Military Veterans

[moorjames]

Was in the Navy as an OS2 from 2000-04 stationed in San Diego.

 

[\m/reefsnmetal\m/]

I love ducks also. My wife is a veterinarian and for 13 years she had a certain duck as a patient that had a lot of personality. I think her name was Molly. Was very tough also LOL. One time she got out of her carrier in the reception area and cornered a Great Dane. Poor dog was terrified of that duck. Another time she came in all acting tough until Wildlife Rescue came in with a Golden Eagle. That duck was quiet as a mouse in the reception area. All the other patients had a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot look on their face. Not military related, sorry, but it was cool to see that duck.

The best part of caring for animals in general is watching their personality develop. Between my fish, chickens, and dogs, I get to see some of the funniest interactions. One funny thing is the drool I have to wipe off my tank occasionally because my mastiff likes to kiss the fishes.

 

[drbark]

The best part of caring for animals in general is watching their personality develop. Between my fish, chickens, and dogs, I get to see some of the funniest interactions. One funny thing is the drool I have to wipe off my tank occasionally because my mastiff likes to kiss the fishes.

LOL. There is something fishy about that Mastiff of yours.

Very true. I once had a rabbit that was best friends with my Doberman. Used to sleep in the belly of the dog. As my wife said, smart rabbits make big friends.

 

[jaxteller007]

3 years Air Force, hardware computer maintenance. I was space force before it was a thing lol. All I learned is that I didn't want to work on computers for a living. Got out and got home the weekend before Sep 11 happened (yes I'm old).
Never left the states while I was in but I went to Iraq and Afghanistan as a contractor.

 

[Paul B]

I don't know if you guys still play war games, but I had to before I went to Nam.

I was in Colorado, beautiful State but they have a lot of open spaces and the military owns much of it. We were supposed to play war games so this lieutenant says to me, load these two miles of wire on the back of the Jeep and we are going to lay it out to someplace that I never figured out. It was freezing cold and looked like it was going to snow.
Army Jeeps have no roof and army clothes are not very warm. So we drive out in the dark into the wilderness laying out this wire. It starts snowing. In Colorado it could snow 2' in an hour.

An hour later I am covered in 2' of snow in this Jeep and we have no idea where we are. General Patten says to me that he is going to climb on top of this little mountain to see if he sees any lights.
I said, good Idea because we are gonna die.

He leaves and I hear "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
I was a kid from New York so I don't know if that is a wolf, coyote, Bigfoot or a chip monk.
I grab my rifle, the rifle with no bullets and I climb on to the Jeep hood. I held the gun by the barrel waiting for Chip and Dale to attack me.

I hear the Lieutenant coming back. he has a 45, with no bullets and says he has no Idea where we are.
I say, how about this, I will walk in front of the Jeep and pick up the wire as I go so we can either find our way back or die of frostbite and Bigfoot bites.
That's what we did and that's how I came to be here today looking at my fish.

 

[jaxteller007]

I don't know if you guys still play war games, but I had to before I went to Nam.

I was in Colorado, beautiful State but they have a lot of open spaces and the military owns much of it. We were supposed to play war games so this lieutenant says to me, load these two miles of wire on the back of the Jeep and we are going to lay it out to someplace that I never figured out. It was freezing cold and looked like it was going to snow.
Army Jeeps have no roof and army clothes are not very warm. So we drive out in the dark into the wilderness laying out this wire. It starts snowing. In Colorado it could snow 2' in an hour.

An hour later I am covered in 2' of snow in this Jeep and we have no idea where we are. General Patten says to me that he is going to climb on top of this little mountain to see if he sees any lights.
I said, good Idea because we are gonna die.

He leaves and I hear "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
I was a kid from New York so I don't know if that is a wolf, coyote, Bigfoot or a chip monk.
I grab my rifle, the rifle with no bullets and I climb on to the Jeep hood. I held the gun by the barrel waiting for Chip and Dale to attack me.

I hear the Lieutenant coming back. he has a 45, with no bullets and says he has no Idea where we are.
I say, how about this, I will walk in front of the Jeep and pick up the wire as I go so we can either find our way back or die of frostbite and Bigfoot bites.
That's what we did and that's how I came to be here today looking at my fish.

When I was in the AF, basic was still only 6 weeks and our field "exercise" was a half day at the range, overnight in the field, and march back lol. We didn't even do the gas chamber.
Although I had orders to Korea when I got out and they "delayed" my paperwork long enough to make me go through the gas chamber just in case I stayed in and went to Korea. That sucked.

