The IMTS or "The Dome"was a blast… in retrospect of course lol. I can almost hear the simulation spinning up right now!
The days on end spent there got old with endless aircraft recognition classes of the same 40 odd, mostly outdated aircraft that hardly anyone flew any more. Painful IFF code tape upload classes and hangfire/misfire/dud procedure walk throughs
After firing 4 stingers, 3 from the shoulder and 1 from the Avenger system, I can say the simulation in “The Dome” is harder than live fire. And that the Avenger sucks.
I was checking the want ads looking for a PRS SE Standard guitar. I found two, I contacted the first guy and we agreed to meet at a specific time and place of his choosing. He’s late, I contact him and don’t hear back from him, now a half hour goes by and he texts me and say’s I will be right there. Another 20 minutes go by, no show, so I roll on home.
Now after all of that he contacts me and accuses me of “Stolen Valor”. Honestly, I never told the guy I was a Vet or had ever been in the .Mil, it never came up, it was all business. He starts giving me a story about the VA screwing him over and how I must have been a crappy NCO who treated his Soldiers poorly.
I’m like WTF?
So although I would prefer to do a deal with a Veteran, especially if it could help a guy out who could use some cash, but Really? We as Veterans are our own worst enemies sometimes.
I contacted the second guy, met at the local HS parking lot, I got a look at the guitar, we went to my house and plugged it in and I bought it. It took all of a half hour and was drama free.
Sometimes I just shake my head at what goes on in the world.
One of my friends was an Avenger repairer in the 101st. He said the Avengers rolled out on patrol with the grunts because of the FLIR and the .50 Cal. This was during the first year, long before MRAPS or even up-armored vehicles were common.
I first enlisted as a 51 Romeo- Interior electrician. I got discharged from DEP because my recruiters messed up. I don’t think that would be as cool as an M1 tanker when telling cold war stories. On the other hand It probably would of helped to get a job after getting out.
I have a old woodland camp Army Field Jacket with a liner that I bought at Goodwill for $9. I was in the gas station one day and a dood said something like “where did you serve?..pointing towards the jacket” I told him I bought it for $9 at the good will, and that I never served. Then he started grouching at me, loudly, telling me I shouldn’t wear and Army field jacket unless I served. I told him I would sell it to him for $50.
Bear in mind that what I’m about to say is as an “involuntary civilian” who never got the chance to serve, but…
As a military historian, I find it helps people have confidence in my grasp of the subject if I look like I’d be “at home” in the time and place being discussed, so for such meetings I style my general outfit after what was worn then–but I won’t wear any kind of insignia or decorations. If I’m doing reenacting/living-history, while “on the field” I will only wear materiel appropriate to the role I’m portraying but no more–and it comes off as soon as I’m no longer “in character”. Beyond that, at least for me no bueno.
Why does somebody care if the item doesn’t have a unit patch etc? You aren’t in full uniform, besides having an obsolete camo pattern. Even though I served, if I walked around in my super stylish ACU’s, I would expect any service member to realize that.
One thing that REALLY pisses me off, are military guys who get pissed off over people wearing fan gear. I notice this mostly with the most obnoxious members of the elite units…mostly SEALs. I remember the old navyseals.com website (late 90s, early 2000s). The SEALs writing on that site warned readers that, unless they (the reader) was a SEAL himself, they better not wear ANYTHING that said “SEAL” on it. Not even a corny Army/Navy store “SEALS: Mess with the best die the rest” t-shirt. Not even a “proud supporter of the US Navy SEALs” shirt. Even if you’re honest and tell anyone who asks that you either want to be one or just support them, you’re STILL not allowed to wear SEAL fan gear. That’s reserved for full patch…sorry, pinned members. One guy wrote about how he was at a gym in San Diego and saw a kid in his late teens working out in a SEAL fan shirt. The SEAL asked the kid if he was with the Teams, and the kid said no, but that he was graduating high school this year and that was his dream. The SEAL then got the kid’s name…then promptly jacked the kid up, threw him on the floor, tore the kid’s shirt off, and told the kid don’t even bother trying to get into BUD/S because he (the SEAL) was going to let all the commanders and instructors know this unearned-SEAL-gear-wearing-wannabe kid’s name, and he’d be lucky if he could even enlist in the military at all. He was then warned that if he was ever caught wearing something with ‘SEAL’ on it again, he’d be eating through a straw and shitting in a bag for the rest of his life. Oh, and the SEAL warned him never to come back to that gym again (even though it wasn’t even a SEAL-run gym).
This is not to say that all special ops guys are like that. But as we discussed in the thread about the Mali murder case, within the elite units, there is that biker gang type subculture of guys. I’m sure the good guys in those units don’t like them either, and there are probably a bunch of SEALs who would have told the guy who jacked the kid up that he was a piece of shit, but it still remains that the subculture of arrogant “F*ck the world except my brothers” mentality is there.
At a lot of meetings, many “pseudoraters” in civilian attire would leave the impression based on where they were from they were something they were not.
I was on a team that chose to wear ACUs when almost nobody else had them, but they ended up being pieces of crap.
On later deployments, when everyone had them, being in them made you suspect.
