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It's Veteran's Day weekend. I managed to wake up this morning with a boot camp cadence running though my head as well.

I got to thinking - for those that served, what would you do differently?

I was a CTI in the Navy - What that is.

If I could do it over - I would have done one of two things -

1. Chosen a different job. My recruiter never lied to me but I let the lure of a big bonus sucker me into this rate. If I was to do it over again, I would have become a Sea-Bee instead. Hands down.

2. Different branch of service - I would have rather gone Marine infantry or Marine armorer and really made a push to work with the shooting teams or scout/snipers. Precision weapons armorer type of deal.

In high school my gut was telling me to join the Marines but family and others I looked up to, talked me into the Air Force. I don't have any regrets, but I sometimes I think about the "What ifs".

I also should have taken advantage of more of the neat experiences that were available to me.

I did some great training ops with guys from the TEAMS and had the great fortune to consider some TEAM members friends while we were all in language school but there were times I could have done more exercises or evolutions with them or other groups and I didn't.

Never should have turned them down. It really was the "fun stuff" of the Navy.

Hell even PT with those guys was a blast. I mean that - I liked working out with those guys. Much better than normal Navy PT. Harder but fun.

Amazing what makes a mark on someone. I remember standing watch with a certain BM2 who came to school after being an instructor at BUDs. He said something to me that I've used and repeated to about every one of my subordinates and have passed along in presentations I've been required to give for college and work. Sincerely doubt he remembers saying it or anything.

Weird the mark and influence the military can leave on a guy.

I was with MI when I ETS'd from the US Army at Ft Custer. I wanted to put in my Warrant packet and start cross training with the MP's so I could go CID. Dickhead Commander I had told me " I can't afford to let you do that Sgt, it will take me six months to replace your security clearance". Told him that I'd get out instead of re-enlisting if he didn't........wasn't running no bluff on him, got out.

Instead of going in as a 05B-10A4 I would have gone right to MP's.......

I was a M1 Abrams mechanic. Tankers had more fun. They got to tear it up. I had to fix it.

I would have specified aviation warrant officer training on my enlistment contract. I don't regret becoming an Engineer officer, because blowing stuff up is fun, but it's been a while since I've been able to do that. Tried to rectify the aviation issue a few years ago, but the SAO told me I'd be too old by the time I was worth anything as a pilot. Looks like I'll have to try a different route.

That's been my MOS for the last 16.5 years, 3.5 to go!

Agreed.

I often think back, and wonder where different decisions might've taken me.

As it is, I think I made the right choices, for the most part at least.

I love my current job, but sometimes miss the action and the "coolness" of some things I got to do in my former positions. Ah well, it's all a balance, I can't have it all, and I'm pretty much satisfied with the overall package.

When i got out of Airborne School at Benning , i tried to go to Range School, but was refused because our unit was in New Mexico training for the Middle East, if i had it to do over i would have enlisted with the guarantee of Ranger School straight out of Jump School. I have always regretted not doing this . The recruiter told me i would have no problem going to Ranger School after Airborne school, well he wasn't right on that one . When i got ready to discharge they told me if i would sign on again they would send me, but i didn't trust them and got out and went to college which I'm sure now was the right move.

That's about where I would be if I would of stayed in.

teal,

I was a CTR2 at USNCS Sidi Yahia Morocco 1965 - 1968. Maybe the best three years of my life! A bit boring, but it could get interesting at times.
If it hadn't been for schitt like the USS Liberty and the USS Pueblo fiascos, I might very well have stayed in. I was in almost a blind rage over those incidents, and I told the recruiting Chief to take the $10,000 VRB and stick it where the light didn't shine.
Just wish I had used more of the opportunity to get out and about in the local environment and do more traveling while I was there.

Myron

Spent 10 ears Mechanized Infantry, never felt bad for a single day of it. Loved every minute of it, got that way after I refused Airborne school.

That's exactly what I did. I had to go 05B-10A4 and they assigned me to 1stBn, 75th Rangers. Little did I know that a knee injury would end my aspirations.......

Spending several years at Ft Bragg in my early teens, during Vietnam going on, left quite an impression on me...dad was stationed at Pope assigned to the Tactical Airlift Center, and my mom was secretary for the Commanding General of the Green Berets on Ft Bragg....Ft Bragg was a jumping place from 1966 to 1968 when we lived there....

