My Dad was a navy fire fighter at a base in Virginia. He burned up his arms pulling a (dead) pilot out of a crash. My Mom was with the FBI as a fingerprint clerk.
Father-in-law, now 86 years old and still kicking. He went into Europe on D-Day, 82nd Airborne, flying in a glider to land in France, and carried a bazooka.
Oh, and a Purple Heart.
My dad was a cadet (engineering branch) in the Kriegsmarine; sailed on the last cruises of the Admiral Hipper to East Prussia in 1945; to his (and very possibly by extension, my) good fortune he was just on home leave when his ship was last bombed in Kiel. In the last weeks of the war the remaining cadets were formed into infantry units which took heavy losses; again my dad being a budding engineer was fortunate to be sent to a short artillery course (including a week of riding lessons) instead; then he was sent to Grafenwöhr to train as a 19-year-old sergeant with a troop of 16-17 year old on Panzerfausts. After some fighting in Nuremberg/Fürth his troop demobilized themselves (the Americans marching by not deigning to make prisoners of that sorry lot); shortly after striking out for home he was made POW after all and spent a few weeks in the Rheinwiesen camps.
I’m here because of accidents and genetics. My great-grandfather served in the Prussian Cavalry (although he was Polish), but a bad fall from a horse ended his career just in time to avoid WW1 and move to America.
My grandfather got drafted in World War 2 and got placed with the airplanes. And this is where genetics comes in – thankfully for myself he was 6 foot 4 and so didn’t have to see the inside of an airplane, instead serving in Hawaii repairing them.
US Naval officer. Landing commander at North Africa, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Attu, Kiska and others.
My paternal grandfather was in the U.S. Army in WW2. I don’t know much about what he did, except for the fact that he served under MacArthur (and worshiped the man) and spent most of his time either on a ship or in Australia. My maternal grandfather was in the Coast Guard.
My dad decided that he’d rather serve in the Israeli Army than be sent to Vietnam. He missed combat in 1973, but his reserve engineering unit saw action in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon; he spent the summer of 1982 in Beirut, and my mom spent it in a state of panic, which my sister and I were blissfully unaware of at the time.
My dad dropped out of school at age 15, ran away from home and joined the Navy in 1942-3. He served at a communications outpost on Molokai for a while, later on the USS Hancock, an aircraft carrier. After the Navy and a bit of menial employment, he went to college, then medical school and became a Dr.
Father was a Royal Air Force doctor, served in Burma and was in the siege of Imphal. Later was in the first group of RAF personnel into Japan after the surrender.
Mother was a Land Girlbefore becoming a Wren (Women’s Royal Naval Service). Trained as a wireless mechanic and maintained radios in Fleet Air Arm planes (Walruses and Swordfishes) - until she met this dashing RAF doctor 
Married before he left for the Far East.
The airfield near my mother’s house was reactivated as WWII loomed. She took a secretarial course (paid for by the government) & ended up working in the CO’s office. My grandmother ran the post laundry, grandfather worked in the motor pool, younger uncle delivered papers there & older uncle joined up. (He served in the 8th Air Force & went on to make a career of it as an NCO.)
My father was a navigator in B-17’s (303rd Bomb Group) & was shot down over France in 1943. He evaded capture & was eventually sent to Texas to train navigators, where he met my Mom.
He was called back to active duty when I was 6 weeks old & died in the crash of an RB-36 when I was 4. My mother moved back to Texas with me & my 2 younger sibs. She said he’d never talked about his wartime experience. She’s gone now; my brother has done research to fill in the blanks.
My dad signed up for the Army instead of being drafted, but got shipped off to Vietnam anyway. He was with the 1st Cav and they dropped the guys off from a helicopter, had them do nasty stuff, then picked up who was left later. He still has a “thing” about helicopters.
Grandpa just missed the action in WWII, but he got sent over to Japan to do some cleanup. The story goes that his group put all of the stuff from a Japanese camp into a pile and some guy poured jet fuel on it, promptly lighting himself and grandpa on fire. This was the end of grandpa’s career in the Marines.
