Over the winter we sent around a questionnaire asking veterans to reflect on their time in the military: what it meant to them, how it changed them and what they would want civilians to know about it. Below you’ll find a selection of their answers, published with the writers’ permission.
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Corey Barnes
Marine Corps Captain, 2008-14
Hillsboro, Kentucky
Why did you join the military?
I wanted to be a part of something bigger than “a normal job.” I had a few friends from high school who had joined (I went to college first), so it just seemed like a good fit.
Can you share a little about your experience on deployment or at a duty station? What was day-to-day life like?
A lot to unpack here, which I will not. I did three ground combat deployments to Afghanistan. One was pretty rough, another not too bad, and the last was a cakewalk, although I arguably “did the most good” on that deployment. Long story short: day-to-day life on a deployment varies greatly depending on where you are deployed and what you are actually doing. Day-to-day life at a U.S. duty station is largely like a regular job.
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
When dealing with something that matters: if the right way is the hard way, do it the hard way.
How has being in the military impacted your relationships or social life?
Counter to many opinions I have read and heard in recent years, my experiences have made me seek closer relationships. These relationships are not always with family or friends from before my time in the military; I am simply seeking to 1) replace the camaraderie that I lost and 2) enrich other people’s lives in the same way that other service members have enriched mine.
Has being in the service changed the way you think about the military?
Absolutely. I had an idealized vision of what purpose I would be serving when I joined; I did not and still don’t care about politics, but I wanted “to help my fellow Marines” and “make a difference on the front lines.” You can make a personal, individual difference from the places I was in, but nothing further; if I was seeking to make as big of an impact as possible, I misused whatever talents I had. I will not be encouraging my children to join.
What is something you would want civilians to know about the military?
We are not as much of anything as most sources will lead you to believe. We are not all heroes. We are not all even honorable. We are not all depraved. We do not all have PTSD. We are you, with different training.
What is the military for?
The military is for war. Whether creating it or avoiding it, we are used for war. War is used for money and power. Turns out, the individual military members get very little of both. As such, we are the cheapest whores for the richest johns; our values are used as collateral against us; our bodies are abused and obliterated for another’s gain. I would be fine with that if it benefited the citizens of my country in any way. However, my country’s biggest threat currently is tearing itself apart from inside; my service means very little to most people in this country and nothing to my country as a whole.
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Amber McColl
Army Captain, 2010-15
Jersey City, New Jersey
Why did you join the military?
Primary reason was to pay for college (ROTC) and have a career plan for after college. In undergrad I didn’t have any clue what I wanted to do as a career. My family had some military history, so I saw the military as a stable career option and a good way to give back to the country.
Can you share a little about your experience on deployment or at a duty station? What was day-to-day life like?
For most of my military time, I was the leader of all-male platoons and I remember feeling like I was their sister. They looked out for me, helped me learn about their jobs, and pumped me up in front of leadership. I was pretty guarded about my personal life and my guys were respectful of that boundary. During deployment they all got scattered around in two-man teams supporting other platoons, and the most memorable thing was when my platoon sergeant and I did multiweek tours from COP [Combat Outpost] to COP to visit them, do equipment checks, etc. We’d fly around in helicopters and they’d come out to meet us, make sure we had a bunk to crash in, and see us off when we left. They wanted all the guys at their COPs to meet me. Sort of felt like they were proud that I was their leader, in a way. Another memorable thing was when one guy started calling me Ma’amber during a month-long field exercise and it stuck. The first sergeant was pissed.
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
Most important thing I learned is that I can learn to do just about anything, as long as I have access to people who know how to do it. I also learned that the best way to motivate people to do what you need them to do is just to take time with them and get to know them genuinely. Looking back, I feel I was successful because I just approached everybody as a person, not as a subject or a subordinate.
How has being in the military impacted your relationships or social life?
I’m a severe introvert and I’m not sure that military experience has had a lasting impact on that. I will say that, in general, I feel more suspicious of strangers post-military, but that is likely a result of a general practice of being more guarded from military time that I haven’t ever been able to shed.
What is something you would want civilians to know about the military?
I think it would be cool if they knew how much mundane stuff goes on in the military, it isn’t all just rah-rah-rah let’s saddle up and go to war. There are weeks and months of planning logistics, timing, training, etc., for everything from a field exercise to a deployment.
What is the military for?
To deter other nations from wanting to go to war with us, and when there is a war, to fight it.
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Anonymous
Marine Corps Major, 2008-21
New York, New York
Why did you join the military?
To serve my country after 9/11 and fly airplanes.
Can you share a little about your experience on deployment or at a duty station? What was day-to-day life like?
Garrison and deployments were filled with wonderful hardworking people that are all oriented on a common mission. Also, a roller coaster of reactionary behavior and sometimes complete chaos, due to an inability to say no to fluid tasking and too many people needing constant updates. Decentralized execution was not practiced regularly.
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
Families are raising great people that join the military to represent the nation and serve in all ranks. Common goals in the name of national defense, strengthening our way of life and putting better citizens back in our country are deeply cared about. Conversely, technology has made it too easy to demand information which is usually complex and requires time. In the ranks of officers and SNCOs [senior noncommissioned officers] who burn the candle from both ends end up in an unsustainable balance of work/life.
How has being in the military impacted your relationships or social life?
I think an inner circle remains an inner circle and can stand the test of time in or out of the military. This is a result of ease of communication. Overall the military squashed my ability to have consistent personal relationships and social life, and limited time with family due to operational tempo and regular moves around the country.