 

[Imaexpat2]

USN 1984-2007 Aviation Ordnanceman 1st Class (AW ret.). Served on Uss Midway, NAS Atsugi, NAF Diego Garcia, NAS Whidby Island, USS John C Stennis, NAMTRAGRUDET 4033 Advanced Weapons Training facility at NAS North Island.

I got into reefing due to peer pressure at one of my last commands. Its something that had always interested me to begin with but I didnt know much about. They got me to the dark side and with in about 6 months I was smarter and more successful at it than they were despite them being in the hobby for years. My interest has always been more so in corals than fish.

 

[Paul B]

We didn't even do the gas chamber.

In the Army in those days we did 4 gas chambers, and you are correct, they sucked and I am surprised they even would do that. It was tear gas, Chlorine gas, Riot gas and I forget the last one probably hydrogen sulfide. The chlorine burned your skin. You had to remove your mask in the chamber and answer questions until you puked.

After the gas they gave us that big antihistamine needle that we were supposed to stick in our leg through our clothes when they yelled "Gas".

So I had this big needle that shoots out of the holder when you press it against your leg.

They yelled "Gas" and "everyone" stuck this thing in their leg. They were all laying on the ground screaming. I was born at night but not last night so I stuck it in a tree and broke off the needle.
Then I put it against my leg and screamed. Like Really! You are really going to stick that in your leg in "training"? I'm not.

It's like when I get certified for SCUBA diving. It was in a filthy freezing harbor with zero visibility. We were supposed to swim around the boat three times and every time we made one revolution we were supposed to go down about 25' to the scurvy bottom and grab a handful of mud and show the instructor.

Everyone was doing that but I went down the first time and just held that same mud to show the guy each time I went around.
I am not that stupid and figured one handful of mud was sufficient.

 

[drbark]

3 years Air Force, hardware computer maintenance. I was space force before it was a thing lol. All I learned is that I didn't want to work on computers for a living. Got out and got home the weekend before Sep 11 happened (yes I'm old).
Never left the states while I was in but I went to Iraq and Afghanistan as a contractor.

Space Force just sounds cool though.

 

[\m/reefsnmetal\m/]

I don't know if you guys still play war games, but I had to before I went to Nam.

I was in Colorado, beautiful State but they have a lot of open spaces and the military owns much of it. We were supposed to play war games so this lieutenant says to me, load these two miles of wire on the back of the Jeep and we are going to lay it out to someplace that I never figured out. It was freezing cold and looked like it was going to snow.
Army Jeeps have no roof and army clothes are not very warm. So we drive out in the dark into the wilderness laying out this wire. It starts snowing. In Colorado it could snow 2' in an hour.

An hour later I am covered in 2' of snow in this Jeep and we have no idea where we are. General Patten says to me that he is going to climb on top of this little mountain to see if he sees any lights.
I said, good Idea because we are gonna die.

He leaves and I hear "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
I was a kid from New York so I don't know if that is a wolf, coyote, Bigfoot or a chip monk.
I grab my rifle, the rifle with no bullets and I climb on to the Jeep hood. I held the gun by the barrel waiting for Chip and Dale to attack me.

I hear the Lieutenant coming back. he has a 45, with no bullets and says he has no Idea where we are.
I say, how about this, I will walk in front of the Jeep and pick up the wire as I go so we can either find our way back or die of frostbite and Bigfoot bites.
That's what we did and that's how I came to be here today looking at my fish.

I got lost on a land navigation course near the DMZ in Korea. The starting point was in the middle of a swamp and there were cemeteries everywhere. The whole thing was a mess. Our maps were so old that the terrain features did not match up the way they should have... there were cemeteries that weren't on the map and entire hills had been flattened by heavy equipment to make ranges. One of the craziest parts was the old sign on the ground that said "mines"; I had been walking on the wrong side of it lol. To top it all off, I realized that as we got into the hills our compasses would deviate 10-15 degrees. This hit me when I saw the big DMZ fence meaning I had clearly traveled too far north lol.

 

[TwoFrogs]

Hi everyone. 8 yes AF SERE Airborne. Served in the Gulf War. Trained coalition aircrews in desert survival, e&e , code of conduct, etc. got out in 92 and became a marine biologist. Been keeping aquariums since the 70s. Just started reefing in 2019. Starting a second tank now, 65 gallon.

 

[TwoFrogs]

Should have been years not yes. Here’s a picture of the the new start. It’s cycling.

 

[\m/reefsnmetal\m/]

Should have been years not yes. Here’s a picture of the the new start. It’s cycling.

Welcome! Congrats on your new setup, setting up new systems is exciting.

