And odd people are confined to the military?
Everyone else is normal?
You’re telling me that corporate CEO’s don’t count on their employees to make them look good (or keep them from looking like fools)?
I’m shocked I tell ya, shocked!
In the military they’re more likely to rise to the top. Like cream. Civilian leaders are more likely to be homogenized.
CEOs get “Golden Parachutes”. Generals don’t.
And no, everyone else is not normal.
Fer shur. 
Actually, what Patton actually did is a matter of some debate. It’s certain he slapped the guy, but while the movie “Patton” suggests he was assaulting the guy in a fit of rage, the record suggests it may have been more like a “Snap out of it, son, we need you” thing.
The fact that Patton slapped someone is really quite irrelevant. It’s wrong to slap someone under your command, but come on, are we going to say Nimitz was a bad admiral because he got a speeding ticket?
You’ve done very little to prove military leaders are odd. In fact, MOST military leaders are quite normal. The odd ones stand out, but they’re the exception, not the rule.
Well, I don’t think we should have even been over in Powmia.
I find that in civilian life, most things don’t require military style discipline. For example, I eat when I’m hungry. I sleep when I’m tired, not when taps is played. Forgetting to make the bed doesn’t mean pushups. There’s nothing wrong with focusing on the important stuff (getting to work on time, feeding the kids) and letting some of the other stuff slide a little.
It’s not “Taps,” damn it. It’s “Retreat.”
JetGirl-
I spent a few years on active duty. When I got out, I found exactly the same thing.
What are you doing for the rest of your life?? 
Well, most of my employers have been ex-military. I’m currently working for an ex-marine. Everyone else in the office is scared sh*tles s of the guy. I feel at home. Reminds me of Dad.
Hubby was in the military but was medically discharged (broke both his feet – owie!). I figure we’ll lead as normal a civilian life as possible, and dress our kids in fatigues for their first day of school.
I used to want to join the army and drive tanks, but I wouldn’t meet the physical requirements. ::sigh::
Cool! That’s exactly what I did. Four years active in Germany and now I do the same thing in the Teaxs National Guard. Just made E-5 so I’m now a gunner.
If you dig tanks, I have something you may want to see. Just send an e-mail. My addy is in my profile.
C’mon, RickJay, you keep taking the easy shots. I’ve named a few, plus those JRDelirious refers to above, who fit the “odd” mold.
Name me enough non-odd but famous generals (Colin Powell doesn’t count) to put the odds in the minority. General Norman Schwarzkopf? Hmmm.
Appropriate to this thread and others on these boards is a few lines of poetry.
Yes, making mock of uniforms that guards you while you sleep
Is cheaper that them uniforms, and they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustl’in drunken soldiers when they’re going large a bit
Is five times better business than parading in full kit.
And, for the more refined taste:
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon we flung him in,
And watched the white eyes writhing in his face
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as a cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie…
Soldiering is a special calling and not every one can do it well, nor should every one even try. Our leaders are odd? Well some of them. But every one of them passed through a very difficult initiation once – one which many of the best of them did not survive. They all went through that bloody initiation on your behalf.
Cute, Spavined Gelding, but no one here seems to be “making mock of uniforms”. And several have “went through that bloody initiation”.
So I feel no discomfort in making observations, and some mostly gentle criticisims of my ex-leaders.
I only question whether being an outstanding general makes one odd, or being odd makes one an outstanding general.
I’ve seen three men die doing their jobs. All civilian construction workers.
Glory is not an issue. War is hell.
My boss is odd.
Non-Military here.
However, in my line of work (broadcasting and telecommunications), I’ve worked with and hired a number of ex-military persons over the years.
And yes, folks who have spent long periods of time in the military are a bit different than those who have always been civilians. Given the structure of the military services and the necessity of force cohesion, etc. I don’t think it’s possible to have it any other way. I got news for you - I know a lot of cops, firefighters and prison guards too - there’s a lot of folks who don’t fit the “typical” civilian mold.
The only “odd” ones that I know were “odd” before they went into the service. And partly they’re odd because, like me, they’re geeks. I kinda figure that a geek is a geek is a geek. It doesn’t matter whether the person wears BDU’s, boots and a crew cut or a baggy T-Shirt, Keds and a purple mohawk.
I will say this - of the folks that I’ve worked with and/or hired post military, there has always been one common thread - the initial inability to fit in to a non-regimented world where someone isn’t barking orders.
A good example is one of my engineers right now. He’s a 20 year Navy man. Excellent engineer, superb worker, terrific person. Smart, talented - I’m damned lucky to have him on my team. But, when he first came to us, he had only been out of the Navy for about four months. It took him over a year before he felt comfortable simply doing his job without expecting “daily orders” and other extremely regimented instructions, structure, rules, etc. He admitted to me on numerous occasions that he felt a lilttle “lost” without the military structure. Nowadays, though, he’s as civvy as they come.
A second example - at my last job, I worked with another absolutely terrific guy who could fix damned near anything. He had retired after 33 years USAF. The biggest problem he had to get over was his tendancey to try to solve everything by barking orders and expecting the same level of subordinate respect that he had gotten in the Air Force. It took him literally years to find his groove in a civilain workplace bound by much lighter rules and structure. I just wish there was a “military to civilian outplacement service” to help some of these folks move quicker into the sometimes more relaxed civilian work world.
I would, however, never hesitate to hire an ex-military person. They have consistently been some of the best, brightest and most highly skilled and motivated people I’ve ever met.
Nimitz, Eisenhower, Grant, Lee, Powell, Schwartzkopf, Clark, Hap Arnold, Bradley, Pershing, Westmoreland, Marshall, Ridgway. That’s just American generals. None could be considered “odd” in the sense Patton was. And I was just picking famous American ones.
By and large my perception, as a former soldier, was that there are certain stereotypical “Soldierly” qualities that actually seemed to be INVERSELY proportional to competence as a soldier. By and large, the only properties I think you really need to be a good soldier are intelligence, self-confidence, independence, and genuine belief and dedication in the mission at hand.
On my way back from the doctor’s office just now, I drove by a billboard for the U.S. Marines, which used this slogan:
quote:
The Marines.
The change is forever.
unquote
So, you see, the U.S. Marines themselves are advertising that they will change you permanently.
And if you can’t trust advertising, what can you trust?
The USMC has the best operational brain washing program on the face of the earth. It works. A guy I worked with had his wife’s GRANDFATHER’S birthday coming up, and this guy had spent like two years in the Marines about 150 years ago. That’s all he talked about. The Marines tell you enough times “Once a Marine, Always a Marine” and you start to believe it.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Odd, from m-w;
In the much larger civilian world. As described by TVGuy. That’s all.
I could pick most of RickJay’s examples of commoness apart one at a time, but it wouldn’t convince. People just have differing ideas of what “odd” actually means. I remember a thread about “tolerance”. Same problem.
I need to get to know Powell better.
What was odd about Spartacus? I trust you mean the historical Spartacus, and not Kirk Douglas as Spartacus.
(P.S. it’s = it is or it has
its = that which belongs to it)
The military, and it is people, is odd.
Ain’t buying that, are you? :dubious: