Just because we haven't done this in a while: All military veterans check in.

[Brigid]

Me: Corporal, USMC, June 1980 - June 1984. Parris Island, Okinawa, and Camp Lejeune. :patriot:

[A-Schwarzenegger]

1. Army. Bliss, Sill, Germany. 66-68.

Slept in a warehouse, sniffed glue, stayed out of Mannheim.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Semper Fi......USMC Jul 1970-Aug 1977

SSgt when I got out.

USMCRD San Diego
NAS Memphis
MCAS El Toro
USS Forrestal CVA-59(?)
MCAS El Toro again

Primarily in MAG-11, VMFA-531

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. Air Wing pogue!

Me too. VMF-(AW) 542 and H&MS-15

[leeroysphitz]

3. U.S. Army 319th M.I. (airborne), spec 4 1988-2001

Desert Storm vet here.

[LiberalLoner]

4. Female vet here.

Enlisted in the reserves before I went active duty. Active duty from 89 through 94. Got out as a Captain. Served in Desert Storm in the Sinai, Egypt. Basic Training (for when I was in the reserves) at Ft. Jackson, SC in 1982. AIT Ft. Lee that same year.

Oh, yeah. 3rd generation Army. 2nd generation Airborne.

[daleanime]

5. Air Force..

79-83. In boot camp during the hostage 'crisis'(that was how the MSM referred to it.)

[kiranon]

6. 1st Lt.. US Army - Transportation Corps - 1974 - 76.

[oldlib]

7. USAF December 1952 to September 1956.

I am a Korean War Veteran, although I was still in training when the war ended. I was discharged 3 months early, as I had read that you could apply for early discharge to go to college, I made sure and was accepted at Pasadena City College for the fall term. I went to school, starting in September, and returned to March Field in Riverside for my discharge. The First Sargent thought that I had left 3 months before. I just said "No Sarge, give me my discharge" and he did. Thus ended my career in the military.

[bpositive]

8. US Army

Spc e4: Mortar man
Active duty: 87-89 ft hood

National Guard 89- 96

[Glorfindel]

9. Me: SP5, US Army, May 1966 - May 1968

Fort Benning, Georgia; Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana; Nha Trang, Vietnam; Fort Meade, Maryland. :kick: :patriot: :hi:

[kcks]

10. Air Force

1962 > 1985 SMSgt

[haele]

11. Chief, USN/USN-R (Ret) - 1977 - 1998

USS Norton Sound,AVM-1 (out of beautiful Port Hueneme
FCTPAC, San Diego
NAVMASSO, San Diego
PHD-NSWC

Spent a lot of time in Pascagula, MS and Long Beach, CA while I was active - then continued working shipyards while I was in the reserves. Talk about living in armpits of the nation...

Haele

[sarge43]

12. MSgt, USAF, May62-Nov83, Personnel Tech/Mgr

TX, MS, NE, CA, UK, WGer, TX, FL, NY

[MrScorpio]

27. USAF Personnelist here too nt

[sarge43]

35. As one base commander so eloquently put it, that's personnel puke.

Were you still in when the CBPOs were closed out?

[MrScorpio]

40. Not exactly. They downsized them and called them "Military Personnel Flights"

Moved a bunch of us to orderly rooms… I hated orderly rooms.

After I retired, they phased out the MPFs entirely.

Thank God I retired when I did.

[sarge43]

42. "Thank God I retired when I did." So say we all.

Orderly rooms are manned by middle management losers who know they aren't getting any farther up the greasy pole, so they turn the place into a two story outhouse. Guess who works on the first floor. The politicking is vicious because there's so little to fight over.

At least in the CBPOs you were with your own.

[MrScorpio]

43. Sometimes CBPOs could be fucked up too. Let me tell you about my 1st assignment

They sent me to Bergstrom AFB TX. Now the first year was fine. I was working in Evals. I had a great NCOIC and it was a great four man shop. All the brass was pretty good too from the top on down. They were definitely people persons.

The next year, it all went to hell. Both the Pers. Supt AND the CBPO chief were replaced with complete assholes. The Lt Col especially. He had to be the most humorless fuck that I ever had to work with. Think Dick Cheney with silver oak leafs. (Which is funny, because I actually worked in the Pentagon years later when Cheney was the SEC DEF). The CBPO chief was a completely hairless freak who had a smile like a serial killer. Neither one of them knew how to run a smooth CBPO like their predecessors.

I'm just getting started. My boss, the NCOIC, then got some fucked up assignment to MPC at Randolph. The LAST place that he wanted to go to, because he just got finished closing on his house in AUSTIN. After he went, they didn't replace him. They simply made the Staff Sgt in charge and didn't replace her. So we had three people in a four man shop. Then before you knew it. they sent her away to the Academy. So now we have TWO people running a four man show for at least six weeks. THEN, they moved the other staff into a different office and sent over a staff from Cust SVC who has NEVER processed evals before. So that left me, a two striper, to train a Staff Sgt on how to process evals.

Well, that went over well, because we were fucking up BIG TIME. Late evals all over the place. Ok, ok, ok, next while the staff at the Academy was still at school, they finally sent over a Tech to run the shop. Again from Cust SVC and again, someone who never processed evals. But this was OK. He was a real cool guy and an excellent organizer who knew who to run a shop. He kept the heat off of us while me and the staff processed reports like crazy. Eventually, they sent over a new two striper to handle the empty desk. But that didn't last long, because right after she got there she ended up pregnant and decided to SEPARATE. So, that left us back with a three man crew in a four man shop, because once the staff graduated from the Academy, they moved her into a different office.

Next they replaced the other staff with a fresh AB, who I had to train and for some God forsaken reason, took the cool Tech OUT and replaced her with a crazy woman who PCS'd in from MPC, of all places… Guess what? She NEVER processed evals before. She had no idea WHAT TO DO or HOW TO DO IT.

Thank GAWD that I only had two months under that crazy broad before I was shipped off to the Korean tour that I put in for. You better believe that I was glad to go. I'm not done yet. Did I mention that she was crazy?

Check this out: We had one section chief, a captain first. This guy was married to a staff in another section and they had two beautiful daughters. One night, I was walking down Sixth ST, hanging out and guess who I saw walking towards me with some strange woman on his arm? The scumbag captain, of course. You better believe that I kept my two stripy mouth closed about that one.

In another one of those great rearrangements, he got sent to a another section and we got a 2LT to run our section who was even more useless than the captain. She like to close her door and take naps in her office. I shit you not, because I caught her more than once.

Next… We had an IG inspection, even though we BARELY passed, the local NCO leadership school failed miserably. It was run by none other than the son of CMSGTAF Paul Airey himself, SMSgt Dale Airey. They FIRED his ass after that and guess where they sent him? Our CBPO, of course. So for the longest. we had an extraneous SMSgt running around all the offices doing God knows what until the Air Force could cover their asses and send him off somewhere so he could screw another base up. One good thing came out of that, in that I actually got to meet his dad, Chief Airey when he came to base to visit. Nice guy.

Guess what. When the next Chief selection list came out, guess who was on it? C'mon, guess. You know it. It was Dale. Pure politics, baby. Pure politics.

Ok, here's the kicker: I'm at Osan, having the time of my life. (Great assignment) when I call back to Bergstrom a few months later to find out how the old crew is doing.

It was a massacre.

After I left, they had this HUGE drug test at the CBPO and they caught a bunch of folks with dope in their flow. INCLUDING the second staff from my office, another guy who had PCS'd in from Camp New Amsterdam, NL and some others. Both the scumbag Captain AND the sleepy head 2Lt were FIRED for being complete fuck ups and the place was going straight to hell.

Both the bald freak CBPO chief and the asshole Lt Col were still in charge… of course.

Needless to say, I was glad that I was on the other side of the world when I found this out, because although I would have come up squeaky clean on that big drug test, I know for sure that they would have found some trumped up reason to kick me out of the Air Force too. That was the kind of shit that they did at Bergstrom.

Basically, going to Korea saved my career. I spent 21 marvelous months there (they tried to send me to fucking South Dakota and I was having no part of that, so extended my tour for nine more months) and left to go to the Pentagon with three stripes and a Comm medal.

Man, I have a few other stories to tell you. Sometimes, it got crazy.

[sarge43]

60. SNAFU, FUBAR

Of course, you're right. CBPOs could be and often were either snake pits or jokes or both. I've made an effort to forget the musical chairs manning games, the doing more with less until doing everything with nothing and "whose leg did s/he hump to get that stripe/shoulder doodad". However, your story was a LSD flashback.

"Sergeant, you're very negative."

"No sir, merely very realistic in a negative situation."

[MrScorpio]

68. Twenty two years as a personnel puke taught me one thing

I'm really not a people person. Dealing with customers wasn't my forte. I would've been better off being a PSM or in another career field like communication entirely.

When I started working with computers, I realized that I liked them more than I like human beings.

At least a computer wouldn't bawl like a baby at your desk like a captain did when I told her that the AF was RIFing her.

Mean? Not really. It was the early nineties, we were in DC and she got a better paying civilian job in a heartbeat. The AF kicking her out was the best thing for her.

[sarge43]

70. Same here.

I would have loved one of the electronics AFSC. I'm like Linnus: I love humanity; it's people I can't stand.

After Vietnam wound down, I had to tell a few people an AF career wasn't in their future; at least a computer doesn't call you a dog's mother.

Good times

[pinboy3niner]

13. Army draftee, VN '69-'70

2/501 Infantry, 101st Airborne Division.

[RC]

14. US Navy - USS George Clymer - APA27

Engine man 3rd Class. Hauling canon fodder to Vietnam 1962-1966

[Crabby Appleton]

15. US Army '68-'69, SP5

Ft. Jackson, SC & Long Binh, Vietnam

[Johnny Harpo]

16. Army...67 - 69...Ft. Knox...Ft. Myer (Pentagon)

n/t

[tinymontgomery]

17. Navy 80-03

USS Flatley (FFG 21)
USS Mount Whitney (LCC-20)
USS Hermitage (LSD-34)
Special Boat Unit 20
USS South Carolina (CGN-37)
USS Pensacola (LSD 38)
Amphibious Construction Battalion 2
USS Ponce (LPD-15)
Chinhae Korea
VC6

Most were great commands.

[Wwagsthedog]

18. USAF, 1961-65

[rabs]

19. USASA

Ops. Co. @ No Such Agency, Ft. Meade. Mid 60s, when there was such a thing as the Soviet Union. Kamchatka was an intriguing place, as monitored from afar by ASA, AFSS and NSG ears around the Pacific.

Interesting times.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. Marine Crotch '61 - '65

Eat the apple and fuck the Corps.

MCRD San Diego
MCAS El Toro
NAS Atsugi, Japan
Ping Tung Airfiled, Taiwan
NAS Atsugi, Japan
MCAS El Toro

And, a lot of bars in the surroundings.

[pwb]

22. U.S. Army 69-70

1st Air Cavalry division (Airmobile)
Sgt E-5 Infantry
Vietnam 70

[Stinky The Clown]

23. USN 1967-1969 then USNR until 1972

USS Pandemus, ARL18, 1967 to decommissioning in 1968 SN1-SK3



USS Adroit, MSO509 SK2


I have the original pot metal castings of the ship's plaques for both these ships. The Adroit's plaque is in her picture.

Minesweepers - Wooden Ships and Iron Men.

[Douglas Carpenter]

24. U.S. Air Force -73-77 Lackland, Texas, Keesler Mississippi, Weisbaden Germany, Kaiserslautern German

[sarge43]

36. I was at Wizzbottom in 73. What was your AFSC? n/t

[Douglas Carpenter]

53. Actually I arrived in Weisbaden In Januay 74 and worked at HQ 2nd Weather Wing as a 70250

at Lindsey Air Station - but most of the time actually lived on Weisbaden Air Base. Then something called "Creek Swap" happened and they moved most of the AF to the western side of the Rhine. So in December 2005 I along with the rest of the headquarters relocated to Kapaun Air Statioon (formerly Kapuan Army Base) in Einseidlerhoff - just outside of Kaiserslautern.

[Douglas Carpenter]

54. my mistake I meant to say December 1975 - not December 2005 - only off by 30 years

[sarge43]

62. I was packing about the same you were in-processing

I did it the other way round: Bunked at Linds, worked at Wies.

[Douglas Carpenter]

64. they didn't put you up at the Amelia Earhart?

I remember that the female NCO I worked with - was boarded there.

[sarge43]

65. I may have nested there for a short while,

but my principal memory is catching the bus and the gate guard morning frisk down thanks to the Bieder gang.

[Douglas Carpenter]

66. my principle memory is Walter's Futterkrippe across the street from the Earhart and the USAFE hosp

hospital. It's where I first got introduced to bratwurst, rindswurst and currywurst.

