“Who did you serve with?”
May have lost the bubble here, but on the assumption (very provisional) that jmacusa is asking whether I put in any time wearing the uniform, the answer is yes:
almost 29 years of it.
Four years at a federal service academy, then more than 24 and half years active duty commissioned time. Operational units and staff, plus a little overseas time. More than half as an operational tester at major command level, and as a scientific analyst in a Joint billet.
I was privileged to serve with all manner of officer and enlisted troops, from E-1 all the way to four stars. And a bundle of DoD civilians, to and including several SES grades.
God bless you. No I haven’t ‘’lost the bubble’’. You speak with authority, that’s why I asked. However I do place a lot of credence in what those at the pointed end have witnessed, seen and done in combat. Like the WW2 guys who were in armored divisions driving Sherman tanks and telling me the horrible, sinking feeling of watching 75mm rounds do nothing more to a Mk 5 Panther or Tiger Mk 6 tank than piss it off and tell it where that round just came from. Or a buddy of mine telling me of walking across a rice paddy in the Mekong Delta lugging a BAR(yup, a BAR) and his buddies have M-16s. A VC pops out of the tree line and opens up on them with an AK-47. They all hit the deck and come up and their M-16s wouldn’t fire. His BAR caught the VC in the chest , neck and face and blew his head off. When they checked out what was left of him my friend told me the VC had the AK chained to him.