You’re most welcome.
I started out enlisting in 1976 out of more “mercenary” needs. The Montgomery GI bill was due to expire Jan 1, 1977 and, although admitted to several colleges and universities, couldn’t get enough grants or tuition assistance to attend any of them. My father, a WW2 vet, wouldn’t cosign student loans.
In the long run, I’m glad he didn’t as my time in service, especially in Germany in the early 80’s led me on a path to become a born-again Patriot slightly to the right of Rush Limbaugh. Not “Far” right, just right so far.
I went into inactive reserve while in undergrad on said GI bill, then accepted a Health Professions Scholarship Program for medical school, payback 1:1 where Uncle Sam saw fit to send me to SE Asia twice for MIA/POW missions much of which I’ll never forget.
I often tell people, when they say “thank you for your service,” thank you, and, although large parts of it sucked, I miss it terribly and I’d do it again in a heartbeat if I had a new pair of knees.
Those are coming, as soon as I can finish up some short-term projects on the farm, most likely in the fall.
People who served honorably get the intent of this comment immediately while most civilians who never served need to mull it over a bit to understand.
Socialism IS communism. Marx, Lenin, Alinsky have all commented on the one true path. If you give an honest appraisal of how Marxian-Keynesian socialism HAS worked around the globe, the hundreds of millions dead, enslaved, robbed of religion, tradition, culture, speech, etc., from the RIGHT way of observing such movements in every single country those rules have been applied, we think of it as a gross failure while leftists think they are successful in leading towards a GLOBAL socialist utopian state. We just need the right leaders to get us there and to eliminate the right people who would stand in our way.
They make this very clear in many ways, many places, speeches, books, and actions.
Only islam and Right-Thinking people stand in their way.
Excellent post, just excellent. I really resonated with me, because I can relate to many things in that post.
For example, on the political side, one of my favorite books is F.A. Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom”, and I have the hard copy, the audiobook, and the Ebook. (I got the Ebook version, because I marked up the hardcopy so extensively that it was simply impossible to find relevant passages! The Ebook is excellent for that kind of thing). I believe Hayek defines best what a terrible thing socialism is.
There are a lot of suckers out there-they aren’t bad people, they just don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to think things through, and those are the people the Left puts the con on...people who might vote for them. Of course, if they knew that Socialism was an inevitable form of authoritarianism, they would think twice about pulling the lever, but...they are led to believe Socialism is a type of political expression on par with Democracy or Republicanism.
And on the military side, I get your post completely when you said: “...I often tell people, when they say “thank you for your service,” thank you, and, although large parts of it sucked, I miss it terribly and I’d do it again in a heartbeat...”
I grew up as a military brat and joined the Navy in 1975 as an Aviation Machinist Mate, and I agree-like many young people, when you are immersed in it, on a ship in the middle of the ocean for extended periods of time, or in a jungle, or in some lonely and boring duty station, it often does suck, and you very much want to be home with friends and family, and free to go down to the corner store at 10 PM to get some ice cream, or whatever. And if you are in a war zone, not only do you have all those things, but your very life is in peril along with additional hardships.
When I got out after my four year hitch and went to college, I was ready to get out. That last year I was in, I got mildly dinged on my fitness report for being disrespectful of the Naval Service. I had made up my mind I was getting out, and like many young people, I thought I knew what was right and what was wrong, and the oftentimes bull-headed and occasionally seemingly stupid ways of the US Navy grated on me.
The same 1st Class that dinged me on my fitness report said to me, after I delivered a frustrated “FTN” (F**k The Navy) response to some perceived institutional idiocy, something like “Someday when you are out there in the civilian world, you are going to look back with gratitude and positive sentiment at the time you spent in the Navy, and you are going to be proud of the time you spent doing it, and will even wish at some point you could do it again.” (of course, I did like AD1 Ingram, but I thought he was a “lifer” and full of it. Like so many young people I knew better than he did.)
AD1 Ingram, wherever you are, if you read this...you were right, and I was a snot-nosed 20 year old guy full of himself, and if I could look you in the eye, shake your hand, and say a genuine and heartfelt “Thank you”, I would do that. He would be about ninety years old now, but...I would do it just the same.
In the civilian world, and in my married life, I utilized and leaned on so many things I learned as I grew up from an 18 year old kid to a 21 year old man. I was a solid 18 year old kid, I wasn’t a screw up or ignoramus, I could be responsible, reliable, and hardworking (even on all those occasions that a teenager is NOT those things) but I was a terrible student. I pretty much felt untethered to my own capabilities, and truth be told, I felt I wasn’t as smart as a lot of people, and time and time again, I showed I lacked commonsense and good judgement (but never enough to get me in real trouble).