Has being in the service changed the way you think about the military?
Yes, of course. It’s easy to see something on the news about military campaigns, exercises, battles or peacekeeping. As a leader, when you take part in the organization, planning, execution and sustainment of military operations, you see the human factors, the time it takes, the demands and the sweat and blood people put into it. If anything, I’ve become more appreciative and humbled by what service members do for the United States.
What is something you would want civilians to know about the military?
The United States has service members, assets and capabilities all over the world. Some of these locations are austere, some are comfortable, and others are unique that will be formative in their lives. But we have a volunteer force that is critical in keeping a stable world and they sacrifice their time, sometimes their lives, in order to support that. I think the continued recognition of putting a pause on a “normal” life in the States is important to always acknowledge.
What is the military for?
Peacekeeping, deterrence, humanitarian aid, world stability and in times when diplomacy fails, to bend the will of state and non-state actors as deemed by Congress, in order to preserve our national interests and way of life.
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Leo Farley
Army Specialist, 1969-71
New York, New York
Why did you join the military?
In my case, I was drafted just three months before the lottery was instituted. Joining the military during that time would have never crossed my mind.
Can you share a little about your experience on deployment or at a duty station? What was day-to-day life like?
I did one tour in Vietnam. I was fortunate to be awarded an MOS 72B20 (Comm Center Specialist) Teletype Operator right after basic training. I later went on to be assigned to an Autosevocom (Secure Voice) unit or detachment and earned top-secret clearance. It was a six-day-a-week, twelve-hour-a-day job with guard duty every nine days. A lot of tedium, occasional mortar attacks on the compound, incessant heat. Mosquitoes were probably my biggest enemy. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my high school typing teacher: my 75-word-a-minute typing skills kept me out of harm’s way. From the first day I arrived until the last day when I departed, I made many friends and many memories, good and bad. Camaraderie was the thing that stood out most for me. A sense of family and purpose.
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
My success in life has always involved “collaboration” from my time in the service to this day. That collaborative effort has served me well choosing a life in the theater and the arts.
Has being in the service changed the way you think about the military?
Well, when I entered the military, I was nineteen, a civilian at heart and drafted. It was never my idea. But my sense of duty and patriotism prevailed, and I served my country and was honorably discharged. I was no fan of the draft back then but think now that if the draft stayed in effect, perhaps we wouldn’t have the follies of Iraq and Afghanistan, or they might have been shortened affairs. I think the politicians would have heard it from the voters and we wouldn’t have been involved for such a long period of time in both conflicts.
What is something you would want civilians to know about the military?
I think civilians often forget that it is a voluntary situation, and soldiers need the support of their fellow citizens. It is important to remember that they are still our sons and daughters, doing a job that most of us wouldn’t want to do. And they are doing it for us.
What is the military for?
To protect and defend the United States of America against all enemies, domestic and foreign. I still am a believer in that pure concept.
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Thomas Hobbs
Marine Corps Colonel, 1991-2018
Springfield, Virginia
Why did you join the military?
I joined because I wanted a challenge, was hungry for action and liked knowing what I would be doing after college from the moment I graduated high school. I did not join out of altruism or any sense of patriotism. I remained in the Marine Corps for 28 years because I loved leading and being around Marines, I was able to financially care for my family and I was good at my job.
Admittedly, remaining as long as I did had as much to do with inertia than anything else; I fell into a groove and it was easier to stay in than to get out. I was never “gung-ho” and blinded by love for the Marine Corps as an institution. I did love my Marines, though, and was addicted to building a team and helping people reach their potential. To further illustrate my self-interest and lack of altruism, I did not believe we should have invaded Iraq, but I wanted to go to war to test myself and be with my teammates anyway. Once there, I fought because that is what we do and my comrades relied on me.
Can you share a little about your experience on deployment or at a duty station? What was day-to-day life like?
I miss being on a team in combat. Combat is simple. We ate because we needed to refuel, not because we were bored. We slept because we were exhausted, not because it was bedtime. Everything was raw, purposeful and fundamental. Even laughing and crying. Adjusting to life outside the military, much less outside of combat, has been difficult for me. I miss the thrill, the purpose and the intense camaraderie with my teammates. Life now is empty and boring.
On one of my deployments, seventeen of our people were killed from our battalion. I was responsible for identifying remains, coordinating transfer of the dead and wounded, capturing the circumstances of the situation that led to the casualties and describing the wounds or cause of death. What is memorable to me is how a person with a past, a unique psyche and hopes for the future can at one moment occupy space with their personality and then turn into an unanimated mess of butchered meat the next. That person is just gone. I am not sad or upset about what I have seen or done. I don’t have nightmares. However, the finality, randomness and proximity of death is something that stays with me all the time.
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
I’ve learned many lessons on how to lead and inspire people. I’ve learned what to do and what not to do in developing a team. I think, however, my biggest lesson is how the Marine Corps and military fit into broader society. Without a draft and with an all-volunteer force and reliance on contractors, the average American has no interest in how and when military force is employed unless the nation is embarrassed like it was over the pullout from Afghanistan. But where were the American people when we talked of invading Iraq or Afghanistan? Where were they when we reached ten years of war, or when the Afghanistan Papers were released? Political leaders are not held in check by the American people because they have no skin in the game. America needs to implement a war tax to pay for our wars and to make Americans truly invested in going to war, staying in war and ending war. Without that, the military will continue to be employed too easily.
How has being in the military impacted your relationships or social life?