 

[lilgrounchuck]

I remember grinding it out with my wife as a broke E1-E4 . Those tough times generate some of the best memories.

Ha! After 17 years we still talk about those days. Nothing to our names but it didn't matter one bit.

 

[lilgrounchuck]

I remember roughing it on an air mattress for a year until we got our tax return back and bought a bedroom set. Tapping into that memory stream. Best worst memories

Man, air mattresses are a sad staple of my life still. Luckily this last PCS move was just down the 95 corridor, so we didn't have to stay on em for too long.

I did the same thing in my apartment hahahaha, finally had the bright idea of letting another buddy move In to the spare bedroom and was finally able to split the rent. My saved half of bah went to getting furniture that I still have years later lol

Ha, yeah we got married and bought a mattress and a couch - that was basically it (what else do you really need at that time?). We were getting ready to deploy and my buddy was getting divorced, so he just dropped all his stuff at our place instead of getting a storage unit. We came back and he just bought all new stuff so we super lucked out with a bunch of furniture. I wound up passing most of that stuff on to one of my Joes later on when he wound up getting married.

 

[lilgrounchuck]

When I was in Afghanistan in 2012, I was in a scout platoon. Here are some pics from that deployment.

4th Bde?

 

[lilgrounchuck]

I know some of you guys did some stupid things unless there are so many rules now that you can't do anything. Officers were careful in Nam when they gave orders because if it sounded to stupid some one may frag the guy. (Throw a grenade at him when he is sleeping) we had cases of grenades and threw them all over the place for fun. If we found a bomb crater filled with water and we wanted to take a bath or just get out of the heat, we threw in a couple of grenades to kill the snakes and leaches.

My first Iraq deployment we had a Guard unit with us. This MSG they had was a draftee in your day, still hanging around. I've never seen more distain in someone's eyes than his when we would sit through our daily RoE briefings as to what we could and couldn't do.

 

[lilgrounchuck]

Army closing out 20 years now and ready to retire! Im a Network Technician by trade now, started as a Satellite Communications tech. I've always been fascinated by the ocean, got PADI certified on a TDY in the Red Sea in Egypt, got my Advanced Open Water in the USVI on another TDY.... (I have had a really fortunate career). I spent 4 years in Hawaii and had an interest in the coral reefs and helping preserve them. My current tank is mainly to help understand the needs of corals and plan is to move back to Hawaii and help frag and spread native species as a volunteer for UH or any other conservation program I can find.

I don't know if you guys still play war games, but I had to before I went to Nam.

I was in Colorado, beautiful State but they have a lot of open spaces and the military owns much of it. We were supposed to play war games so this lieutenant says to me, load these two miles of wire on the back of the Jeep and we are going to lay it out to someplace that I never figured out. It was freezing cold and looked like it was going to snow.
Army Jeeps have no roof and army clothes are not very warm. So we drive out in the dark into the wilderness laying out this wire. It starts snowing. In Colorado it could snow 2' in an hour.

An hour later I am covered in 2' of snow in this Jeep and we have no idea where we are. General Patten says to me that he is going to climb on top of this little mountain to see if he sees any lights.
I said, good Idea because we are gonna die.

He leaves and I hear "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
I was a kid from New York so I don't know if that is a wolf, coyote, Bigfoot or a chip monk.
I grab my rifle, the rifle with no bullets and I climb on to the Jeep hood. I held the gun by the barrel waiting for Chip and Dale to attack me.

I hear the Lieutenant coming back. he has a 45, with no bullets and says he has no Idea where we are.
I say, how about this, I will walk in front of the Jeep and pick up the wire as I go so we can either find our way back or die of frostbite and Bigfoot bites.
That's what we did and that's how I came to be here today looking at my fish.

HA! When I was at Carson we had a unit go do an officer leader development exercise in the mountains. They got the aviation dudes to drop them off on a mountain and they were supposed to come pick them back up a few hours later. Well, bird showed up but no officers - they got lost. Took a search effort to recover them and get them back a day later. Definitely can't spell lost without the LT...

 

[sfin52]

HA! When I was at Carson we had a unit go do an officer leader development exercise in the mountains. They got the aviation dudes to drop them off on a mountain and they were supposed to come pick them back up a few hours later. Well, bird showed up but no officers - they got lost. Took a search effort to recover them and get them back a day later. Definitely can't spell lost without the LT...

They weren't lost. They where temporarily tactically disoriented from thier original position

 

[Paul B]

I've never seen more distain in someone's eyes than his when we would sit through our daily RoE briefings as to what we could and couldn't do.

LOL, we never had any briefings. Basically, if it moved, shoot it.