Lilo:Did you ever… kill anyone?
Mr. Cobra Bubbles: We’re getting off-subject here.
One of the things that hit me in the face when I went from a military contractor to a truly civilian company was how few people had served in the military. The next thing that hit me was how many of them asked that exact question.
Standard response – Not directly. (Truth)
Non-standard response – Sorry, can’t answer that. (Also truth, and the look on their face is priceless.)
Contrary to what you will hear in the bars, not every Army vet was an Airborne Ranger, not every Navy vet was a SEAL. There are quite a few Marines who weren’t Recon, and the Air Force only has so many fighter pilots. While our collective goal was to prepare for the task of bringing about the untimely and violent death of our fellow man, most of us did things to support the guys who pull the triggers, fly the jets, and fire the cannons.
Hollywood does us no favors, either. Every guy in the military is a born-again killer, and every veteran is a simmering pot of psychological problems, at least in the movies and on TV. The truth is more like “A lot people in the military have a vague idea how to use their weapon. Some are really good at kicking doors and shooting people when necessary. Most people take off their uniform, hang it up, and get on with their lives. A few need a lot of support to deal with the things that happened to them while they still wore it.”
Where do I fall? Well, I never killed anyone. I heard shots fired in anger exactly three times in nine years. I didn’t fire them, and they weren’t directed at me. I have bad dreams every so often, but so does everyone else. Most of the times that I might have gotten hurt or killed were because of my own stupidity or that of someone else. Nothing that special about me in those respects.
In other words, I’m just some guy. No need to ask silly questions.
DaddyBear’s Den 
oldnfo
/ April 10, 2014No you’re not, you’re an HONEST guy… BIG difference… just sayin…
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AndyN
/ April 10, 2014I’ve never been asked that. My favorite “how clueless can you be about the military” question was when someone asked me very earnestly how realistic Stipes was.
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daddybear71
/ April 10, 2014I used to get asked about Platoon a lot. They always seemed disappointed when I said that we didn’t get stoned in the bunker.
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jbrock2014
/ April 10, 2014I was a garden-variety bubblehead (fast attack, not boomer). People are often shocked to discover that I have any military background at all; I, in turn, find this so perversely amusing that I don’t usually go out of my way to mention it.
With a couple of noteworthy exceptions, sheer Hollywood cluelessness makes submarine movies unwatchable for me.
Nightmares? Yeah, occasionally, in an off-kilter sort of way; ‘Kafkaesque’ sums it up neatly. Apparently our own military bureaucracy–no two layers of which are entirely compatible in any sense of the word–messed with my head in a more lasting way than anything our once-and-probably-future opposition managed to do.
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Geodkyt
/ April 10, 2014I’ve had to correct friends who were ALSO Army vets (didn;t serve together, or even in the same decades), reminding them that, just because I often worked with and even trained Rangers, I wasn’t (by ANY definition) a Ranger myself, nor have I ever claimed to be.
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daddybear71
/ April 10, 2014Yep. I, at times, supported high-speed low drag types of people. I was never one of them.
My favorite joke that describes my time in the military was that I wanted to be swift, silent, and deadly. Unfortunately I was too slow, clumsy, and stupid.
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Geodkyt
/ April 11, 2014My stock phrase is, “I never went anywhere or did anything really cool.” (Which is a lie, but ends conversations quickly. )
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daddybear71
/ April 11, 2014Nod
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