yemen) and more recently the USS FITZGERALD collision off Japan.
This is also quite dangerous but must be done to save the ship and others.
When I was in I was an HT (Hull Technician) which, at the time, included DC (Damage Controlman).
Because of my training and on my ships, I was the 'On Scene Leader' which meant I was in charge of any and all fire teams. (think Fire Chief)
Wherever there was such trouble is where I went, not away from it.
Pretty scary but had to be done and responded to in an instant.

 

Thank you for your service !!

 

I forgot to say that I am the first in my family not to serve in one form or another...........but they wouldn't have me!

My father never forgave me for telling them that I was a hemophiliac. According to him and the rest of the family I should have kept it a secret so I could enlist. Um, as patriotic as I am, I have no wish to bleed to death after puncturing my hand with a potato peeler when no one around knows how to deal with a bleeder................

 

Thanks King. My late dad was EOD. Different training, similar results.

Mansons - hemophilia in combat potentially ...maybe not.... It's one thing to risk your own neck, but with a group all depending on each other you'd risk getting everyone else around you killed too, potentially. NOT a good idea.

 

King....you're always thanking others or their families for their service, but other than Komo today, I haven't seen you getting any either, so THANK YOU as well, for your service!!!!

 

My father and his family never understood my concerns about this. They truly believed that I should have kept quite about it and enlisted anyway. I was never forgiven for it, and I have some (distant) relatives who still hold it against me.

On the other hand, they did not deal with hemophilia in their family - but it was rampant in Mother's family.