Hey...pssst... That one guy is here!

I'm a Vietnam vet and a friend is an Afghan vet.We are both combat vets. The other day, he was telling me a story about how his cop friend, also a combat vet stopped a car for speeding. The cop saw a U S Army sticker on the back window, He asked the driver about it and the driver said that he was a supply sergeant when he was in. the cop laughed and said "you're the first one that I ever met " and let him go .

 

I have my operation Iraqi freedom hat that had my esws and my eaws pins on the bill, I've had many guys spot me from a distance thinking they are jump pins, they see my hat and automatically think I was a combat vet. Yeah I was deployed to a "combat zone" and even took part in "combat flight operations" but I never once seen any actual combat. I served my ### on a carrier building bombs for weeks leading up to and during the initial push into Iraq, and I happily admit it.

When civvies see my hat and pins they cant wait to hear all the juicy stories, then after I tell them the above story, their faces just turn from excitement to "oh, well..."

 

We had two drivers that were both on the America at the same time and never knew it. One was a yellow shirt and the other worked below. They were talking about it when another driver said that he was the sonar operator on the sub that finally sank it.

 

I was born and raised in the military. My grandfathers were in WWII and my father was in Vietnam. He was still in the service and a lot of the men he worked with were in Vietnam. Growing up,it was just a common thing and you didn't think much about it.

My father is 70 years old now. He was in it towards the end. My grandfathers are long died and any of their buddies still alive,would be 95+. Looking back, I wished I had ask a lot more about it.

 

My family too, my Grandfather was an infantryman in WW1 with the 104 th Inf, got shot and was captured, he excaped and because he could speak French, made it back to friendly lines. My father was in WW2 with the 2nd Armor since North Africa and Served 42 months overseas.7 major campaigns.
I was with the 196 th Light Infantry in Vietnam in 1970 .

 

My brother was a Marine on the America

 

It's sad in a lot of ways. I was cleaning up and found a box of letters. There were two or three dozen of them. They were letters that my mother and father wrote back and forth when he was in Vietnam.

Iraq and Afghanistan isn't like that. Everyone had internet. If you didn't have it in your CHU,you could use it at the MRW. You would see all of the soldiers using yahoo messenger or webcams. Unless you saved the messages,email or webcam video,it all is going to be lost. A family will lose a lot of history.

I only knew to two truck drivers that got actual letters in the mail,and they were both in their 50s or 60s.

 

There are different ways to trip them up, especially if they never served. It varies from branch to branch.

I like using this on the Army guys,especially if they're in(out) uniform.
Me: You ever shoot one of those AR15s?
Them: All the time....they hear AR15 on the news all the time.
Me: You ever shoot one of those AR 670-1s.
Them:All the time.