Some of my friends in boot camp got bit in the ass similarly too. For example one guy was a really good artist and showed me some of his boot camp sketches which were really nice works. He thought he was going into media relations but he got screwed and ended up becoming a cook. Hopefully once in the fleet he was able to change MOSs, but I don’t know what became of him.
I got lucky. In my discussions with the recruiters from the different services I learned there was a way to go in with a guaranteed MOS contract, so that’s what I negotiated for with my recruiter. I’m very fortunate in that it worked out for me.
We’ve met in person, @Roderick_Femm , and I think that was a very wise decision. Back then, military personnel could be extremely mean and bullying. There’s a significant chance it would not have gone well.
Towards the end of my service years (1980-1993), when Clinton implemented Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, I had a battery commander (in artillery it’s battery commander, in the infantry and others it’s company commander) who, with the entire battery in formation, loudly proclaimed to all that (using his words) gays do not belong in the military, and he did not want gays in the military.
I lost a boat load of respect for him in that moment because
the President is Commander in Chief and we all reported up to him, and if that’s what the President require then that’s simply the way it is. So be it. To so loudly countermand the Commander in Chief so publicly in front of the entire battery standing at attention was so inappropriate.
this unit at the time was a reserve unit from San Francisco, and in that formation were about 140 SF Bay Area Marines. I thought there was a decent chance that perhaps a handful of Marines there and then could be gay or LGBTQ+.
There were few groups of people more homophonic in the late 1980s / early 1990s than Marines. I was fortunate to have my acceptance boundaries expanded by my gay brother in law. We had some great discussions where he enlightened me to his plight as a gay man. I matured a lot from his sharing with me. This fortunately served me well some 10 years later when my son came out.
Anyway, you made the right decision. Not to mention Vietnam and boys being drafted then handed a rifle and pushed onto the front lines.
Great idea, but it’d be better if it was a separate thread. One guy in boot camp immediately comes to mind. If you don’t mind starting it, please do! (It’s late here, 0130 on the nose. I won’t stay up much longer.
A friend’s son (this friend was one of the guys I know who had joined the Canadian Forces) showed a talent for cooking. Not much else, but that kid could cook well, and everything he prepared was delicious. Friend suggested he look into the Canadian Forces and become a cook. Even better training there, than in Mom’s kitchen.
The Canadian Forces didn’t want him as a cook. They wanted him as something else, which didn’t interest him. Last I heard, he was a cook at a Toronto restaurant. Having eaten this kid’s food, I am confident in saying that it’s the Canadian Forces’ loss.
I wanted to, desperately, but they wouldn’t have me. Applied to the USNA, didn’t get accepted. i did get an Army ROTC scholarship, but flunked the hearing test. They let me show up on campus at the beginning of the school year and even started morning PT pending a review/exemption from DODMERB, but it didn’t come through and I lost the scholarship. Got heavily recruited my sophomore year by the Navy for Nuke School (I was a Mech E major). I told them they were wasting their time as my hearing impairment was going to mean a no, but he encouraged me to take their aptitude test (NAPT) anyways which I did and passed with flying colors. They couldn’t make an exemption happen either. That was the third strike for me, and I quit entertaining any notions of a military career.
As a kid I vaguely wondered what it might be like in the armed forces, but I’m not a big fan of discipline or exercise.
I have a grandfather (Navy, sonar) and grandmother (Air Force, wireless operator) who volunteered during WW2. And I have a cousin who was in the Army band; I saw him perform in the Changing of the Guard in Ottawa, once.
Never served. I came of age in the 1980s, and it didn’t really appeal to me then. It seemed like something you would do it you had no other options. Also, my mom was opposed to it, which is odd because my dad had served about ten years in the AF, (flying a desk as he liked to joke.)
Now I regret not doing it. I think I would have done well in intelligence / information type work, because I am good with people and have a knack for languages.
I have served in other ways, as a civil servant and a PCV.
When I was graduating high school, the Navy recruiter came after me hard. I was always going to go to college, but in the interest of exploring every option, and just plain boredom, I humored them for a while.
