Here are more military stories. I'd like to keep this going as long as I can, so, if you'd like to give your own explanation of why you joined the military or have a military story, please e-mail me with the subject "Military". Thanks.

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Charles writes:

My story is a bit more haphazard than most… A mix of Bipolar decisions and youthful mistakes. And for those parents out there, it all started with too many video games. One thing military shooting games and such really need is a sweat, blood and tears factor. Like maybe a tazer built into the mouse, so when you get hit, it shocks your whole system. And a maybe a breathing mask, so when you run in the game, it limits the oxygen you get… But alas, I digress.

I had dropped out of collage in my second year to make video games. After a year and a half of playing… One Christmas Eve I thought to myself, "I should join the Army, by golly I will."

By the end of January I was enlisted and sent to Fr Benning for Infantry training and Jump school, then on to the 82nd. I justified it all (both to myself and to family and friends) as an experience of a lifetime. Stories to tell, self discipline to set me strait, money for school… Blah blah blah…

In the end, I did it for my country. One thing basic training teaches you and is later built upon by being a 24 year old E-2 in the 82nd… Freedom is something to be cherished and NEVER EVER taken for granted.

I left the Army with a pride in myself, the Army and my country. Over the past few years, the civilian world has begun to erode away some of that pride. Washing it away with the flood of materialism in our culture and the superficially sacrificial values of our society.

Over the past few years, I really began to miss the Army. Not the BS details, or the long hard hours. But the outstanding (even if not perfect) citizens I served with. Those who would go forth into the unknown, all for his own reasons, and yet all for the same reasons.

I've gone back into the reserves recently, and plan to stay. Once I make some rank, I plan to finish out a career in the Army. I've been a civilian, and I've been a soldier. The latter is by far the tougher course. But I would rather make something of myself than make money for someone else.

TXVet has this to add:

I enlisted in 1970 To Protest !!! protest the draft dodgers that is

James of Right Face! rights writes:

In 1988 I'd been out of school for four years. The Air Force was a chance to get paid while learning to work with computers. My goal was four years and out. Sixteen years later it is my career and my passion. Every day I put this uniform on, I take pride in the knowledge that I have made a commitment to our nation that a very small percentage of our citizens make. I would not trade what I feel when I salute the flag for anything else in the world.

I am intensely proud of my military heritage more as time goes by. My father served 6 months in Korea at the beginning of the war in some of the fiercest fighting. He has five wounds and an artificial knee. My uncle was a B-17 pilot shot down and killed on the 2nd Schweinfurt Raid in Oct. 1943. Most of my uncles served in WWII. My great-great grandfather, a German immigrant in 1953 fought for the Union with the 14th NY Heavy Artillery.

The military doesn't pay a lot, but money can't buy the feeling that comes from being a part of a brotherhood that goes back more than 228 years. I am proud to be a small part of the forces that preserve and defend freedom.

Jennifer writes of a mcuh more recent enlistment:

Why did I join? Basically because I wanted to serve my country the only way I know how, and I knew I was going to need a lot more help with college than I was getting (I am working for Ups as a package handler). I had a certain admiration for those who served in the military, as any American should. Probably also because my dad served in Vietnam (drafted into the Army), my maternal grandfather (died when my mom was a kid) was in the Navy during World War II and Korea, my grandpa (my mom's dad) was in the Air Force for 30 years and has been a Lutheran minister for 40 years thanks to the G.I. Bill, my godfather was in the Navy, a gentleman in my church was in the Coast Guard and a Pearl Harbor survivor (he passed away around Christmas), my best friend's dad was in the Marine Corps, and I have a friend who washed out of Basic and her husband was in the Marines for twenty years. Because of my maternal grandfather and hearing that all you need to enlist is a high school diploma, I decided in the fourth grade that I wanted to join the Navy after I was done with high school.

Well, that changed. Fast forward to 2003, when the war in Iraq was starting up. I got into a few arguments with my parents about going into the military. Their reason was simply that they did not want their daugher going into the military.

A year passed, and I bumped into my friend and "cohort",as my mother refers to her as, Barb. One day, there was an Army recruiter walking around school, so she encouraged me to talk to him about enlisting. I did, and then after a couple of months of waiting for him to call back (he was based in Joliet, come to find out), I started talking to another recruiter. Anyway, I went to the station, took the ASVAB, went to MEPS, and I will be leaving this August for Fort Jackson, South Carolina for BCT.

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Our Military
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