Soooo....yeah, I was an Army officer. That fact tends to throw people considering my personality and what they assume military men are like, stereotypically. It was a hell of a four years. September 11th happened while I was in Artillery Officers' training. I was stationed in Germany. I got deployed to Macedonia and Iraq.
I also was a platoon leader for two platoons. I was fairly good at getting my guys to do what they needed to do and I sheltered them from a lot of the "Higher"-driven make-work. The soldiers typically liked me, for the most part, at least as much as they could an officer.
That said, I got out in 2005 and I've had a lot going on since then. I've forgotten some of my exploits. I was chatting with an army buddy today and he hit me unawares on one of my more notable incidents:
"We had one of those 'Auction off your job for a day' fundraisers and you made the kid who paid for your job review badly written awards while you went down to the motorpool and witnessed 13Bs [Artillerymen] being absolute dumbasses (because you were SPC Carpenter for the day)... The entertaining thing to hear from you was about your whole trip down to be with the guys where you spent all morning doing things like 'trying to hit golfballs back over the fence with mattock handles' and 'playing hours of video games', but they thought it was all cool because it didn't matter that you saw everything because you weren't the Platoon Leader for the day."
I don't remember that, but I'm proud of me. I wish I'd kept a journal.
I also was a platoon leader for two platoons. I was fairly good at getting my guys to do what they needed to do and I sheltered them from a lot of the "Higher"-driven make-work. The soldiers typically liked me, for the most part, at least as much as they could an officer.
That said, I got out in 2005 and I've had a lot going on since then. I've forgotten some of my exploits. I was chatting with an army buddy today and he hit me unawares on one of my more notable incidents:
"We had one of those 'Auction off your job for a day' fundraisers and you made the kid who paid for your job review badly written awards while you went down to the motorpool and witnessed 13Bs [Artillerymen] being absolute dumbasses (because you were SPC Carpenter for the day)... The entertaining thing to hear from you was about your whole trip down to be with the guys where you spent all morning doing things like 'trying to hit golfballs back over the fence with mattock handles' and 'playing hours of video games', but they thought it was all cool because it didn't matter that you saw everything because you weren't the Platoon Leader for the day."
I don't remember that, but I'm proud of me. I wish I'd kept a journal.
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