I agree, I've been doing this for too long to not take it seriously, I guess according to Joe Dokes at the top of the page I'm just making up cool stories.
Cool stories. I have heard a few. I was in the Army Reserves (1986-1992) and fortunately was never activated. Would have been OK with it, just never happened. Anyway, my college roommate was in the 12th Special Forces Group. Their unit was housed in the same building as my unit. Publicly those guys are a very quiet and modest lot. Nicest guys you would ever meet. Most folks knew we were both somehow associated with the military. I was a mechanic. When people asked us what we did I would tell them I was a mechanic, my room mate would say he was a cook. People don't press an army cook for details on what he does or ask other job related questions. This "cook" just happened to speak six languages fluently and was airborne qualified.
But add a few beers and the good natured ribbing begins. These guys were kind of crazy and I heard some pretty interesting stories. The 12th group was a reserve unit, but most of these guys had been active duty and collectively had been in every conflict since the late 60's. One of the guys I used to work out with at the gym and generally spend time with was the best friend of my room mate, he was one of the guys who went into Afghanistan in 2001. I found that out when I read a book entitled "Horse Soldiers" and the author mentioned him and talked about some of his work over there.
One thing I liked about these guys is that they did not care what my job was, and did not look down on support guys like some of the gung ho infantry guys do. If I was part of the team then that is all they needed to know. All of us are part of one big operation that all has to work together for the job to get done.
Stay safe my friend. Work hard. Come home. And then you can tell some stories!
