Why do we have troops in Japan?

At what point was I going into town, getting drunk and chasing tail and otherwise acting a fool? Is that the only kind of "trouble" you can conjure up in your mind? That's amateur hour - I joined The Army when I was well into my twenties. I did serve four Air Force years from 1980-1984 joining at age 18.
But if you want to form a totally innacurate image of me and my on and off duty activities, I can't stop you. BTW I never have and never will blame anyone for my actions unless I was falsely accused. oldfella = goodfella
I can't speak for EP, only myself. Here are my rules for living, passed on to my son and will hopefully continue on our reign of awesomeness:

1. Don't be a dick. If something sounds like a dick move, don't do it.
2. Don't rat on your buddies. I'm not saying don't report crime to the authorities. I'm saying if you are participating in said activities and you get caught but they don't get caught, man up and keep your mouth shut. You knew the risks. Don't sell anyone out or pass blame to anyone.
3. Respect and avoid two types of people: those with nothing to lose, and those with everything to lose.
4. Don't get physical with anybody, and don't threaten anybody unless your life is in danger. Stay calm and be willing to kill. If your life was really in danger, wouldn't it make sense that you have to stop that threat? Don't half ass it and get killed or injured - they started trouble so end it quickly. We're in Georgia, the common sense defense state.

It's the smaller remarks you make that define you in my opinion, the ones you don't realize are defining you.

Not the ones where you are trying to define yourself.

I never went out and got shitfaced in town and caused any trouble. You do that in the air force and your gone. You don't know anything about me. Pass your judgment on someone else. I was in 5+ years and got a good conduct medal and an Air Force accommodation medal among others. What the fuck did you do?

I was in 10 years, got 3 good conducts and a bunch of meaningless medals too. We both know non-combat medals are pretty much meaningless, other than making for impressive fruit salad on your chest. We used to joke about being "war heroes" because we had so many ribbons and medals. Most things like commendation/achievement medals boild down to "I did my job and didn't fuck up too bad".

I agree with Archangel on this point. "Gimme" awards are bullshit and everyone knows it. Much depends on the "write up" from your superiors. Let me preach on:
In The Army gimme PCS (going away) awards are generally based on rank. An E-4 gets an AAM (Army Achievement Medal)an E-5/E-6 gets an ARCOM (Army Commendation Medal) and an Senior NCO gets an MSM (Meritorious Service Medal). All of these people do great things, but how many people are under your charge and the associated responsibilities is what makes the difference. I honestly think this is fair. That said, an E-7 at my unit in Germany only got an ARCOM when he left. That is basically unheard of. Dude has a stand-up guy yet a straight arrow in his personal life. The reason? His award wasn't processed in time. Yep - if the paper-pushers don't do their job fast enough THE AWARD IS DOWNGRADED to the next lower level. It doesn't matter of you pulled babies out of a burning building - that paperwork isn't processed in time, you the baby-saver gets penalized.

Thus - if you are a desk jockey and schmooze with the clerks/officers/etc. guaranteed your awards will get processed in time, every time. You bust your ass out in the desert, out of sight out of mind so you suck hind tit.

Nothing....nothing.....as as it seems in the military. Ribbons, medals, awards, it's all politics. Only pussies and laymen buy into that hype. Promotions? All EO (equal opportunity) quota based. Some of the bag o' hammers stupidest people I've met are senior NCO's in the supply/quartermaster corps, hands down BTW, but others experiences may vary.

Primary promotion method in the Army (So I've heard) = Be black

Primary promotion method in the Navy (So I've seen) = Be Filipino

The award that pissed me off the most...was not one for myself. As a civilian in Yokosuka we had a bunch of ships force guys working with us during an dry docking overhaul. One of the modifications being done to the ship was Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD). That is a huge combat systems mod. We had an FC2 (Fire Controlman) working with us. He took that mod an owned it, made sure everything went smooth. Me and the other civilian had to do nothing but ask every couple of days "Tucker, everything good with BMD"..."yeap". So I pushed for the project officer to write him up an award, he didn't and finally suggested I do it. OK, that would be unusual, a civilian writing up an award, but not unheard of. I also know an award from an outside command means a lot more than one coming from your own command. So I wrote it up and submitted it. Of course you can guess by the fact that it pissed me off...the award was fired into the ether never to be seen again.

Tucker ended up getting out of the navy because they screwed up his security clearance and and refused to correct it, so they wanted to crossrate him to some shitty rate. He effectively, he told them to go fuck themselves. He was a good kid, hope he got hooked up with a good contractor job with some of the contacts he made.

I retired from the Army (4 years AF as I said before) and spent the rest of my time in The Army. I spent in The Army 11 years at the same rank - E6. This is not uncommon for white male NCO's in my MOS (military occupational specialty). Bear in mind with equal qualifications for all participants the the promotion board must choose minorities for promotion. So as a minority if there are five people people to compete against and only one is another minority, you as a minority effectively only compete against one other NCO. Your odds are 50/50 in that particular year. So stretch this across several years, and the ratio of minority Senior NCO's is well above their total percentage in the military as a whole. In other words if 30 percent of the total military are "minorities" being female, black, hispanic, Asian etc. but 60 percent of the Senior NCO's are minority is this fair? Perhaps, perhaps not, but that's just the way it is.

Bear in mind I come from a small MOS - we all know each other or know of each other. We know when shit rises to the top. We know each other's achievements, education level, leadership time, skill levels, etc. We may have been married to the same women! But "the Army" corporate machine only sees their records - what they look like "on paper" and of course their official photo and ethnicity.

