Military Service In The Past?

[Pyeknu]

I was chatting away with Star Ranger4 on a certain topic and we both veered off towards talking about our past service with our countries' armed services.  After our wonderful host admonished us about that, I began to think.
I tend to include military stuff in my fanfics - as reading Phoenix From the Ashes (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6740104/1/P ... -The-Ashes) clearly demonstrate - so I got curious as to how many other people have served.
To start off, I was an administration clerk - a person who works in a military unit's main office handling personnel affairs - in the Canadian Armed Forces from 1985-91.  As that trade is considered one of the "purple trades" - where you get the choice of wearing an environmental uniform (Navy blue/black, Army green, Air Force sky blue) - I was considered an Army man.  I served in the Army Reserves with the Lincoln and Welland Regiment (Saint Catharines, Ontario) throughout most of 1985 before transferring to the full-time forces at the end of the year.  After basic and trades training, I served on HMCS Saguenay - a helicopter-carrying steam destroyer escort based at Halifax in Nova Scotia - from the start of 1987 to the end of 1988.  All of 1989 saw me at the Canadian Land Forces Command and Staff College - the primary Army junior officer's staff training school - in Kingston, Ontario.  The next year, I was posted to the 1st Canadian Signal Regiment - a division-level signal battalion - in Kingston.  I remained there until I pulled the pin.
Anyone else?

[paladindythe]

I was in the U.S. Army (active) from 2002-2010. I did two different jobs in the army, a switching systems operator (25 F),  which is being a phone operator in a box on the back of a Hummer. I did that for my first for years--three of which were at Fort Hood, Texas (by Killeen) (being deployed to Iraq for a year while there), and my last in South Korea (up by the DMZ), both times in Signal Companies that were all communication soldiers. I then switched jobs to being a computer systems analyst (25 B), basically an IT fixit guy for the last four years. I spent those at Fort Bliss, Texas (in El Paso), as part of an Air Defense Artillery (Patriot) unit. I was deployed during to Qatar for 15 months during those 4 years as well.

[Pyeknu]

What rank were you when you came out, Paladindythe?  I was a corporal (NATO code OR-4) myself at the end.

[Star Ranger4]

I think Black Areonaut was a gunner's mate, I think I recall him mentioning something about the NCO test that you need to make the jump from e-3 (seamen) to e-4+ (petty officers and chiefs) at one point.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Kurisu]

I was a Sonar Tech (STG) in the U.S. Navy from '90-'96. Thanks to that, I've seen a fair amount of the dirt-ball in my travels.
_____
DEATH is Certain. The hour, Uncertain...

[Pyeknu]

What was your rate, Kurisu?

[Niteflier]

I know we have a few more that are (or were) in the armed services. I was USAF, 2W151 (Armament systems) and an E5 when I got out due to medical separation. My wife is radio systems and a E5 now.

[Kurisu]

I got as far as 2nd Class. (E-5)
_____
DEATH is Certain. The hour, Uncertain...

[Star Ranger4]

Better than I did. I only got to e-3 before getting busted back to e-2
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Kurisu]

My E-4 was 'guaranteed', but making it to E-5 was sheer luck. (STG is a dead rate)
_____
DEATH is Certain. The hour, Uncertain...

[Pyeknu]

Well, my promotions were pretty automatic.  In the Canadian Forces back in my day, you got your first chevron (private [trained]/able seaman) after 30-36 months service and the second chevron (corporal/leading seaman) came after 48 months service.  After that, it depended on your performance.  As I stated before, I was just too bored, so I doubted I would have been appointed to master corporal (two chevrons & maple leaf) after 2 years as a corporal.

[DHBirr]

23 years in the U.S. Army as a 96B, Intelligence Analyst, late 1981 to early 2005.  The first seven in combat arms battalion intell sections (S-2) in Germany, Louisiana, and Germany again, followed by three-and-a-half years at the National Training Center teaching soldiers and Marines about the equipment of expected adversaries; that included the prep for Desert Storm.  Then a year in a brigade S-2 in Korea, another three-and-a-half (roughly) working for the III Corps G-2 at Fort Hood, and then another long stint for the Defense Intelligence Agency in the Washington D.C. area, analyzing the reports sent in by defense attaches.  My last overseas tour was three more years in Germany, with an eight-month detached duty in Sarajevo, and I retired from a teaching duty in Arizona.  