The military was my social life. Time away from home made me appreciate my family. Since I knew time was precious, I managed to focus on quality of time spent with my spouse and children, not quantity. However, since retiring three years ago, my relationship with my wife and kids has been under more strain than at any other time in our thirty-year marriage. The loss of purpose in my professional life has led to loss of clarity on who I am and how I interact with my family at home. Family has not been able to replace the hole that professional purpose once filled.
Has being in the service changed the way you think about the military?
Serving in the military has definitely changed the way I think about the military, especially with Trump and with the Black Lives Matter movement. Military members should be apolitical with loyalty to the Constitution. However, Trump has made being apolitical extremely hard, especially juxtaposed against BLM and social justice. Racism and extremism are being exposed in the military, but instead of uniformly condemning it, military members are picking sides. I’ve come to really understand how dangerous a threat a politicized military is to our democracy.
What is something you would want civilians to know about the military?
That despite our tendency to lean right and be conservative, there are many, many military members who are not. Unfortunately, progressive leaders tend not to make it to the top since inter-military politics is still very much driven by the “good old boy” network at that level. I always want civilians to realize that the only segment of American society that truly lives a socialist life are career military members. I worked for “the man,” and in return I was given free housing, free utilities, tax-free groceries, tax-free gas, schooling for my kids, medical, dental and a pension. Civilians should remind those military members who reflexively recoil from socialism that they are the only ones who actually live it.
What is the military for?
The military exists to continue political aims after diplomacy has failed.
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Hunter Lu
Army Specialist, 2005-09
New York, New York
Why did you join the military?
Boredom, a desire for something new, different and challenging. I was a subpar student surrounded by peers in an area where academic and college achievement was hammered into us at an early age. White-collar, tech, medical jobs were the norm, especially for Asian Americans like myself. I wanted nothing to do with any of that. I’d always been an avid reader and military-history nerd, so most of my friends weren’t that surprised when I randomly enlisted after high school.
Can you share a little about your experience on deployment or at a duty station? What was day-to-day life like?
Honestly, I hated being stateside (Fort Lewis, Washington) in the Army. Garrison life was profoundly stale and rigid, which in hindsight seemed pretty obvious. Even though I have mixed feelings about America’s overseas wars, the most memorable moments in the Army for me were in Iraq. My job in intelligence required me to live and work with the locals (from the Iraqi army to civilians and militias). I enjoyed that close interaction with another culture and working toward goals despite our obvious differences.
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
Discipline. I was a fairly lazy kid before the Army. The Army gave me the tools and experience to self-motivate. Also, an appreciation for the small things and to be thankful.
How has being in the military impacted your relationships or social life?
Confidence is probably the biggest thing. As a Chinese American man growing up in America, even in the liberal Bay Area, I faced a lot of stereotypes. Nerd, weak, good at math, asexual, basically a buffet of mostly unflattering perceptions. The Army took me out of my shell and gave me the confidence and life/social skills to tackle things as an adult. I don’t think I would be as confident in myself if I had gone the more “traditional” route of going to college after high school and landed a white-collar/STEM job.
Has being in the service changed the way you think about the military?
As a naïve eighteen-year-old, I thought everyone in the military was this extremely brave, moral and professional soldier. That is definitely not the case. This belief was probably a combination of American propaganda and the yearnings of a young man looking for purpose and adventure. As an adult, the military is just like the civilian world: some people are good while others suck.
What is something you would want civilians to know about the military?
We’re not all straight white males from the South. We have different goals and beliefs. And we’re not all hardcore conservatives.
What is the military for?
By definition the military is for defending the nation. Whether the military has actually done that is open to debate. I think a bigger factor is that the volunteer military has become a way for people to climb the socioeconomic ladder. Or in my case, to reinvent yourself.
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The Lady, Reverend Corporal Austin D. Burke
Marine Corps Corporal, 2012-15
Danbury, Connecticut
Why did you join the military?
I was raised within the fundamentalist Christian Bob Jones University school system, but grew quite dissonant there. I was expelled at the start of my final year of high school, took the GED and enrolled at a community college with a scholarship. There, for the first time meaningfully apart from the dogmas which had structured my behavior, I quickly spiraled into an indulgent pattern of psychoactive drug abuse and general self-harm—culminating when I nearly harmed someone who, in an effort to care for me, tried to stand in my path. That evening, horrified at what I saw myself becoming, I destroyed my stockpile of various psychoactive substances. Two days later, I enlisted in the Marine Corps. I sought secular discipline—and, to the greatest extent possible, discipline not bound up in any particular ideological commitment. For this reason, I avoided any position I perceived to require significant intellective involvement and pursued the role of field artillery cannoneer.
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
Through pain comes discipline. Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional. I am better dissatisfied, striving to support another, than satisfied in my apparent adequacy for myself.
How has being in the military impacted your relationships or social life?
My experiences in the Marine Corps foreclosed many possible friendships thereafter, as so many casual relationships appear hollow and insincere by contrast. This is somewhat difficult to articulate. I have nowhere else encountered a comparable sort of unconditional trust and mutuality—preceding ideological or preferential disparities—where posturing and niceties were not expected but mocked, where stark honesty appeared fundamental to close relations rather than as an alienating threat.
Has being in the service changed the way you think about the military?
Without exception—harms, benefits and banalities. Without direct experience, “the military” seems to be metonymic for one’s broadest conceptions of extroverted state power.
What is something you would want civilians to know about the military?
That the military is neither a conventionally virtuous collective of patriots nor a jingoistic frat house of the uncritically minded; the circumstantially palpable truths of precarity and finitude don’t permit either sort of bullshit.