I had to rush into theater once to replace a team leader with an emergency. I think we were on the multicam pattern of ACU type uniformed then. Not sure. Maybe it was everyone had ACUs era. I was colcated with a Ranger unit I had been on target with multiple times in another theater before and a SEAL unit I had done ops from a DDG off the coast of a shitty African country with before. After a couple of ops, in the same uniform as the rangers had and no attenion from the SEALS (the actual guys I mean, I had to interact with the squadron CDR a ton), I busted out my brand spanking new Crye Multicams that the rest of my team let alone anybody but one other army unit had yet. While a different pattern than theirs, I had a ton of attention and “in” from the SEAL unit.
Like from, I think he is just like one of the Ranger Bn sort of guys to, holy fuk, this over 40 field grade going out and while on the compound is clean and jerking 225 and crushing us in muscle ups at over 40 and over 200 pounds is cool as F and we fist bump, BS, joke, and talk with him now. With no difference other than uniform.
Same happens on active duty with various patches and badges versus none. Which is why I think the psueudoraters love civies and sterile uniforms.
You know full well many vets appropriate the beard, hat, sleeve tats look of guys they were not part of. Hell, even LE and other civies do the same.
Screw it. It just is what it is. I just finished steaming Kung Fury and Ninja Commando with my son and some of his college buddies before they have to head back to school. I think I am wrapping on a headband and rocking a no sleeve vest and old school OD jungle boots or high tops tomorrow.
I retired after almost theirs years in the military. I have absolutely no inkling why anyone would give a crap about someone in sterile camp or other military clothing.
There is just such a total lameness and gayness to doing that.
No possible reason reason for doing it other than wanting to be associated with it.
It’s not like your Metallica shirt you wear because you are a fan.
It tends to be associated with having the background of what you are wearing.
Do you run around in a t shirt with your county sheriffs department and replica of a badge on it?
Do you fo to the airport with a TSA logo on your polo?
It’s just weird.
Yeah, kinda. I watched a few of that guys videos. The older white guy showing up at memorial events and working with the VFW wearing a trident and a fuct ribbon bar is the kind of people they need to set straight. Maybe he honestly believed he was helping and giving children a “neato” experience, kinda of like playing Santa at Christmas, but at the end of the day it’s disrespectful and the guy should have known.
But the drunk black biker dude who had a Navy Seals tattoo and was telling drunk biker dude stories on Bourbon Street…who really cares? Maybe it gets him laid, maybe not but they should just let that nonsense go. 50% of the Vietnam vets I ever met were all “in Laos and Cambodia” but it’s not on their military record because it all was classified. Is somebody really going to go after them all because they are embellishing?
If somebody is using it to make money or to seek employment or some other kind of veterans preference those are the ones you need to go after. The guys in uniform wearing even a ribbon that represents a decoration that they never earned, let alone special unit IDs and such need to get set straight. But in high school I had an OD jacket with air force insignia and a Strategic Air Command patch…pretty sure everybody understood that I wasn’t a B-52 pilot.
Sometimes people just need to use some common sense.
So do I have to be in the Space Program to wear NASA and Apollo stuff? I wear my friends jacket because A) he gave it to me and B) it sometimes reminds me to try harder when I’m having problems with something.
Now I get some stuff is “off limits”, if he for example bequeathed me a medal of honor I would never wear it with anything. Similarly I won’t wear any of the berets people have given me. But a BDU jacket (especially 80s woodland) paired with black 5.11s isn’t really an attempt to pretend to be anything.
I also have a box full of LE stuff, t shirts and jackets for just about every department in South Florida. Most of it is a result of demoing weapons or suppressors or getting them discounted rates to go train at Blackwater or whatever. Sometimes it’s because as a supplier I actually got the shirts or jackets done for them.
I pretty much won’t wear a jacket because LEOs will wear jackets with things like jeans and 5.11s and I wouldn’t want someone in trouble to come running up to me for help thinking I’m a LEO. But shirts with no visible badge I will wear from time to time and it takes most cops 15 seconds to make a determination that I’m not working.
Now if I had a belt complete with tasers, some kind of large badge, cuffs and the rest of it, THAT would be a problem. So when I’m wearing a Ft. Lauderdale PD t shirt, it’s mostly because I had a lot of friends on the force and I support them. It’s not much different from the “I support the FOP” bumper stickers on cars, except that most people only have those hoping it will get them out of a ticket one day.
I traded a mid size ruck sack for a 80’s British para smock from a Royal Irish Ranger we did some training with, man it was nice. Don’t know what my Mom did with it before I got out.
I have a friend who had a SEAL license plate on his truck, SEAL-like statues on his desk, ‘the only easy day was yesterday’ poster on the wall, and who wore SEAL tee-shirts.
He is very upfront - if asked - that he has never been a SEAL, he just admires them. Otherwise he just lets folks think what they want to think. When I called him on this he told me ‘I never tell anyone I’m a SEAL, and if they start talking SEAL stuff I tell them I wasn’t.’
Apparently he thinks that is okay. He is one of the nicest, most considerate guys you’d want to meet, he also reveres John Wayne, who is equally represented in his office.
I don’t get it, I used to get butthurt, but in the greater schem of things, it isn’t worth losing a friend over. If someone says something to me about it, I tell them to ask him about his service, otherwise I keep my mouth shut.