Went as far as going down to a recruiting office and taking the ASVAB. I don’t remember them telling me my score but I do recall the recruiter saying I “crushed it.” Maybe he was just blowing smoke up my ass to get me to sign up, but I was proud of myself for that. Ultimately I told them I was going to go to college, but that didn’t stop them from calling every day that summer until about a week before I left for college.
15 or so years later, I began work for the US military as a contractor, a job I still hold today. That’s the closest I’ve ever come to serving in the military, and I’m too old now to enlist or get drafted, so outside any extraordinary circumstances, this is as far as I’ll ever get.
My dad had been in the Navy, so it somehow just was assumed that I was going to go. I never even thought to question it, though I should have.
My parents were not going to pay for college, so the Navy it was.
This pretty much sums up my own experience as well. I took the ASVAB, then the recruiter was overjoyed with my score and had me take the Nuke test. Like you, I got fast talked into Nuke ET, expecting that my amateur radio license and electronics-industry job in high school would make it a shoe-in.
And yes, there was a sad day in boot camp when I found I was going to become a Machinists Mate. For non-Navy folks, this has nothing to do with machine shop–Machinist Mate is the rating for the guys who run the steam plant.
In my case, I went on to Nuke School and Prototype, then specialized as an ELT (water chemistry and radiation control) and then out to the fleet.
Part of me wishes I had known to question my parents’ assumption that I was just naturally going to go into the Navy. The other part of me realizes that it was the nuclear power program that taught me how to study.
Never served. When I was in my teens I wanted to enlist in the Coast Guard but I doubt I would have qualified – I’m blind in my right eye. I also have a GED which would have put me at a disadvantage. Instead I went into health care, becoming a hospice worker, mostly for VA clients. I heard some wild stories from them, mostly WWII vets. One of my clients lived in a little converted barn in the country, in the middle of nowhere. A cabin, almost. He had a silver star framed and hanging on the wall above his fireplace. I never asked him about it but I would have loved to hear about how he earned that.
I live in a very red county and lot of people have bought into the “rah rah, support our troops / veterans!” bullshit that exploded after 9/11. Yes, support them. Support them by volunteering at the local VA. Support them by voting for people who actually support veteran causes and programs, especially VA healthcare programs. Support them by championing for programs that provide veteran benefits like homebuying programs, military credit for retirement programs, discounts on vehicle registration or insurance, and similar state-level perks. Supporting our veterans is not putting a yellow ribbon sticker and a “let’s go Brandon” flag on the back of your coal-rolling truck and calling it good. I don’t know if spending 14 years caring for dying vets counts as support, but I hope I did my bit.
My dad was a surgeon in the Navy. Served at Jacksonville (FL) Naval Air Station. His father was not regular military, but served in the Army (also as a doctor) during WWII. So military service was on my radar so to speak. In high school I had thoughts of the Naval Acadamy.
However, I went to regular college. My freshman roommate was a member of the Army National Guard. It was a sweet deal–monthly drills and the state pays 100% of your tuition. Plus, pays back your student loans. I thought about it and went to the recruiter.
Signed up for Army National Guard as a combat medic (91A). Basic at Ft. Leonard Wood; AIT at Fort Sam Houston. Assigned to the 159th MASH (Jackson Barracks; New Orleans). Activated for Desert Shield/Desert Storm. The 159th was attached as support to the 3rd Armored Division in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. We advanced along with the 3rd during the ground war portion and set up our field hospital in occupied Iraq. Most of our patients were Iraqi Republican Guard treated for exposure.
I completed my duty and my contract. Finished college on the Army dime and have Veteran status.
Never served, although I came close. Early in my sophomore year in college (this would have been 1971) I was talking to an Air Force recruiter who came to campus. I was kind of at loose ends about what I wanted to do with my life, and after joking with the guy about my chances of being a pilot (since I was practically blind without my glasses) he told me about the other opportunities available if I signed up. One of them was a program where, if I qualified, immediately after boot camp the Air Force would pay for me to complete my college education, with me committing to serve for twice as long as that took. I think it also included being promoted to some NCO rank while I was attending classes. So I went down to the recruitment center and took a bunch of tests to establish that I was smart enough for the program, then told to report for an enlistment physical before going home for Thanksgiving. Part of the program was that I then had to complete my current semester of classes, then report to boot camp.