What is the military for?
I would cite the speech that Jack Nicholson (as Colonel Jessup) delivers at the climax of A Few Good Men—hyperbolic, but not inaccurate. The military provides a broad variety of opportunities to young adults (with sufficient motivation, discipline, principle) in a manner that ensures some sense of loyalty or general favorability to the state.
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Jacob Thomas Schultz
Army Sergeant, 2003-10
New York, New York
Why did you join the military?
At the time I joined due to a healthy mix of patriotism, needing money for school and getting out of Dodge before I got into irreversible trouble. Looking back, the reality is that I joined because I didn’t know any better.
Can you share a little about your experience on deployment or at a duty station? What was day-to-day life like?
I had a unique deployment experience. For my first deployment it was run-of-the-mill daily patrols both dismounted and mounted. I operated out of Camp Airborne way up in the foothills of the Himalayas, Hindu Kush side, middle of nowhere. If I remember correctly, we were technically attached to an SF [Special Forces] team but we hardly ever went with them on missions. However, we mostly did daily patrols in support of their mission, whatever that means. For my second deployment I was the senior line medic for the entire battalion. This meant I was supposed to fly from company to company and help set up their aid stations and help on daily patrols when needed. It was a position that was created for me personally both because the battalion needed something like this but also because my leadership wanted to punish me. They had no idea what to do with a loudmouthed anti-authority personality type. So I flew all over the country. Mazar-e-Sharif, Bala Murghab, Helmand, Arghandab. It was in the Arghandab where we ran into the most trouble, though. We had something like a 33 percent casualty rate in that valley—I’m told it was one of the highest casualty rates in the whole twenty-year war. So that was pretty rough. I almost exclusively went on dismounted patrols every single day, sometimes twice a day. We would get intel from a local or the eye in the sky and go check it out. Mostly weapons caches or potential bombs or landmines. A lot of the time we did movement to contact patrols. This is a fancy military term for go walk in circles until you get shot at and then shoot back. We got into a lot of little fire fights but we mostly lost guys to landmines. We lost 28 guys in the valley, and as of last month, thirty to suicide. Damn the valley.
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
This is a lesson I relearn every day, but I started learning it in the military. The more you learn the less you know. And I learned a lot in the military. Carry a clipboard if you want to look busy. Life is short but it’s the longest thing you’ll ever do. The only thing more important than proper weapons maintenance is proper foot care. Being alone isn’t nearly as lonely as being with people. If you can’t tie a knot, tie a lot. There is no way to go on in a world in which you have no choice but to go on. And finally, eat when you can eat, sleep when you can sleep and shit when you can shit; you’ll never know when you’ll get another chance.
How has being in the military impacted your relationships or social life?
I will be forever intrinsically tied to the military whether I like it or not. Although I left no mark on it, it left its mark on me. Good or bad, the military remains the way people look at me, engage with me, pity me, hate me, respect me.
Has being in the service changed the way you think about the military?
I believe these two polar opposites to be true simultaneously: I hate the military; I love the military. I don’t think I could have come to that conclusion without having served. It seems most people will fall into “I hate the military” or “I love the military” camps. And that’s fine. But that’s not the best way to look at it.
What is the military for?
The military is good because it is bad. I hate to admit that there are just plain bad people out there but there are. Sometimes these bad people do bad things to themselves but other times they do bad things to others. Sometimes they even do bad things to you, just because you are who you are. And now, I fully understand American imperialism is the primary reason others don’t like us, but it is also true there are just plain bad people in the world. It is only logical and rational to want to defend yourself against bad people. One of the reasons the military not only exists but is good is because it does bad things to bad people.
However, the military is bad because it could be good. Could be great. The military could be used exclusively as a defensive posture, a show of strength against bad people. Unfortunately, the current military is not only a defensive element. Far too often the military attacks, offensively, predatorily, becomes a hammer of capitalism and imperialism, used to secure gains for a few rich and powerful individuals. Far too often the military makes pawns of human beings, relegating them to a life of drug abuse and alcoholism and suicide and self-loathing.
The military could give young people, fit and eager and ready to serve others, a sense of pride and community through developing relationships with civilians and other service members from all over the country, from all different backgrounds, as together they build bridges, repair waterways, provide basic infrastructure needs to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are currently going without these basic rights. Imagine if we spent trillions of dollars fixing our roads, freshwater pipes, bridges, canals, dams, building hospitals, affordable housing tracks, electric railways and stronger internet, all the while giving young soldiers on-the-job training by teaming them up with civilian contractors in their respective fields of specialty. Civilian construction workers won’t lose their jobs, we’d still have the largest and most trained military in the world, young people who look to serve could serve in a way that won’t leave them broken physically and morally and, best of all, we’d still be spending trillions of dollars “on defense,” which is practically our entire economy at this point.
Maybe defense is the best answer, defense is what the military is for; we just have the wrong idea of what defense looks like.
I’m sorry for ranting. I’m a frozen pizza and a few whiskies deep into my evening so I’m feeling frisky.
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J.G.P. MacAdam
Army Sergeant, 2003-10
Hood River, Oregon
Why did you join the military?
I’ve been asking myself the same question for almost twenty years… and I’ve realized that a little context is required. I was a high school dropout. Working at the local grocery store opposite the rail yard where coal trains still run along the Susquehanna. Living with my mom and sister and niece and nephew in a “charity house” run by the local church. I ran away. To New York City. Half an idea in my head of joining up. What else was I going to do? I visited the block-wide hole in the ground that was the World Trade Center. Then I went to the recruitment office.