But in the end the truth is revealed. When we all retire to get civilian jobs, those with real skills stay employed.
Equal Opportunity might get you a job, but it won't help you keep a job. The civilian world has to make a profit, the military only has to keep an agenda.

Arch is right about Filipinos in the Navy. The ones at my last command that madechief were all dumber than a box of rocks. One fucktard was yhe command financial sspecialist ( a duty usually given toto supply, but this asswipe in engineering had it) and spent two days arguing about how I didn't need the counceling since I was going to the States, despite my orders very clearly stating that I did because it was to a pre commissioning unit. As bad as this sounds, I had a very low opinion of Filipinos when I left there. And while my current joke of an E-6 is the epitome of what people come to expect from them, for the most part the ones I've met here are good salt of the Earth types that arw proud of their jobs and help their sailors.

I've heard way too many stories like these.

Be Filipino?

Are there that many in the Navy?

Interesting....

Bilibeans!

I got my accommodation medal at E-3 . There had been 4 in my shop and suddenly 2 got PCSed and my boss got force cross trained into another field and suddenly I had it all for about 2 months. Getting anything done as an A1C was a pain in the ass because because people would buck you on things just because they could. Luckily my Captain was a good man and backed me up.

Hell yeah, and most of 'em are in supply and circlejerk each other to move up to E-7.

Well. If I had to give advice. If you are going in enlisted and want to stay in for life, go in as supply or fuels or something. You can make rank quick with the testing. You go in electronics, the cutoff score is going to be much higher. I would say go in as an officer but you have to know a senator or house member to get in an academy. So if your family is not connected you can forget that. Some get the easy road and some don't. Very little opportunity for enlisted ranks to move up in the Air Force as well, so if you are Hoping for that, pick another branch.

Isn't ROTC another route to the officer corps?

I think you can become a reserve officer that way, if you get a 4 year degree. I am honestly not sure about that. I was thinking of people who do well in high school and can't afford college. I know that regular officers must go through an academy.

Yes, one of my previous divisional officers came in through that and got a full ride to Cornell that way. A couple of seniors in the graduating class begore mine also got schooling paid via the Air Force.

And EP is partially right...officer candidates need a sig from a Congressman, but it's more of a quick background check thing. Inless you're spme major screwup, you'll usually get it.

Yes, active or reserve.

But Anna, how does one become a candidate for any of that stuff. Its not just getting good grades. I remember talking to the recruiter and none of that was an option. I went in as E1 and the Air Force paid 75% of my tuition until I got my associate degree.Then that was the end of the road. I could only see myself making 2 more stripes in the next 15 years and I got out. The last 2 enlisted ranks in the Air Force are very political and that is as high as you can go. I am going back to school now and my company is paying for it, but I can't help thinking it would have been great to do it when I was younger.

After High School graduation my best friend got married and enlisted in the Air Force. He was able to get into what they called at the time the "Boostrap" program where promising enlisted types were given a chance to go to college for in-demand degrees and get a commission. He spent two or three years at Texas A&M earning an Aerospace Engineering degree and got a commission. He was able to serve 20 and retire at O-3. He made some big-ass money for a while as a consultant, but now (I gather) makes low 6 figures riding his Indian motorcycle to work at Cheyenne Mountain. Now this information may be out of date, but at least at that time there was a way for some people to go from enlisted to commissioned officers in the Air Force. Anyone who has more current information is welcome to respond.

Of course, all the services except the Air Force issue Warrant Officer ranks, which can be an attractive way to reward really outstanding non-coms with the pay and privileges of officers. It's ironic that the Air Force doesn't use the rank, which it considers a nuisance and instead chooses to fill the jobs Warrant Officers would fill with E-7's and E-8's, since my old man was a CWO-4 who went Air Force after WW II and retired in 1970. Of course, even then the Air Force brass considered Warrant Officers about as useful as tits on a boar hog and was happy to see the last of them retire. So much for the reminiscing...now back to our regular scheduled thread....

There are several ways to go from enlisted to officer.

Is the way I described still available? I thought it was a great way to reward smart, ambitious people.

I honestly couldn't say, I've been out 12 years, so I'm not up to date on the various programs. That's why I didn't go into specifics in my post

I was just curious if a program that seems well targeted and seems to have a reasonable chance of rewarding deserving people was still around.

I'm sure the other branches have something similar to the Navy's Seaman to Admiral program that pays for the education of enlisted folks. STA encompasses many avenues including entrance to the Naval Academy, OCS and a program similar to what Mike described.

That sounds like a good deal.

Nah...why bother?

Because it's an opportunity to get an education and advance. You never want to turn down an opportunity like that when it's available to you. I wonder if those opportunities are available to all.

I guess I'll have to spell out what I'm thinking. Those kinds of programs are available and maybe if you doing something other than looking for a good time you might have had a shot at one of them. But I guess it was more important to have a good time.

I took advantage of everything that was available to me at the time. If I was just interested in having a good time, I wouldn't have taken classes and got my associate degree. Perhaps things have changed but I never heard of or knew anyone that got the Air Force to pay for a 4 year degree. I know things changed a lot. People that joined a year after me got the Montgomery GI bill that paid for college. The old GI bill got killed in the 70s. The folks with the new GI bill could use it to take more classes. So, there were a lot of folks that joined after me and got out before me that got a lot better deal than I did. Nothing in the military was ever fair and life is not fair. I gripe too much. I got too see a lot of places that I never would have seen otherwise. I never had a curfew or got confined to the base once I was done with boot camp and tech school. I have digressed from my original post for which I apologize.