Calling All Veterans

[Pel]

As our US Veterans Day rapidly approaches, along with the centennial anniversary of the Armistice, I'd like to say hello and thank you to our fellow veterans here in the Pit.

Building on the fantastic Lest We Forget topic, let's step forward and be recognized. Please introduce yourself, your branch of service, and provide an anecdote or memory of your time defending the folks back home. I'll go first.

I was in the US Navy, Submarine Service, for most of the 1990's. It was a ballistic missile sub, or boomer, so we didn't stop in many places, but it was still the coolest job I'll ever have.

Probably the most fun and interesting evolution we ever completed was the test firing of two Trident II D5 missiles. The entire boat dropped six inches in the water when the first missile was ejected (the rocket motor doesn't light off until the missile is above the water so you don't burn a hole in your submarine) and what I recall most is the entire hull visibly flexing after the second launch. When you see your undersea home twisting and flexing it's equally scary and cool.

Let's get those stories started!
_________________
Aha!

[garhkal]

For me, Navy as well. Started off on Carriers (CV-66 and CV-65, the America and JFK respectively), till i started bouncing around from overseas to overseas Comm stations, inc 3 yrs in downtown london (Man i loved that place!).. Finished off my 20 yrs in, down in Gulfport MS with the Seabees.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Whill]

[Pel]

Um, Air Force should be at the bottom. I listed them in order of establishment. Not sure where it went or how to fix this. Can I get a little admin help, please?
_________________
Aha!

[thedemonapostle]

I was in the Army. Light Infantry. I was in during the late 2000's. I was at Fort Drum, NY.

I remember one winter morning at Ft Drum being told to gather my guys and find something to do instead of pt because we were expected to have worse than normal weather. The weather was dictated by the "Lake Effect" which could cause it to drastically change every 30 minutes or less. So the morning in question we started with clear skies, and snow freshly shoveled from all walkways and salt spread on them too. From 0830 till 1100 we had 10+ feet of snow, rain, ice, sleet, a couple small tornadoes within 1/4 mile of our company area, winds at well over 75mph and temperature changes from -10 to +15 to -40 (without wind chill factored in). When we were released for lunch at 1130, we had to climb out of the 2nd and 3rd story windows because the first floor was buried and/or frozen solid. After lunch the weather had stabilized, as much as it ever does, and we proceeded to dig out 1sg and co's cars and dug tunnels to and from the barracks and company area. By 1600 it was -25 and raining, which i guess was enough for them to change conditions and let people start driving on the roads again. Unfortunately, we spent the next 2 hours digging a path for 1sg and co's cars to get to the road because the plow got stuck and proceeded to get frozen to the ground.
_________________
Aim low, shoot high
I'm a pirate, need I say more?

d6holocron.com: Thedemonapostle

Thedemonapostle Star Wars Crossovers

[Naaman]

Had an ops sergeant who hated me... used to be my platoon sergeant.

Thought he would "stick it to me" by putting me on post clean up detail with all the broke soldiers.

When I reported, it was a gaggle of soldiers from throughout the brigade. The NCOIC asked who can drive a Humvee that doesn't have a no-kevlar profile. I was the only one. He gives me a binder with PMCS booklet and keys and says to go draw it from the motorpool.

Ugh.

I met him and the rest of our group at our clean up AO out in the woods and lo and behold, all the broke Joes had rental trucks from enterprise with CD players/radios, A/C etc.

A friend of mine from deployment was also on this detail, so we rode together. NCOIC turned us loose to drive around all the field training areas and gather up whatever trash we could find, noting that any damage to the rentals would come out of the driver's pay.

But I had a Humvee. Since we were on our own, we pretty much took off around 8am and met back up for lunch. So about 4 hours. We found all kinds of mud, berms and other terrrain that was perfect for testing the limits of that Humvee. We caught air in that thing so many times I lost count.

It was a blast. Went back and did the same thing after lunch, and the next day, too. We even found a cold water spring. It was the best water I've ever had.

[Whill]

[Pel]

If I may add, please don't think of this is as strictly a US-centric topic. I deliberately left "US" off of the service branches in the poll to encourage everyone's participation, regardless of national origin. Pretty much every country has some form of armed forces so if you served the military of another nation, please chime in!

One of the most enjoyable experiences I had in the navy was interacting with the British crew of HMS Vanguard when she crossed 'the pond' to do her initial missile loadout. Those guys are serious about their partying but still managed to keep an even keel and everyone had lots of fun.

It was a great opportunity to compare notes with a similar service besides our fascination with their daily beer ration and their horror that we would serve in a navy that didn't allow one!
_________________
Aha!

[Dredwulf60]

Wow. I'm really late to this topic. Just noticed it.

I was in the Canadian Army from 1992 to 2009 in the infantry. Retired as as sergeant to my current career.

One memory I had was during a training ex at the end of winter. We were down at Camp Blanding Florida training with our American brothers.
Since we had just gone through a typical Canadian winter, we figured anything in Florida ws going to be warm and wonderful.

Florida had some incredibly cold weather that year. I don't know if it set any records or not (1996), but it was the closest I ever got to hyopthermia; we were soaked from cold rain and then the frosts came in...and we weren't really prepared for the cold.

We had this objective to cross a lake in inflatable assault rafts in the pre-dawn, but the weather was calling for incredibly high winds. We were trying to paddle against the wind...and after something like 2 hours of pulling hard we couldn't even get away from shore.

Finally the directing staff pulled each boat across with a powerboat just so we could continue with the training. Members of the company were going down with hyopthermia and getting legitimately evacuated in field ambulances, but the make-believe mission continued through to success...

That's when we found out our American compatriots had called off their end of the training due to the incredibly bad weather.

They called us the Crazy Canucks after that.

I still tell people....even after doing winter warfare training in Northern Canada...the coldest I'd even been in my life was in Florida!

[garhkal]

Wow. That bites. You'd have thought someone in charge, may have re-scheduled the training session.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Mamatried]

Would National Conscription count?

I am norwegian and we have mandatory conscrition to the service (civil service is possible) for both male and female, the latter bing mandatory recently.

in that case I served in the Army as an arctic ranger