Can you share a little about your experience on deployment or at a duty station? What was day-to-day life like?
I have served in many duty stations and forward operating bases. Korea. Washington, D.C. Fort Drum. Afghanistan. And others while working a civilian career in the Department of Defense. The thing that sticks out to me the most about it all is the ID card, or what is called your CAC card. It’s what you log into your work computer with; along with building badges, it’s what gets you in the door. The CAC card, to me, symbolizes what separates military personnel and DoD civilians from the vast majority of Americans and non-Americans who live their lives, knowingly or unknowingly, around hundreds of U.S. military bases across the world. The civil-military divide starts right there. Who has access? Who doesn’t?
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
Wars and militaries and the people who serve in them aren’t all the same. But they are.
How has being in the military impacted your relationships or social life?
Not a lot of people have served in my family. There’s no tradition of military service, so it was actually a surprise to my family when I joined up. But, afterwards, I noticed my sister hanging up one of those award cases I got from Korea in her living room—I’d left it there while I went on to my next duty station, not really caring whether it was stored in an attic or wherever. Why did she want to hang it up, display it, for all visitors to see?
Has being in the service changed the way you think about the military?
I don’t see how it couldn’t. For one thing, what branch, what occupational specialty, what rank you are in the military affects your perception of everyone else in the military. The military is very hierarchical but that hierarchy isn’t necessarily dependent on rank alone. I was infantry. Everyone else—Navy, Air Force, other non-infantry Army or Marine Corps people, regardless of their rank—were pogues, a derogatory term. It’s part of the esprit de corps of the infantry corps to somewhat look down on everyone else in uniform. Because what the infantry goes through—the sleeping-in-the-mud field exercises, the long, hot patrols, the days spent out of the wire, the face-to-face proximity with the enemy and wounds and blood and death—it’s its own form of rank, respect, status. It’s why grunts want to get into a fight. It’s why some people change their occupational specialty, or had been in during the Nineties but then joined back up after 9/11. They want to be where the shooting’s at. Because it’s its own gravitas. And, within the military, itself a fraction of the U.S. population, the people who actually see combat, who sign up for it, are themselves a fraction of a fraction. And though this fraction of a fraction seems to be the one everyone wants to tell stories about, I’ve personally read accounts from Air Force officers, cooks, Navy hospital ship staff, logistics personnel, Marine paper-pushers, men and women of all ranks and specialties, and lemme tell ya they’ve all got stories to tell.
What is something you would want civilians to know about the military?
I’d like civilians to know more about the military’s scope. Not just the military-industrial-congressional complex but the scope of the military’s operations, the countries we, the United States, are operating in, the staggering amount of money, materiel, people employed by the military the world over. Do we, United States citizens—does the world—really need so much American military power? Do we—really?
What is the military for?
Great question. Near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, there’s a welder who’s repairing the armor on an Army truck. What’s the military for—for him? It’s a job. And, also, whenever he lifts his welder’s helmet and sees the Stars and Stripes hanging at the end of the bay, a source of national pride. In Guam, there’s a naval officer looking a little to the northwest, over the Pacific, from the deck of a ship. Toward China. The U.S. military is there, in Guam, and has been for decades, among many other bases across the Pacific, to project U.S. power and to protect U.S. interests from foreign competitors. There’s a general working in the Pentagon in D.C. She’s proud of serving her country. She’s grateful for the opportunity to finish out her career in the Pentagon because think tanks and other private-sector defense firms are by and large located within the Beltway and they’re interviewing. There’s a Marine recruit in San Diego listening to his recruiter tell war stories, hanging on his every word. There’s a Palauan who heads to Hawaii for school, but then decides to join the Army instead. The military, for him, is a path to U.S. citizenship. There’s a college graduate getting her first internship at Fox News. She hears of a story about a war hero who rehabilitates service dogs. She begins a draft report before she’s even interviewed the guy. A kid watches the latest Hollywood war movie. Everyone is excited to attend the air show. Flick on the news—another terrorist leader’s been killed by drone or raid or whatever. Special inside details of the raid. Who was this person and why did he hate the United States?
Image credit: U.S. Department of Defense. Soldiers board an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III during Operation Agile Spartan II at Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait, 2022. Photo by Air Force Technical Sergeant Patrick Evenson.
The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.
Over the winter we sent around a questionnaire asking veterans to reflect on their time in the military: what it meant to them, how it changed them and what they would want civilians to know about it. Below you’ll find a selection of their answers, published with the writers’ permission.
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Corey Barnes
Marine Corps Captain, 2008-14
Hillsboro, Kentucky
Why did you join the military?
I wanted to be a part of something bigger than “a normal job.” I had a few friends from high school who had joined (I went to college first), so it just seemed like a good fit.
Can you share a little about your experience on deployment or at a duty station? What was day-to-day life like?
A lot to unpack here, which I will not. I did three ground combat deployments to Afghanistan. One was pretty rough, another not too bad, and the last was a cakewalk, although I arguably “did the most good” on that deployment. Long story short: day-to-day life on a deployment varies greatly depending on where you are deployed and what you are actually doing. Day-to-day life at a U.S. duty station is largely like a regular job.
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
When dealing with something that matters: if the right way is the hard way, do it the hard way.
How has being in the military impacted your relationships or social life?
Counter to many opinions I have read and heard in recent years, my experiences have made me seek closer relationships. These relationships are not always with family or friends from before my time in the military; I am simply seeking to 1) replace the camaraderie that I lost and 2) enrich other people’s lives in the same way that other service members have enriched mine.