[sarge43]

69. That German soul food got a lot of us intimately acquainted with the Weight Control Program n/t

[Adsos Letter]

25. U.S. Army artillery. 1972-1975.

Toujours Pret. :patriot:

[MrScorpio]

26. Retired USAF Tech Sgt - 22 years 1983-2005 nt

[HereSince1628]

28. SP5, Regular Army...ASA (yes, we drunken soldiers always high)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP514a3k13U

[oneshooter]

29. USMC E5 1969-78 O311, RVN( X2 ), ROK, Oke, Parris Island

[tabasco]

30. Army grunt

10 years.

[JohnnyLib2]

31. Army, active 70 - 74

Stateside.

[MineralMan]

32. USAF - 65-69

Samsun, Turkey and Ft. George Meade, MD. (besides training) Russian Linguist.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[pinboy3niner]

37. Grovelbot checked in?

When did you serve, Grovelbot? :evilgrin:

[pintobean]

45. He's a hit and run poster.

[hobbit709]

34. USAF 1970-73

[begin_within]

38. My Mom is sitting next to me: USMC, 1943-1945. Camp Lejeune, Camp Pendleton, Camp Elliott.

Also her father (1886-1944) served in the USMC in WWI and in Haiti and Guam, and was Commander of Camp Matthews in 1925.

Also my father (1917-1994) served in the USMC in WWII and the Korean Conflict, and was stationed at many bases during his long career.

[sarge43]

55. Hand salute and thank you for your mother. n/t

Sempre Fi in memory of your father and grandfather. Impressive history.

[aka-chmeee]

39. US Army 1970-72

USASCS Ft. Monmouth, NJ, Instructor
Believe Monmouth closed down this summer.

[Scuba]

41. SSgt, USAF 1970 - 1976

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Chellee]

46. USN '85-'88, USNR '88-'91

nt

[pintobean]

47. USN 80-84

[Kaleva]

48. USN 1977-1990

On the 1st of June I was walking down the pier for the very last time and the garment bag, carry on bag and duffel bag I was carrying was as light as a feather. I had not felt so happy in a long, long time.

But I have no regrets and look back on my time in the Navy as a overall positive experience. My superiors didn't think my time in was a positive one but fuck them.:)

[Skittles]

49. ME

WOOT!

[ladyVet]

58. Hey, girl!

Looks like we were in around the same era!

[Major Hogwash]

50. RA Army 1975 -- How many veterans here would do it again? I wouldn't.

I joined the Army in 1975.
Volunteered.
Nobody held my arm behind my back to make me sign up.
I wanted to serve.
So, I could be "a chip off the old block" like my old man.
I wouldn't do it today for even a $30,000 signing bonus.

I didn't get a signing bonus when I signed up.

[Name removed]

59. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Major Hogwash]

67. I'm an expert marksman.

I qualified as an "expert" marksman on the M-16, the M-17, and the M-18.
And just to be safe, I got an "expert" badge on hand grenades.

About 90% of the veterans I've met that were drafted said they wouldn't do it again.
They would have fled to Canada instead of going in.
And about the same number of veterans who volunteered for duty since Vietnam have told me the same thing.

[MrScorpio]

72. I'd do it all over again, but with one significant change

I'd go into the Comm. career field instead of Personnel.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

51. Army.

Hey, you didn't say United States military veterans.

[RegieRocker]

52. Army 73-76

[jimbo3]

56. US Navy, active and reserve

1997-2003
Aviation Storekeeper, 2nd Class

[ladyVet]

57. US Air Force

1977 - 1981

Served at Hurlburt Field, Ft. Walton, Beach, FL and at Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson, AZ (where my two oldest boys were born). Still miss eating at Casa Molinas.

[retired af major]

61. USAFR '82-'95

Reservist, Air Reserve Technician, Reserve Bum and twice mobilized.

Enlisted - Kelly, Westover, McChord
Direct Commissioned - Bergstrom, Brooks, FE Warren, Patrick, MacDill (US CENTCOM), Peterson

It was fun (at times) but very glad to be done with it.

[spin]

63. U.S. Air Force, 1965 to 1969

[B Calm]

71. USN USS Yosemite AD 19 1969-71 & USS Albany CG10 1971-73

[GreenPartyVoter]

73. Thanks for your service everyone. I am the daughter and granddaughter of vets. :^)

[maxrandb]

74. Navy Mustang Officer here!

27 years and ocunting. Touched every Continent but Antartica (although we were damn close in the Straits of Magellan).

Was thinking of retirement, but the Navy keeps promoting me, and I still love what I do.

One of the few Sailors that can call themselves a "Battleship Sailor"!