(July 6, 2014 at 11:53 pm)GalacticBusDriver Wrote: Most of my 39D(elta) brethren got South Korea. I was smart enough to tell the CO that I was willing to risk a bar to re-enlistment for refusing orders if he sent me there. Germany is sooooooo much nicer.

Yes, yes it is (in his best southern drawl) -unless you seriously like electronics. 39 delta? I couldn't have told any of my CO's shit, in any way shape or form - unless I wanted to be found dead in a ravine with my face peeled back ( i jest, sort-of). Last CO was a real hard-ass, take that however, lot of us called him Captain America when we thought he was out of earshot.

Defining moment, eh?

Standing in front of the CO along with another E4 listening to him go on and on. "Golly, men, you're both eligible for promotion, we've got the slots, but you're both a few pounds over weight standards.".

"Permission to speak, sir?". Granted. "Sir, the regulations state that soldiers must meet weight standards *or* body-mass index standards. We both are within Army standards, sir."

Both of us had our sergeant's stripes within three weeks.

That CO was a bit of an asshole.

While never in the military, I did work as a civilian on the bomb bay mechanism on the B2 Bomber.

If you run into Saddam Hussein, ask him how we all did on that project.


During the Gulf War, we had security lectures at our facility. If you see a suspicious package or parcel out of place, call security. No delivery trucks allowed anywhere near the building, they all are unloaded at the guard shack. Boxes and crates are opened and inspected. Don't talk about what we're doing at work after your shift, even if you don't have a security clearance. All brief cases coming in and going out get searched every day. We all had quite a bit of overtime too, many of my coworkers were deployed in the mideast to supervise forward maintenance of the products we made that were being used by our military.

We had a small electrical fire one day and the guards didn't automatically let the fire trucks onto the site till they confirmed we had a fire. I had encountered the smoke in an upstairs corridor, and as I was headed back to my manager to report that, I ran into the firemen. I directed them back down the corridor I had just traversed. I offered to lead them back to where I saw the smoke, but they ordered me to head to an exit since I had no protective gear. Fire was confined to a piece of (terribly expensive) test equipment.

It was exciting and dramatic work, but we were all glad when it was over and the plant went off alert.


It was many years till I learned the bomb bay mechanism worked over 999 times out of a 1000 sorties, and of the small number of problems, most were ordnance related. As you might suspect, a bomb bay mechanism is a rather complicated widget, it needs to tolerate incredible vibration when the bomb bay doors are open in flight, and it needs to survive broiling heat on desert air strips and drastic temperature plunges to 50 below when the doors open at altitude.


My parents described what they went through stateside during WWII. Dad was home with his dad and sisters trying to raise all the crops and livestock they had done before with 4 more brothers and 3 hired men to help. Mom worked as a phone operator and lived at home with her parents and used her entire paycheck every payday to buy war bonds.

My wartime experience was a little different, it only happened at work. When I went home every night, the rest of the town was normal, the Gulf War wasn't on the news everyday and the war didn't come home with me or exist in town outside of the defense plant. Those were the early days of AIDS too, and I was a hospice volunteer when I could. Seemed like I had a friend die every month, and then I'd go to work and it was all about the B-52. Stealth bombers and fighters. It was a huge plant, and it was utilizing all it's skills and resources to beat Saddam. I used work to distract me from AIDS, and AIDS to distract me from work.

I was new to 12 Stepping then too.

About as much fucking drama as I could stand.

I did 7 years in the army. I don’t know about a defining moment other than deciding I didn’t want to stay any longer, but I did learn a trade that has keep me employed for the last 34 years.

Dad is a retired Marine. He enlisted at 17 in May of 1950. It wasn’t very good timing. He finished basic in time to make the landing at Inchon and walked out of the Chosin Reservoir with the 7th Marines before his 18th birthday. He was a gunnery sergeant when he deployed to Viet Nam the first time. Then received a direct commission before his second tour. He retired in 70 as a captain and has been drawing a retirement check for 44 years and counting.

(July 6, 2014 at 11:56 pm)Rhythm Wrote:

(July 6, 2014 at 11:53 pm)GalacticBusDriver Wrote: Most of my 39D(elta) brethren got South Korea. I was smart enough to tell the CO that I was willing to risk a bar to re-enlistment for refusing orders if he sent me there. Germany is sooooooo much nicer.

Yes, yes it is (in his best southern drawl) -unless you seriously like electronics. 39 delta? I couldn't have told any of my CO's shit, in any way shape or form - unless I wanted to be found dead in a ravine with my face peeled back ( i jest, sort-of). Last CO was a real hard-ass, take that however, lot of us called him Captain America when we thought he was out of earshot.

39D(elta) was my Army MOS. De-centralized automated service support system's repair. AKA "The poor asshole who sends broken shit back to Honeywell." Ugh. Why the fuck they put "repair" in the MOS title is beyond me.

My CO at Fort Gordon was a pussy (AIT and the CO who controlled where I shipped to). He asked where I wanted to go, so (knowing many of my buddies were already going to Korea) I told him. When I told him I'd refuse orders he asked why. I told him I wasn't interested in being sent to shit-holes. I know now that South Korea is a great place to visit, but in the early nineties it was a shit-hole for military service, or at least for the Army.

I had a couple Drills who would have beat me silly for that shit (one of whom was drafted for his first Vietnam tour and volunteered for two more), but I wouldn't have given that shit to people I respected.

i did 6 years as a 12B (combat engineer) 2 tours to iraq, first lower baghdad then ramadi. both times route clearance ( bomb finding). forced to sit through alot of mass prayers and for fun religious "debating". everyone gangs up on the atheist though half the time.