Has being in the service changed the way you think about the military?
Absolutely. I had an idealized vision of what purpose I would be serving when I joined; I did not and still don’t care about politics, but I wanted “to help my fellow Marines” and “make a difference on the front lines.” You can make a personal, individual difference from the places I was in, but nothing further; if I was seeking to make as big of an impact as possible, I misused whatever talents I had. I will not be encouraging my children to join.
What is something you would want civilians to know about the military?
We are not as much of anything as most sources will lead you to believe. We are not all heroes. We are not all even honorable. We are not all depraved. We do not all have PTSD. We are you, with different training.
What is the military for?
The military is for war. Whether creating it or avoiding it, we are used for war. War is used for money and power. Turns out, the individual military members get very little of both. As such, we are the cheapest whores for the richest johns; our values are used as collateral against us; our bodies are abused and obliterated for another’s gain. I would be fine with that if it benefited the citizens of my country in any way. However, my country’s biggest threat currently is tearing itself apart from inside; my service means very little to most people in this country and nothing to my country as a whole.
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Amber McColl
Army Captain, 2010-15
Jersey City, New Jersey
Why did you join the military?
Primary reason was to pay for college (ROTC) and have a career plan for after college. In undergrad I didn’t have any clue what I wanted to do as a career. My family had some military history, so I saw the military as a stable career option and a good way to give back to the country.
Can you share a little about your experience on deployment or at a duty station? What was day-to-day life like?
For most of my military time, I was the leader of all-male platoons and I remember feeling like I was their sister. They looked out for me, helped me learn about their jobs, and pumped me up in front of leadership. I was pretty guarded about my personal life and my guys were respectful of that boundary. During deployment they all got scattered around in two-man teams supporting other platoons, and the most memorable thing was when my platoon sergeant and I did multiweek tours from COP [Combat Outpost] to COP to visit them, do equipment checks, etc. We’d fly around in helicopters and they’d come out to meet us, make sure we had a bunk to crash in, and see us off when we left. They wanted all the guys at their COPs to meet me. Sort of felt like they were proud that I was their leader, in a way. Another memorable thing was when one guy started calling me Ma’amber during a month-long field exercise and it stuck. The first sergeant was pissed.
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
Most important thing I learned is that I can learn to do just about anything, as long as I have access to people who know how to do it. I also learned that the best way to motivate people to do what you need them to do is just to take time with them and get to know them genuinely. Looking back, I feel I was successful because I just approached everybody as a person, not as a subject or a subordinate.
How has being in the military impacted your relationships or social life?
I’m a severe introvert and I’m not sure that military experience has had a lasting impact on that. I will say that, in general, I feel more suspicious of strangers post-military, but that is likely a result of a general practice of being more guarded from military time that I haven’t ever been able to shed.
What is something you would want civilians to know about the military?
I think it would be cool if they knew how much mundane stuff goes on in the military, it isn’t all just rah-rah-rah let’s saddle up and go to war. There are weeks and months of planning logistics, timing, training, etc., for everything from a field exercise to a deployment.
What is the military for?
To deter other nations from wanting to go to war with us, and when there is a war, to fight it.
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Anonymous
Marine Corps Major, 2008-21
New York, New York
Why did you join the military?
To serve my country after 9/11 and fly airplanes.
Can you share a little about your experience on deployment or at a duty station? What was day-to-day life like?
Garrison and deployments were filled with wonderful hardworking people that are all oriented on a common mission. Also, a roller coaster of reactionary behavior and sometimes complete chaos, due to an inability to say no to fluid tasking and too many people needing constant updates. Decentralized execution was not practiced regularly.
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
Families are raising great people that join the military to represent the nation and serve in all ranks. Common goals in the name of national defense, strengthening our way of life and putting better citizens back in our country are deeply cared about. Conversely, technology has made it too easy to demand information which is usually complex and requires time. In the ranks of officers and SNCOs [senior noncommissioned officers] who burn the candle from both ends end up in an unsustainable balance of work/life.
How has being in the military impacted your relationships or social life?
I think an inner circle remains an inner circle and can stand the test of time in or out of the military. This is a result of ease of communication. Overall the military squashed my ability to have consistent personal relationships and social life, and limited time with family due to operational tempo and regular moves around the country.
Has being in the service changed the way you think about the military?
Yes, of course. It’s easy to see something on the news about military campaigns, exercises, battles or peacekeeping. As a leader, when you take part in the organization, planning, execution and sustainment of military operations, you see the human factors, the time it takes, the demands and the sweat and blood people put into it. If anything, I’ve become more appreciative and humbled by what service members do for the United States.
What is something you would want civilians to know about the military?
The United States has service members, assets and capabilities all over the world. Some of these locations are austere, some are comfortable, and others are unique that will be formative in their lives. But we have a volunteer force that is critical in keeping a stable world and they sacrifice their time, sometimes their lives, in order to support that. I think the continued recognition of putting a pause on a “normal” life in the States is important to always acknowledge.
What is the military for?
Peacekeeping, deterrence, humanitarian aid, world stability and in times when diplomacy fails, to bend the will of state and non-state actors as deemed by Congress, in order to preserve our national interests and way of life.
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Leo Farley
Army Specialist, 1969-71
New York, New York
Why did you join the military?
In my case, I was drafted just three months before the lottery was instituted. Joining the military during that time would have never crossed my mind.
Can you share a little about your experience on deployment or at a duty station? What was day-to-day life like?
