When our squadron deployed to Hawaii in December 1988 (quite the hardship tour, that) some of the guys stayed an extra week (took leave, caught space a back home) at Ft Bellows (sp?) which had nice cottages near the beach.
The best breakfasts I ever had in my life were during that deployment. There was a little "snack bar" near our "Q" rooms. For about five bucks you got Kona coffee, perfectly scrambled eggs, some bacon, fresh baked bread/toast, sliced fresh pineapple, and fresh sliced mango.
Some of the buildings on the base still had pock marks from the December 7, 1941 attack.

When I was a grunt medic we jumped onto Ft Wainwright near Fairbanks in February. We had an E-6 named SSgt Faou. He was Samoan, and one of the few genuine bad asses I've met in my life. He was busted from E-8 down to E-6 because some PFC had taken a punch at him. St Faou hit the PFC in the chest and killed him with one punch that pushed his sternum into his heart. When Ssgt Faou was in Vietnam on his last tour there he used to sneak over to Guam some weekends to see his family. No one gave him much shit because he killed way more than his share of VC and NVA depending on which tour you were talking about. Anyway, from the moment we rolled up our 'chutes and cleared the DZ, Ssgt Faou was in a foul mood. All he said for the next month was "it's fucking cold". Evidently it doesn't get down to minus a bazillion degress in Samoa. When we had a game of broom hockey with our Mickey Mouse boots on the last week we were there he scored ten goals. No one wanted to get too close to him.

One very good thing about humping a ruck in the mud, dust, sand and snow. You learn not to take yourself too seriously. When I later met these guys out of the Air Force Academy or West Point who thought that their shit didn't stink I was appalled.

In the end it is our line doggies, jar heads, swabbies, and coasties who take the ground, kill the bad guys, win the wars, and keep the peace. Those poofters in Washington deserve to hang out with their fellow pin heads.

It has been great hearing everybody's stories on this thread. AR is the greatest place to hang out in cyberspace.
JCN

I guess I got it backwards. I quit being an intel and/or supply pogue to become a grunt... Still I served 27� years without getting shot and retired in Jan 2001. Wondering if I'll get recalled (not an entirely bad thing), I just started back on the PT program.

How many of you retirees share my mixed feelings about not being a participant in this war?

Thanks for this thread. Nice to know so many of us shared experiences where firearms were truly matter of life and death.