How many military/ex-military people on the board?

[Leni]

my dads in the (British)army...does that count? :11ztongue
hes a vicar...he gets attached to various places
i hate all the moving around, although i dont really notice it now, been at boarding school since i was 8

 

[Turtleguy9]

Four years US Navy Gunners Mate "Guns"
USS Mount Hood AE-29
Haze Grey and Underway
Turtleguy

 

[Squid]

I did 4 years in the USN :42:

 

[chungjuno]

USMC.... Engineer...

 

[SeaHunt]

Sergeant - US Air Force, former A-10 Crew chief.

 

[The Kraken]

Ooohhhh !!!! WART HOG - nice lump of aluminum,steel and armor plating !!!!

 

[baltimoron]

well i am not in the military yet.... but... well here's the story:

all Israeli Citizens at the age of eighteen must serve in the army reserve (guys serve for three years, girls for one year and nine months unless they want to stay.) in this time they do training (IE: how to assemble guns, fire, drive tanks, set explosives, doo all the stuff required should Israel god forbid have to fight another war (aside from the one we are fighting now.) and then go into a specialty course. there is also boot camp for a year. this is so one is prepared to go into the Army Reserve, and so basically every citizen of israel that was naturalized there or made citizen before 18 is in the army reserves. now I could not go, since right now i am living in America and all i would have to do is go to the embassy and get exemption, but i would rather do the service to my country and then go to college.

my grandmother was also the second woman to become a general in the israeli army!

she moved to Israel from turkey after WWI because she knew the Ottoman Empire was going to disband, and somebody else would take over israel. She was part of the Hagana- the secret army of the israeli settlers before independence. she drove cars in drive by's, and also since she looks very Arabic, worked as a spy. She moved down to Eilat (if israel is shaped like a dagger, Eilat is the point of the dagger all the way down in the south on the red sea.) with a group of settlers at the request of David Ben Gurion in like... 1947. made good friends with the Jordanians and the Egyptians, and there wasnt much violence in that area during the War of Independence. Once the state of israel was established, she became a colonel in the Tzahal (the army) and then worked her way up to General. She was the second women in the army to become a general. she ran a military outpost in Eilat, and her troops were one of the first one the sinai front duruing the Yom Kippur War (but miraculously since she maintained peace with the Egyptians around her area since they had such a good relationship.) well anyway she ran this military outpost for years and years, and she got this medal of service from the Prime Minister a couple years back.

she is still tough as nails and very independent. she runs and swims every morning, and yells at the soldiers who seems to be misbehaving around Eilat. she must be in her late eighties by now, and still makes the trip to america twice yearly (which is no small feat- a six hour drive from Eilat to TLV, ten hour plane ride and then a jetlagged four hour drive to baltimore from Newark.) she even yells at the airport staff if they ask her if she wants a wheelchair!
well it goes to prove the army toughness never goes away!

hope you enjoy that story!

 

[rmediver2002]

well i am not in the military yet.... but... well here's the story:

all Israeli Citizens at the age of eighteen must serve in the army reserve (guys serve for three years, girls for one year and nine months unless they want to stay.) in this time they do training (IE: how to assemble guns, fire, drive tanks, set explosives, doo all the stuff required should Israel god forbid have to fight another war (aside from the one we are fighting now.) and then go into a specialty course. there is also boot camp for a year. this is so one is prepared to go into the Army Reserve, and so basically every citizen of israel that was naturalized there or made citizen before 18 is in the army reserves. now I could not go, since right now i am living in America and all i would have to do is go to the embassy and get exemption, but i would rather do the service to my country and then go to college.

my grandmother was also the second woman to become a general in the israeli army!

she moved to Israel from turkey after WWI because she knew the Ottoman Empire was going to disband, and somebody else would take over israel. She was part of the Hagana- the secret army of the israeli settlers before independence. she drove cars in drive by's, and also since she looks very Arabic, worked as a spy. She moved down to Eilat (if israel is shaped like a dagger, Eilat is the point of the dagger all the way down in the south on the red sea.) with a group of settlers at the request of David Ben Gurion in like... 1947. made good friends with the Jordanians and the Egyptians, and there wasnt much violence in that area during the War of Independence. Once the state of israel was established, she became a colonel in the Tzahal (the army) and then worked her way up to General. She was the second women in the army to become a general. she ran a military outpost in Eilat, and her troops were one of the first one the sinai front duruing the Yom Kippur War (but miraculously since she maintained peace with the Egyptians around her area since they had such a good relationship.) well anyway she ran this military outpost for years and years, and she got this medal of service from the Prime Minister a couple years back.

she is still tough as nails and very independent. she runs and swims every morning, and yells at the soldiers who seems to be misbehaving around Eilat. she must be in her late eighties by now, and still makes the trip to america twice yearly (which is no small feat- a six hour drive from Eilat to TLV, ten hour plane ride and then a jetlagged four hour drive to baltimore from Newark.) she even yells at the airport staff if they ask her if she wants a wheelchair!
well it goes to prove the army toughness never goes away!

hope you enjoy that story!

You should give some very serious thought to documenting that history...

That is a book I would purchase!

Are you planning on a career or just doing your service? (maybe you could get dive school?)

 

[baltimoron]

no i am just going to serve my three years and hopefully that will be the end of my army career. i might to an intensive arabic program that pretty much fast fowards through boot camp and basic training and goes right into learning to be a translator for army personnel. that sounds like where i could really help out.

and probably if i even mentioned to my safta the idea of writing down her story, i would get an earful ("how dare you even suggest that!!! writing down my story for all to see and embarrassing myself so!?!").

 

[Scott Riemer]

USMC 1986-1990
7212 Stinger (Missile) Gunner
"Some people go through their entire life wondering if they made a difference, Marines don't have that problem."-Ronald Reagan