I did one tour in Vietnam. I was fortunate to be awarded an MOS 72B20 (Comm Center Specialist) Teletype Operator right after basic training. I later went on to be assigned to an Autosevocom (Secure Voice) unit or detachment and earned top-secret clearance. It was a six-day-a-week, twelve-hour-a-day job with guard duty every nine days. A lot of tedium, occasional mortar attacks on the compound, incessant heat. Mosquitoes were probably my biggest enemy. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my high school typing teacher: my 75-word-a-minute typing skills kept me out of harm’s way. From the first day I arrived until the last day when I departed, I made many friends and many memories, good and bad. Camaraderie was the thing that stood out most for me. A sense of family and purpose.
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
My success in life has always involved “collaboration” from my time in the service to this day. That collaborative effort has served me well choosing a life in the theater and the arts.
Has being in the service changed the way you think about the military?
Well, when I entered the military, I was nineteen, a civilian at heart and drafted. It was never my idea. But my sense of duty and patriotism prevailed, and I served my country and was honorably discharged. I was no fan of the draft back then but think now that if the draft stayed in effect, perhaps we wouldn’t have the follies of Iraq and Afghanistan, or they might have been shortened affairs. I think the politicians would have heard it from the voters and we wouldn’t have been involved for such a long period of time in both conflicts.
What is something you would want civilians to know about the military?
I think civilians often forget that it is a voluntary situation, and soldiers need the support of their fellow citizens. It is important to remember that they are still our sons and daughters, doing a job that most of us wouldn’t want to do. And they are doing it for us.
What is the military for?
To protect and defend the United States of America against all enemies, domestic and foreign. I still am a believer in that pure concept.
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Thomas Hobbs
Marine Corps Colonel, 1991-2018
Springfield, Virginia
Why did you join the military?
I joined because I wanted a challenge, was hungry for action and liked knowing what I would be doing after college from the moment I graduated high school. I did not join out of altruism or any sense of patriotism. I remained in the Marine Corps for 28 years because I loved leading and being around Marines, I was able to financially care for my family and I was good at my job.
Admittedly, remaining as long as I did had as much to do with inertia than anything else; I fell into a groove and it was easier to stay in than to get out. I was never “gung-ho” and blinded by love for the Marine Corps as an institution. I did love my Marines, though, and was addicted to building a team and helping people reach their potential. To further illustrate my self-interest and lack of altruism, I did not believe we should have invaded Iraq, but I wanted to go to war to test myself and be with my teammates anyway. Once there, I fought because that is what we do and my comrades relied on me.
Can you share a little about your experience on deployment or at a duty station? What was day-to-day life like?
I miss being on a team in combat. Combat is simple. We ate because we needed to refuel, not because we were bored. We slept because we were exhausted, not because it was bedtime. Everything was raw, purposeful and fundamental. Even laughing and crying. Adjusting to life outside the military, much less outside of combat, has been difficult for me. I miss the thrill, the purpose and the intense camaraderie with my teammates. Life now is empty and boring.
On one of my deployments, seventeen of our people were killed from our battalion. I was responsible for identifying remains, coordinating transfer of the dead and wounded, capturing the circumstances of the situation that led to the casualties and describing the wounds or cause of death. What is memorable to me is how a person with a past, a unique psyche and hopes for the future can at one moment occupy space with their personality and then turn into an unanimated mess of butchered meat the next. That person is just gone. I am not sad or upset about what I have seen or done. I don’t have nightmares. However, the finality, randomness and proximity of death is something that stays with me all the time.
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
I’ve learned many lessons on how to lead and inspire people. I’ve learned what to do and what not to do in developing a team. I think, however, my biggest lesson is how the Marine Corps and military fit into broader society. Without a draft and with an all-volunteer force and reliance on contractors, the average American has no interest in how and when military force is employed unless the nation is embarrassed like it was over the pullout from Afghanistan. But where were the American people when we talked of invading Iraq or Afghanistan? Where were they when we reached ten years of war, or when the Afghanistan Papers were released? Political leaders are not held in check by the American people because they have no skin in the game. America needs to implement a war tax to pay for our wars and to make Americans truly invested in going to war, staying in war and ending war. Without that, the military will continue to be employed too easily.
How has being in the military impacted your relationships or social life?
The military was my social life. Time away from home made me appreciate my family. Since I knew time was precious, I managed to focus on quality of time spent with my spouse and children, not quantity. However, since retiring three years ago, my relationship with my wife and kids has been under more strain than at any other time in our thirty-year marriage. The loss of purpose in my professional life has led to loss of clarity on who I am and how I interact with my family at home. Family has not been able to replace the hole that professional purpose once filled.
Has being in the service changed the way you think about the military?
Serving in the military has definitely changed the way I think about the military, especially with Trump and with the Black Lives Matter movement. Military members should be apolitical with loyalty to the Constitution. However, Trump has made being apolitical extremely hard, especially juxtaposed against BLM and social justice. Racism and extremism are being exposed in the military, but instead of uniformly condemning it, military members are picking sides. I’ve come to really understand how dangerous a threat a politicized military is to our democracy.
What is something you would want civilians to know about the military?
That despite our tendency to lean right and be conservative, there are many, many military members who are not. Unfortunately, progressive leaders tend not to make it to the top since inter-military politics is still very much driven by the “good old boy” network at that level. I always want civilians to realize that the only segment of American society that truly lives a socialist life are career military members. I worked for “the man,” and in return I was given free housing, free utilities, tax-free groceries, tax-free gas, schooling for my kids, medical, dental and a pension. Civilians should remind those military members who reflexively recoil from socialism that they are the only ones who actually live it.
