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On Military Service
“Color Guard at Fort Belvoir” by US Army Corps of Engineers, via Shutterstock.
Last night, I went on a short adventure that got me to thinking about my time in the military. We were having dinner with friends when we learned that their son, in his 20s, was stuck out on a dirt road somewhere and needed help. They had contacted another friend, Mick, who lived nearby, and we also ventured out to help. When we arrived, Mick was on the scene, but he was surprised to see me. I said “I can’t let a Navy man have all the fun!” Later that evening, I was thinking about the ribbing that guys give each other when they’ve served in different branches. But I also thought about the bonds that exist almost immediately between most men, once they learn that each other served.
In my case, I spent four years Active Duty in the Army, as a tanker. I was fortunate to spend most of that time in Europe and never ended up in the Gulf. I regularly think about the time that has passed since I got out, compared to how long I was alive before I joined. I was 18 when I joined, and nearly 25 years have passed since I got out. I think about those numbers a lot — which I’ve always thought was odd — until last night, when it hit me why it is important to me. The four years I spent in the Army are a pivot time for my life in many ways. Up until then, those years were filled with points of adversity that were the greatest I’d faced in my short life. I met different kinds of people. I lost a lot of weight and became physically fit. I did a lot of things that most people would never do. I saw concentration camps close up. I visited cities like Paris and Frankfurt. And I was a part of a long tradition that went all the way back to George Washington.
I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about serving the Army, however. The greatest of which is the sense of honor. I wasn’t the best soldier I could have been. I was young and impetuous. I didn’t listen to great leaders who tried to mold me. Almost from the moment I joined, I began counting down the days until I would get out. That isn’t honorable. And to this day I am uncomfortable when people thank me for my service, because there were better men than me who served along side me, some of whom went to war. They are the ones who should be thanked. Once, in Arlington National Cemetery, a World War II veteran shook my hand and thanked me for my service. I was flabbergasted.
Yet still, I did something that many able-bodied men do not do. I chose, of my own free will, to put on the uniform. And there is something honorable in that. That does set me apart in some way that I cannot fully explain nor understand. I remember when I out-processed through Fort Dix, New Jersey. It’s the Army, and you do the whole thing the Army way, in a group, with lots of paperwork, and standing around waiting. Toward the end, 20 or 30 of us were sitting in a briefing room, waiting for whatever was the next step. A sergeant came in the room, and told everyone that he was going to read a list of names. And when he was done, anyone who’s name was not on the list was to get up, and leave the room, and await further instructions.
After the names were read, less than half the men and women remained in the room. He told us to stand up. Then he explained: “You are the ones who have fulfilled your commitment. You are the ones who kept your word. All of you are getting out honorable. Not because of a medical issue, or a discipline issue. You are the heroes.” Then he gave us each an Army pin, which is never worn on a uniform, but is still the award that I cherish the most. It isn’t lost on me that the sergeant read out the names of the people who stayed in the room. He didn’t give those others the honor of having their names read aloud in that setting.
And that is what sets us apart, I think. Having served honorably in any capacity, having done what you set out to do, makes you someone special. There is a competing sense of honor and gratitude that I think most of us feel. We do feel that sense of pride for having served. But we are also grateful that we were privileged to participate in the United State’s great military tradition. When we walk down the street, we sort of feel that people ought to get our of our way, because we are the warriors. Yet that is tempered by the knowledge that these are the people we swore to protect, and that greater men and women than us have walked the same path. It’s an odd sense of dichotomy that, for me at least, has never gone away and is never fully understood.
Published in Military
Spin, thank you. That’s a great piece. Our younger son is an A1C in the USAF. I am so proud of him. I really appreciate your perspective.
I left the Army an infantry sergeant in the 82nd and very proud. But when I started college, telling a girl I just got out of the Army was like saying I was a rapist just out of prison. I quickly stopped mentioning it. Still some Vietnam hangover even though it was 1982.
Well, things have certainly changed. People now thank me even though I never served in combat.
My 2 years in West Germany and 20 months as a paratrooper, in the 82nd, where unforgettable.
Spin, Thank you for your post. After 27 years of both Active and Reserve duty, with four deployments after 9/11, all I can say is that did what I was supposed to do and gave it my best effort.
And that not everyone came home.
Remember – and pray – for the fallen.
FrMRD (CDR, CHC, USNR)
This resonates with me. I was in the Coast Guard. My reasoning for joining was that it was after Vietnam, I joined in 1979, and they were the only service with a peace time mission. Not that there weren’t Coasties in Vietnam during the conflict. Anyway, I did some knuckle headed things while in, and sometimes I wince at some of the things I did. I came close to an Article 15 NJP a couple of times. But I wasn’t all bad, and I actually ended up extending my enlistment and serving for 7 1/2 years.
My shipboard service was on buoy tenders, and looking back I had a perverse pride on serving in the Coast Guard’s black fleet. If you’re a glory hound, that’s the last place you want to serve. (This movie was disparaging towards the black fleet. You’ll have to strain to catch it, but I did.)
