My final day in the Army was 20 years ago today. I resigned my non-commission, so I picked the date purposefully. It also brought me to exactly 13 years 6 months 0 days of active service, and fulfilled my 2 years in grade (SFC/E7) commitment.
It was fun until it wasn’t. In Iraq, I was betrayed by my entire chain of command, plus many of the other officers I had to deal with on a regular basis. They went out of their way to make life hell. I get to see first hand the rampant incompetence that is common among officers. What I didn’t expect (although I should have) was the complete lack of care for both the mission and their soldiers. The days of the professional officer corps I knew from Reagan’s army were long gone by 2004.
My occasional nightmares aren’t about the dangers of combat. They’re about not being allowed to do anything useful to help.
Ouch. It's always sad to watch something decay over time like that.
ReplyDeleteThanks for surviving to go on to be a father/citizen/muhlisha/leader in a world that needs you. Good fortune (I don't believe in luck) in the coming troubles.
ReplyDeleteI got out May of '73. My eyes were opened to the biblical hard times ahead. I started acquiring, guns, ammo, and dehydrated h2o (I jumped the gun on timing a little bit). It took me decades to figure out it doesn't matter how much stuff you acquire, it's finding the Lord that matters.
I've found a great little half mechanized Mennonite, half normie church here in rural Tennessee.
All my neighbors are snipers...uhm, I mean hunters, farmers, ranchers.