I always wanted to be a doctor, but as my High School graduation approached, my parents (who would never be able to pay for it) made it clear that they would find a way to send me to college and began gently prodding me to begin sending applications to various colleges. However, it also became clear to me that there was no way I could go to college for anything, much less be a doctor. If I had tried, I would have crashed and burned halfway through my first semester.
So, with the blessing of my dad (who had retired as a Commander after serving in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam) I joined the Navy.
That was the best thing in my life I ever did, hands down, bar none. (Besides meeting my wife, who made it known if I have stayed in the military, it was very unlikely she would have ever dated and married me! She wasn’t anti-military, she just wasn’t at all exposed to it in her walk of life.
But those things I learned in the military have stayed with me my whole life, and made me a better person.
I learned how to get out of bed and always be presentable in appearance. My wife today prods good-naturedly at me that I always leave the house in tip-top appearance, neat and clean.
I learned how to be on time.
I learned how to respect a chain of command and do my part in it. (one of the most valuable lessons...they have “chains of command” and “rank” in the civilian world, too.)
I learned that...I could learn. And not only was I not stupid, I was smart and capable of a lot more than I knew.
I learned how to fit in, how to be part of a team, and how to live in close contact with other people.
I learned also how to be alone, and be comfortable in my own skin. I find that a lot of people don’t know how to do that.
I learned how to accept greater degrees of responsibility with the passage of time, and not stay stagnant and coast through life.
I learned how to take on, and own a responsibility. Own it. Make a task my own, and do it well.
In my four year hitch, in a peacetime Navy, I advanced to E-5 which is as far as I could go, and I had become a quality control inspector in the shop, and a Flight Deck Troubleshooter (White Shirt) on the flight deck. I took every stage and did it well enough to have more responsibility given to me. On my last deployment, I was chosen to work with a civilian contractor who came on the cruise with us to implement a special program that our squadron was selected as a pilot for, which is now standard in aviation, but was largely unknown at the time. All this was valuable to me personally, and made me valuable to my chain of command. If they wanted something done right, they knew they could choose me and be secure that it would get done. In my civilian life, this quality made me highly valuable to my superiors. They could fire a task at me and forget about it, and knew that when they needed it to work, if I had been working on it, it would be done, and done well.
This was perhaps (along with knowing how to work in and respect a chain of command) the most valuable thing the US Military instilled in me. It made me so valuable to my employer, that late in my career, when my job was going to be eliminated due to technology changes and I would be out on the street after 30 years at the same company, instead of cutting me loose, they actually created a job for me so I could stay in their chain of command. Knowing how difficult it often is in the civilian world for a company to actually create a new job out of thin air, and to have the desire to keep you strongly enough to do it, left an impression on me that most people in today’s workforce don’t get to experience or see in practice. I did, and I can tell you, it left a mark on me-a good mark.
It was validation.
So, when I think back on my time in the military, I remember the things I hated. But I also remember the things I liked, and excelled at.
I remember the nights in the middle of the Atlantic, up on the flight deck when we were in darken ship mode, and looking up at the brilliant night sky, Milky Way just as bright as could be.
I remember the North Atlantic in the late Fall, water so rough that our Knox Class escort was pitching, rolling, and yawing to where the entire bow became submerged, and tons of green water would wash along the decks forward, while the screw became visible in the air.
I remember early morning on a glass-like sea, cleaning the canopy on a plane, and seeing the sun rise gloriously.
Yes. As an eighteen year old, I had difficulty appreciating these things because I wanted to be free. I wanted to party with my friends. I wanted to have Thanksgiving Dinner with my extended family. I wanted to go out and buy something to eat whenever I wanted it, to meet girls, to do all those things.
And as I near Seventy, sure. I would go back to have that body of an 18 year old, hands down. No question. But if I can’t bring my Seventy year old brain with me, I don’t want to go. But if I could...I would go in a heartbeat.
Because now, I understand how to live in my own skin, and value my life and the world around me in a way I could have never done as an 18 year old.
And that is why, every single day, I feel and practice those things the military taught me, and am thankful to the US Navy for teaching them to me, and grateful beyond words to this country I love dearly for allowing me to grow up and be a man on their watch, on their dime. And every day, when I leave the house and place my military cap on my head wherever I go, it is a deliberate thing, not to say “this is what I have done”, but to express that heartfelt gratitude for this country I love.
Thank you for sharing, and letting me share. Your post hit me squarely, today!