The Coast Guard is too small to require an out processing unit. I out processed at the unit I had been stationed at. Since it was shore duty, an office job really, I really didn’t feel different when I left. I just stopped wearing the uniform. It took me awhile to figure out why I didn’t feel different, but it was because I was made to feel different when I processed in through boot camp. I didn’t get yelled at on the way out.
I had days, well weeks, where I hated the Coast Guard, hated where I was stationed, and hated many of my fellow shipmates. There was one person to blame for that, and I’d see him when I looked in the mirror. But I made it through, and in the end, received my honorable discharge. From day one, that was my primary goal. To serve honorably however long I served. Actually, it would be better to say that my primary goal was not to disgrace myself while in the Coast Guard. I had some bad moments, but I made it.
Pat Conroy, who wrote The Great Santini, a book I voraciously consumed, and liked for his mocking his father, a Marine pilot (Pat Conroy had a bad habit of barely fictionalizing his family life, putting them in a bad light; I understand that they greatly resented it).
In time, I saw what he was doing with his works of fiction to be a travesty. Though he was a student at The Citadel a military college whose reputation rivals West Point, he became a draft dodger and war protester after graduation, which was in the middle of the Vietnam conflict.
Conroy wrote an article expressing his regrets at what he had done. An excerpt:
He burned a lot of bridges with his fellow alumni at The Citadel, not only because of what he’d done, but the way he insulted the U.S. Military’s ethos in general, and The Citadel in particular with The Lords of Discipline. Yet it took some guts to write what he did when he looked back. And it’s significant to me that at least one of his classmates, who suffered greatly during that war, treated him with some respect, and not with contempt.
My last post in this thread. Another book I read was From Here to Eternity by James Jones. That book had a huge influence on me, and I took it into account when I joined the military.
Like his other works about the Army, it’s a deeply cynical portrayal of military life. But unlike Pat Conroy, James Jones did serve in the Army, both before and during World War II. And he served in combat in the Pacific.
I no longer agree with Jones’s cynicism of the military. There are other soldiers and marines who served in combat with distinction, but didn’t come to quite the same dark conclusions Jones did, a prime example would be The Old Breed by Eugene Sledge which is non-fiction. It’s not an optimistic book, he portrays his war experiences as hellish, but he credits his Marine Corp training as saving his life, and he didn’t seek to settle scores with the officers and NCO’s he served under.
No, no it doesn’t. I went to West Point. My son went to The Citadel. As a parent (strictly as a parent), I will state right here that The Citadel sucks. Sucks hard, sucks long, sucks deep. And this is from a guy who has served with some Citadel grads that I will say unequivocally were top notch studs. As a parent, and a parent who knew more than a little about the military when my child went there, I have zero respect for The Citadel.
And, I like Conroy. Don’t always agree with him, but he is a fine author. There are no words to express how much I loved the novel The Prince of Tides.
One point of parental pride that I have is that my son graded Hell Week as a “meh.” His line to his torturers was “my old man made the Great Santini look like Mr. Rogers. This is all you got?”
I fault no man for getting out of serving in Vietnam. From the individual replacement system to bomb targeting by the President, the was the worst execution of a war by the USA in history.
After dropping out of college, I did 4 years in the Army Mech infantry from 88-92 – Germany for 2 years followed by Fort Hood TX and the Gulf War.
The Gulf War was uneventful for my unit. And, like Spin, I was more than happy to leave the service, which was too disfunctional too often.
I’m not a fan of mandatory universal service. Milton Friedman’s volunteer Army was an excellent idea that should be expanded. Pay service members with tough / difficult-to-fill jobs more and revamp the insane & antiquated military personnel system.
Tim Kane at the Hoover Institution outlined many excellent solutions in his book, “Bleeding Talent: How the US Military Mismanages Great Leaders”.
I agree on the volunteer Army. But rather than better pay for combat arms-type positions, I say provide better training. Most guys in the 82nd were disappointed with going to the field with no training pyro or having to truck in rather than jump. We fired our M16’s only a couple of times a year. Only M60 gunners fired the M60. And they never shot their sidearms. Our sniper rifles sat in the rack. Recondo (Mini-Ranger) School slots went to the entire 18th Airborne Corps so very few for paratroopers. It was impossible to get a slot for Ranger school and other high-speed schools.
Most men are in the infantry, tanker and artillery positions for the challenge: if you don’t challenge them then you get problems.
This is true about most people – especially men: they don’t want easy or comfortable. They want to overcome, to conquer, to wrestle. And if you don’t give them something productive to do, then they will invariably invent something that is far less constructive.
We made grenades out of straws and .50 rounds…
Jim, every one of these points is legit; It’s why I went SF (well, I’d committed to going before even getting in, but what I found–as you described–in the infantry thoroughly reinforced that decision).
I can remember when the Mark 19 was just getting fielded, I got five rounds of actual HEDP to shoot as a familiarization fire. An SF buddy of mine came off the same range with the comment “I just fired more rounds today than your battalion will get for the year, and I’m going back again tomorrow.”
That was motivation to switch branches.