My father was an officer in the Royal Navy during WWII because he failed the stereoscopic eyesight tests to become a RAF pilot. While he was on service the Military Police came around to arrest him for not turning up for his infantry medical.
Not my parents and not this country, but my maternal uncle is a retired colonel in the Indian Army.
Does that count?
My dad was ship’s clerk and ship’s mail clerk on an oiler during the Korean War - though in the Mediterranean, not Korea.
My mom volunteered to dance with the guys at the local USO, and you’ll never guess how they met…
My dad was 17 and was able to enlist in the Navy in late 1942. He was assigned to the USS Bradford, a destroyer that saw action in the Pacific. The ship was in numerous battles, including Leyte Gulf and Okinawa. Specifically, he was a sonar man, and searched for submarines.
As he was leaving the Navy, he took with him a soup spoon and a blanket. Shortly after leaving the Navy, he became a Christian, and felt bad about stealing these items. He contacted the Navy in Los Angeles and offered to turn himself in and return the items. The Navy guy he talked to laughed and told him that they were hunting people who had stolen weapons and other major materiel. The man told him to, “Go and sin no more.”
My mom was a teenager during the war.
During the Korean War, my dad had graduated from college and had learned Mandarin Chinese. He was the pastor of a Chinese church in California. He volunteered for the Korean War, and even informed the Department of Defense of his fluency in Mandarin, but they did not choose to have him re-enlist.
My father-in-law served two tours in Viet Nam with the Army. He was in the CID (Criminal Investigation Department), and he had to hunt down Americans who were involved in the black market and other illegal activities. He was fragged at least once that I know of. If you have seen The Deerhunter, you might remember the scenes involving the Russian Roulette gambling dens. My father-in-law had to infiltrate one such den by going undercover and participating … and not as a gambler.
Neither my mom or my dad were in the military.
My Grandad was a Master Sgt. in the Army, stationed in Burma during WWII. He was the head mechanic in a motor pool.
I have two uncles who were in the Air Force during Vietnam. Both were “REMFs”. One was a helicopter mechanic, I’m not sure what the other did.
My father quit high school and joined the Coast Guard when he turned 18 in January 1942. The Coast Guard was eventually absorbed into the Navy, and my dad became a crewman on an LCI, one of those ships with the ramps on the front that drove into the surf to drop off soldiers. He served at Omaha Beach on D-day, and did not talk about it much. I remember that on June 6th every year he would make and receive phone calls from other guys who served at Normandy. One night just a few years before he died I watched a documentary about D-day with him, and asked him how long he had stayed at Normandy. He said it had been about six weeks, as best he could remember. When I asked what he did during that time, he said “Played touch football and buried people.”
My dad was in the Air Force in mid 60’s, so he really hardly did anything in any war. Toward the end of his deployment he was shipped from California to Guam where he serviced bombers that were on their way to Viet Nam.
Sweden during WWII:
My maternal grandfather was a medical officer on a Red Cross ship that picked up refugees in Poland, taking them to Sweden. He wrote letters to my grandmother during this time. The stories are horrifying.
My paternal grandfather was stationed on an island off the coast of Sweden, recieving and taking care of refugees from the Baltic countries. Some of them had made it over the Baltic sea in rowboats. Weirdly enough, I later had a relationship with a guy whose grandfather had come across the Baltic sea in a rowboat during the same period.
My dad used his friendship with the daughter of the general in charge of the NY National Guard to join them rather than get drafted. He made a career out of it and eventually became a lt colonel, so it wasn’t like he was a slacker about it.
My maternal grandfather supported the American war effort by picking onions and potatoes and felling trees in various POW camps.
My father enlisted in the Navy (WW II). Never saw a ship. Got a medical discharge because of his sorry knees.
My uncle enlisted in the Marines (WW II), and had the brutal experience of being stationed in Hawaii (after Dec. 7, 1941).
I’ve always thought that my father’s jealousy of my uncle might have started because he was stuck in the States during the way, and my uncle came back a “war hero,” so to speak–although he never saw combat.