I went into the military after college, but went in enlisted instead of an officer. I had a plan mapped out, that only got partially done, due to Vietnam being over, and they were RIF'in at the time..

My plans were medical corpsman in Special Forces, I went thru 91B and 91 C school on active duty, and was scheduled for Jump School and Ranger School afterwards, but then was told that with a Reduction in force, they currently had enough folks in those specialties. was given an option after testing to attend PA school, which I signed up for, until I found out I would have been assigned to Ft Bliss TX for 2 years.... so instead, I elected to go into the Reserves and do PA School at the University of Washington in Seattle....

In steps good old mom... with you have enough schooling, you re 27 yrs old and need to get married and start a family... all my friends have grandchildren and I don't.... so being the good dutiful son, I got married to someone I thought I could live with, and did the family man route....

so yeah regrets? Yeah, wish I would have told good old mom to STFU, and quit trying to run life for her conveniences...and that I had gone to PA school at FT Bliss... the marriage lasted 8 years when I finally had had enough....

I probably would have done a career having gone to PA school... after which if JumpSchool and Ranger school would have been available, I'd have gone, but I might have been getting a little old in my late 20s and early 30s...

some times regretted getting out of the Reserves after my 6 yr commitment, which I did strictly due to having my fill of morons who were full time Reservists who ran the units daily activities, most who couldn't hold a full time job out in the real world...loved reserve duty, just could not deal with the BS bureaucracy...

speedsixman and teal, I was a USAF equivalent of you swabbies in the NSG, back in the late '50s.

Bonuses, specialty pay? Ha, we never heard of anything like that. At least you Army and Navy security guys got some rank. In the USAFSS we made E-3 and most stayed there through all four years. I don't recall a single NCO in our AFSC (=MOS). You could tell the senior guys by their faded two stripes. We used to get Navy CTs for OJT before they went to sea. They'd come to us out of tech school as CT3s, outranking even the USAF supervisors like me, E-3s doing an E-5 job. The USAF had incredibly stupid, shortsighted, wasteful personnel policies at the time.

I understand your bitterness about the Pueblo and Liberty, and I share it. The incident that is burned into my consciousness is the shootdown of C-130 No. 60528 over Soviet Armenia on 2 Sept 1958. The treatment of the families, the lies and lack of recognition over 39 years was disgraceful.

And to my earlier point, the least they could have done is promote those E-3 KIAs posthumously. Nobody doing that job should be less than E-5, IMO.

A salute to our fallen comrades, and all of you who served in silence.

Paul

I did 24 total between active duty and Guard. I went in in June 1973 and always thought I would end up in Viet Nam and probably a career. In 1975 the South fell to the North and I got out in 1977. I went back in in 1985 and did 20 years in the Guard.

I wish I had those 8 years I was out, back and I wish I would have done Military Intell instead of Aviation for the retirement years job opportunities. But, I have almost 13 years of CE time and 1000 hrs as the GIB (guy in back) and I enjoyed every minute of it.

I wish I were young and I would do it all over again. kwg

I started talking to my recruiter on 9/12/01 but didn't hit basic until 3/25/02.

Bonuses might have been in place to try and snag some of us lings asap. Dunno.

I also joined at 25 years old. Had I joined at 18, hello retirement in a year or so. DAMN!

I just told a LT working on my promotion ceremony to Colonel that he had it all backwards. I would do anything to be in HIS place again, in the field with the troops with the ability to serve another 27 years, in the heat and the mud, and the frozen north and the rain and the chill dawn of Korea, and the schorching afternoons in Iraq. The smell of Phantoms on the flight line, and the sounds of heavy equipment building roads. The rat-a-tat-tat of outgoing fire, and the adrenalin surge from incoming fire.

And to spend more days and nights in the field with them. That would be heaven.

I wouldn't do anything different, but I'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

I once talked with a retired USAF pilot with was familiar with the intelligence services. When I opined that we were the intellectual equivalent of cannon fodder, he agreed with me.

Paul

USN 1970 to '74. Boiler technician on a DD. Wouldn't change a thing. Worked and partied with good people, saw the world from a bar stool. Blew some [bleep] up, guarded the flyboys landing and taking off from various carriers in Westpac.

Actually saw the coolest thing one time. Off the coast of RVN a flight of 3 B 52's came over. We were given a heads up and watched as they dumped their bombs on the beach. We were standin' out a couple thousand yards. The whole beach exploded at once it seemed like as far as you could see north and south. Happy not to be under that.