I reached the rank of sergeant first class, E-7, before discovering I didn't have what it takes to be a senior NCO.  "Lead, follow, or get out of the way":  I couldn't lead worth a damn, and I was too high in rank to be allowed to just follow ... so I got out of the way.  It's a depressing thought that quitting was probably the best service I ever gave the Army.
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Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.

[Pyeknu]

*nods* I'm sure that the Army brass did appreciate your service, DH.  Especially twenty-three years of it.
Some folks simply don't have leadership potential.  Chances are good that if I stayed in, I wouldn't have progressed beyond corporal.

[Acyl]

Leadership? Man, I get cynical when I hear that. See, in the Singapore Armed Forces, promotions and rank are partially linked to educational status. To clarify, in the Singapore Army...as someone who graduated secondary school (high school) and junior college, I was guaranteed a promotion to Corporal. Even the worst screw-up is going to get the rank after X number of months from their enlistment date, if they have a diploma.
Trouble is, it works the other way. A guy in my platoon...he dropped out of school because of gangs. But he'd since cleaned up his act, and was a really great guy. Smart and witty. And also with zero promotion prospects, because he didn't have enough formal education.
Singapore has a national service system where male citizens, and some non-citizen male residents, are required to do around two or three years of full-time service in the armed forces, police, or civil defence - firefighters and EMTs. After that, you're a reservist, akin to the US National Guard. I was a with a security platoon (regimental police, though technically I wasn't an RP myself), and then wrote propaganda for Public Affairs.
As a result, I have genuine and deep respect for people who've served in serious professional militaries, for countries where there's an actual danger of being deployed somewhere and being shot at. This means you guys. You guys are awesome. So. I have a massive amount of respect for you folks. You're professionals. I wasn't. =)
-- Acyl

[Pyeknu]

Well said, sir.

[paladindythe]

I was E-4, a Specialist when I left the Army. I was always mediocre at the fundamental "soldier" skills (physical training and marksmanship), so I didn't excel in the military.

[Pyeknu]

LOL!  Ditto here.  I've always been overweight and hated PT.  Barely passed the PT standards at the Canadian Forces Recruit School in Cornwallis NS when I went through basic in 1985-86.  Being on ship and working in a staff college didn't help any.  When I got to 1 CSR, I found out they were just as fanatic about PT as the Canadian Airborne Regiment in Petawawa (which was still active at the time; they weren't disbanded until 1995 after that whole miserable business in Somalia).

[DHBirr]

PT was one of the few things I was really good at, after an initial poor start.  Running, especially:  I couldn't sprint short distances effectively, but maintaining a pace, for a couple of miles, that left other people in my dust ... ohhhh, yeah.  At my very last assignment, I at least once heard a drill sergeant point me out to new recruits:  "That's SFC Birr; he's twice your age, and you couldn't keep up with him!"  That did give me a bit of a warm fuzzy.
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Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.

[Pyeknu]

Yeah!  Humiliate those kids!

[BLHarrison]

20 years in the US Navy all as a Hospital Corpsman retiring as a HM1 (E6).  I was a "Grunt Doctor" (nec 8404) for about half that time. A bit of an unusal career, first duty station after A school was the US Naval Home in Gulfport (Old Folks home run by the Navy) then the Hospital on Guam, some tours with the Marines including I MEF during Desert Storm/Shield.  Was an Instructor at the Orlando Boot Camp and retired from a Reserve Center in Orlando

[Pyeknu]

BLHarrison wrote:

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20 years in the US Navy all as a Hospital Corpsman retiring as a HM1 (E6).  I was a "Grunt Doctor" (nec 8404) for about half that time. A bit of an unusal career, first duty station after A school was the US Naval Home in Gulfport (Old Folks home run by the Navy) then the Hospital on Guam, some tours with the Marines including I MEF during Desert Storm/Shield.  Was an Instructor at the Orlando Boot Camp and retired from a Reserve Center in Orlando

Awesome, BL!  I actually included a U.S.N. Hospital Corpsman character attached to the U.S.M.C. in Phoenix From the Ashes, in the second scene in Part 43 - you can read it here:  http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6740104/43/ ... -The-Ashes.  I made him an HM2(FMF) attached to the Force Recon Company of 1st Recon Battalion at Camp Pendleton.