As it turned out, I failed the physical. I vaguely remember a conversation with someone who explained why, but I can’t remember specifics. I do remember being notified shortly afterwards by the draft board that I had been reclassified from “student deferment” to “unfit for military service except in time of war or national emergency”.
I occasionally wonder how my life would have been different if I’d been accepted.
I was part of a group that was expected to go to college. So I did. Was never interested in signing up. Not sure how much my parents influenced it, but I do know that my mom’s cousin visited my parents right after he returned from Vietnam. Physically he was okay, but otherwise he wasn’t the fun-loving man he had been before. Even now, if my parents talk about that time, they mention how much he changed.
In my senior year of college, somebody came to our school to try to recruit us so we could serve on nuclear subs. Except ⅛ of my class wasn’t eligible since women couldn’t serve. The recruiter said the women could become professors. Hard pass.
Maternal grandfather was Army in WWII, then Army Air Force, then retired from the Air Force. Step-grandfather was WWII Navy. Natural father was Army Korea, his brother was WWII Navy. Stepfather was Navy Vietnam.
Finishing up the tail end of high school, I was a finalist for what was the nthe Navy Sea and Air Mariner scholarship, which would have given me a free ride for college, and serve 6 years when I got done with school. Went through all the testing, medical, whole nine yards, but didn’t end up getting the scholarship. That quashed my interest in going into the military.
Proud to say my daughter did win the equivalent Navy scholarship. Served NROTC during her college years, got some amazing experiences there, including time her second summer at a NAS in California her second summer, got to fly in some of those sexy fighter jets Served 7 or 8 years, made lieutenant, saw a couple of non-combat deployments, got to see a lot of the Pacific and Indian Ocean and associated countries. Yeah, proud, maybe a little jealous, too
I never served, but shortly after I graduated from college I considered it.
Three of my grandparents served during WWII, and my father was in the Army when I was born in '71 (in Monterey, CA, while he was at the Defense Language Institute; my little bro was born in Germany). But military service wasn’t ever a thing in my family, and Dad didn’t stay in any longer than he had to: by the time I turned 4 he was a civilian, and by the time I turned 8 he’d started working for the DoD. Eventually, my mom joined the same agency. My immediate family was always somewhat peripatetic, and when I was 12 my parents accepted a PCS assignment in England. We eventually lived on the economy, but due to a housing mix-up we spent the first few months living on base. So I grew up kind of surrounded by military and former military (and other DoD types), had mostly positive feelings about all of it, and was pretty patriotic.
When I graduated from college I was almost immediately downsized out of the part-time job that was related to my major, with no way to get back into that field and absolutely no idea what else I wanted to do with my life. I knew that I actually liked the nomadic lifestyle, and also that I was still pretty patriotic, so I started thinking about the military. After some soul-searching I decided that I wasn’t sure I’d always be able to follow orders, so I never got to the point of talking with anyone about it.
Of course that was stupid, but back then I was an immature 21-year-old. By the time I realized that orders would never really be a problem and I’d probably actually be pretty successful/happy in the military, I was too old to sign up. I wound up in the defense contracting world, but I don’t think that’s the only reason why a lot of my favorite people are either active duty or retired military.
It wasn’t on my radar at all. That and I would have been medically ineligible.
When I declared an engineering major in college (1984) I got incessant calls from the Navy wanting me to be a nuclear submarine officer. I politely declined many times. Eventually I told someone that I never intended to give up smoking cannabis and the calls stopped.
Served 7 or 8 years, made lieutenant, saw a couple of non-combat deployments, got to see a lot of the Pacific and Indian Ocean and associated countries. Yeah, proud, maybe a little jealous, too 