Yep, I did, and can pretty much follow a nostalgic trip down various forms of media at the time to tell my story. . . I’m a first-generation military family member, but had some grand-uncles who served in WWII. None of my parents’ generation got drafted, and Vietnam was just a thing from the news for me as a kid.
Back when I was a little kid,way before the first move, I started to take interest in airplanes (early '80s). Now, keep in mind that this was a high time of the Cold War, with the Berlin Wall, nukes, Reagan & Gorbachov, etc. Thankfully, as a child, I had free & frequent access to the 1963 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia, which as the Wikipedia of its day I naturally found fascinating, but it was also rabidly anti-Soviet as it should be, by Og.. As a kid in '85, I remember hearing in AM radio news that Chernyenko died and Gorbachov came to power. I asked my Pop what was going on, and that’s when I got “the Talk.” about the Cold War, you perv.
Naturally, as a young kid, reading the propaganda encyclopedia, and being interested in airplanes, I wanted to become a fighter pilot. And then. . . Top Gun came out. I was hell bent on the Air Force and the Academy. A few years later, around sixth grade, ('88-89) my eyesight tanked to where I needed glasses. Flying was gonna be a struggle. But then. . . the Berlin Wall fell, and I remember Tom Brokaw on the news, marking a historic moment in my young, impressionable mind. The Godless Soviets were still extant at this point, even though there was a lot of confusion on how things were going to play out politically. And then . . . The Hunt for Red October came out ('90) opening up a whole different world through Tom Clancy. It was tough, but I did read Red Storm Rising as best I could–it was a little over my head back then which introduced me to the concept of combined arms and all the stuff a kid with glasses could do. I was already set on joining the military at this point, still wanting to fly, hoping they’d take a nerdy kid from New Jersey with acne and glasses.
And then. . . Desert Shield & Desert Storm hit, doubling down on damn near everything. Then the Soviets “fell” in late '91, but inertia is a damn hard thing to break in a young, determined man–it was the military for me! After that, and high school, I looked at a few options to include the academies, but had really started developing an interest in Engineering, which one ROTC program seemed a pretty good fit for. I applied and got into Air Force ROTC, and while still suffering from poor eyesight, didn’t get selected for flight, but did get coded as a 32E, ‘Civil Engineer’–the Bob Vila of the Air Force. But I wanted more . . . I started looking at EOD (part of Civil Engineers in the Air Force) on my first tour in Minot, but couldn’t get a slot to the schoolhouse due to being “too junior” at the time. So, I requested and got an assignment to a RED HORSE unit (AF equivalent of USN SeaBees), and reapplied to the EOD program.
At this point, with six years in, I was told I was “too senior” to start EOD School, so I took a staff job in Georgia to lick my wounds and figure out a new career path. My Colonel took an interest in mentoring me, and asked what I wanted to do in the Air Force. I told him the history, my wanting to go EOD, but ultimately told him I was going to separate. He spoke with his boss, a 1-star, and after some heavy discussion on how big a deal this was going to be (to include a “Make us proud, Trip!”) I was assigned a slot to the Schoolhouse. This simple act changed my professional trajectory. . .
From there it was an EOD tour in Utah, a one-year trip to Kunsan AB, and then a PCS to Kirtland AFB in NM for more EOD work. The Hurt Locker was a pivotal example of what I was involved with. Around the spring of 2015, the Air Force was realizing my year group and career field was wildly overmanned, so they offered me an early retirement, which I took in December 2015. Two weeks later, I capitalized on my experience to start with my current employer, which has very strong ties to the military. If you’ve watched any Academy Award-winning flicks in 2023, you’ll know what I now do.
Tripler
Still rabidly ant-Soviet 33 years later.
In France that would be the role of each fire battery lieutnant, assisted (25 years ago 
) by computer.