This is interesting. I want to thank everyone for replying.
I still don’t know what to make of this. Most of the people who replied said they get saluted, but I get a sense that people who don’t get salutes didn’t bothered replying.
I guess this means I probably walk around like I have a ramrod up my ass.
If I get saluted, I’m driving my car and the person saluting me only uses one finger. I always thought they were trying to tell me that I am #1. :dubious:
It may be a Korean thing too. The parking attendants at the university where I work have a habit of saluting those they recognize as teachers. My problem is that my right hand is usually on the throttle of the little scooter that I ride around the campus, and if I render a proper salute in return, I’ll coast almost to a stop before it’s finished. It’s hard to be dignified while falling over in the middle of a salute. I usually return the salute with my left hand, which I know to be improper, but I hope isn’t offensive.
Very smart indeed to salute back:)
Only butterbars display a “smart” salute:)
A salute is about the only thing an officer can do smartly:)
I could go on… and on… but I’ll stop. OORAH, catdog! (cat and dog, the two words an officer can correctly spell 9 out of 10 times)… heheheheh.
Really though, salute!
A guy at work and I salute each morning on first meeting, for fun. He’s an old Air Force officer and I’m an old Marine NCO. Neither of us has been able to fully let go and have a bit too much gunge in our blood. (I still practice sword drill and cadence calling and it’s been almost 15 years).
Hmmmm…kudos to TurboDog for having a two-syllable word in his username. Working on variations of “dog” must really test their “intelligence”, so having a multi-syllable word is even more impressive!
(That was a dig at Marines, BTW) Multi-syllable names that contain your own name don’t count (ahem, UncleBill, ahem).
Hey! I was an officer, and no one EVER called me uptight! And that was in the Air Force, where the threshold is MUCH lower. 
As far as saluting goes, most of the time if I knew someone we didn’t salute (even if technically required). When someone pinned on a new rank everyone made a big deal of saluting them, even if they outranked them (ie as a major I would salute a brand new captain). This was a good-natured jibe at them, because they were most likely buying drinks that night.
Oh, wait…you meant in normal life.
Ummm…not a lot. About once a week, when I stand at the front of the airplane and say goodbye to people, someone will throw a salute my way.
Thank you! Being semi-literate is a noteworthy achievement for enlisted swine, and they tried to make me an officer because of it. Unfortunately I didn’t pass the physical. When they saw that I had opposable thumbs and thus could use tools, I was no longer qualified for OCS.
Getting smack from a wingnut zero. That hurts, man:)
I don’t think it’s “just a US thing.” A couple of years ago there was a guy in my dorm from Cyprus. He did his mandatory stint in the army, so I didn’t know if it was a holdover from that. I didn’t salute him back since I don’t have any military background and didn’t want him to think I was mocking him. Really nice guy, and he always looked cool when he saluted. It was kind of a casual wave. Almost made me want to enlist just so I could have saluting privleges.
Whenever I visited my brother at military school, all of the time.
The cadets were trained to salute and address any females on campus. It was very weird to walk to my brother’s barracks and have a gaggle of 8yr olds all stop, salute and chime “Good afternoon, ma’am!”