What is the military for?
The military exists to continue political aims after diplomacy has failed.
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Hunter Lu
Army Specialist, 2005-09
New York, New York
Why did you join the military?
Boredom, a desire for something new, different and challenging. I was a subpar student surrounded by peers in an area where academic and college achievement was hammered into us at an early age. White-collar, tech, medical jobs were the norm, especially for Asian Americans like myself. I wanted nothing to do with any of that. I’d always been an avid reader and military-history nerd, so most of my friends weren’t that surprised when I randomly enlisted after high school.
Can you share a little about your experience on deployment or at a duty station? What was day-to-day life like?
Honestly, I hated being stateside (Fort Lewis, Washington) in the Army. Garrison life was profoundly stale and rigid, which in hindsight seemed pretty obvious. Even though I have mixed feelings about America’s overseas wars, the most memorable moments in the Army for me were in Iraq. My job in intelligence required me to live and work with the locals (from the Iraqi army to civilians and militias). I enjoyed that close interaction with another culture and working toward goals despite our obvious differences.
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
Discipline. I was a fairly lazy kid before the Army. The Army gave me the tools and experience to self-motivate. Also, an appreciation for the small things and to be thankful.
How has being in the military impacted your relationships or social life?
Confidence is probably the biggest thing. As a Chinese American man growing up in America, even in the liberal Bay Area, I faced a lot of stereotypes. Nerd, weak, good at math, asexual, basically a buffet of mostly unflattering perceptions. The Army took me out of my shell and gave me the confidence and life/social skills to tackle things as an adult. I don’t think I would be as confident in myself if I had gone the more “traditional” route of going to college after high school and landed a white-collar/STEM job.
Has being in the service changed the way you think about the military?
As a naïve eighteen-year-old, I thought everyone in the military was this extremely brave, moral and professional soldier. That is definitely not the case. This belief was probably a combination of American propaganda and the yearnings of a young man looking for purpose and adventure. As an adult, the military is just like the civilian world: some people are good while others suck.
What is something you would want civilians to know about the military?
We’re not all straight white males from the South. We have different goals and beliefs. And we’re not all hardcore conservatives.
What is the military for?
By definition the military is for defending the nation. Whether the military has actually done that is open to debate. I think a bigger factor is that the volunteer military has become a way for people to climb the socioeconomic ladder. Or in my case, to reinvent yourself.
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The Lady, Reverend Corporal Austin D. Burke
Marine Corps Corporal, 2012-15
Danbury, Connecticut
Why did you join the military?
I was raised within the fundamentalist Christian Bob Jones University school system, but grew quite dissonant there. I was expelled at the start of my final year of high school, took the GED and enrolled at a community college with a scholarship. There, for the first time meaningfully apart from the dogmas which had structured my behavior, I quickly spiraled into an indulgent pattern of psychoactive drug abuse and general self-harm—culminating when I nearly harmed someone who, in an effort to care for me, tried to stand in my path. That evening, horrified at what I saw myself becoming, I destroyed my stockpile of various psychoactive substances. Two days later, I enlisted in the Marine Corps. I sought secular discipline—and, to the greatest extent possible, discipline not bound up in any particular ideological commitment. For this reason, I avoided any position I perceived to require significant intellective involvement and pursued the role of field artillery cannoneer.
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
Through pain comes discipline. Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional. I am better dissatisfied, striving to support another, than satisfied in my apparent adequacy for myself.
How has being in the military impacted your relationships or social life?
My experiences in the Marine Corps foreclosed many possible friendships thereafter, as so many casual relationships appear hollow and insincere by contrast. This is somewhat difficult to articulate. I have nowhere else encountered a comparable sort of unconditional trust and mutuality—preceding ideological or preferential disparities—where posturing and niceties were not expected but mocked, where stark honesty appeared fundamental to close relations rather than as an alienating threat.
Has being in the service changed the way you think about the military?
Without exception—harms, benefits and banalities. Without direct experience, “the military” seems to be metonymic for one’s broadest conceptions of extroverted state power.
What is something you would want civilians to know about the military?
That the military is neither a conventionally virtuous collective of patriots nor a jingoistic frat house of the uncritically minded; the circumstantially palpable truths of precarity and finitude don’t permit either sort of bullshit.
What is the military for?
I would cite the speech that Jack Nicholson (as Colonel Jessup) delivers at the climax of A Few Good Men—hyperbolic, but not inaccurate. The military provides a broad variety of opportunities to young adults (with sufficient motivation, discipline, principle) in a manner that ensures some sense of loyalty or general favorability to the state.
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Jacob Thomas Schultz
Army Sergeant, 2003-10
New York, New York
Why did you join the military?
At the time I joined due to a healthy mix of patriotism, needing money for school and getting out of Dodge before I got into irreversible trouble. Looking back, the reality is that I joined because I didn’t know any better.
Can you share a little about your experience on deployment or at a duty station? What was day-to-day life like?
I had a unique deployment experience. For my first deployment it was run-of-the-mill daily patrols both dismounted and mounted. I operated out of Camp Airborne way up in the foothills of the Himalayas, Hindu Kush side, middle of nowhere. If I remember correctly, we were technically attached to an SF [Special Forces] team but we hardly ever went with them on missions. However, we mostly did daily patrols in support of their mission, whatever that means. For my second deployment I was the senior line medic for the entire battalion. This meant I was supposed to fly from company to company and help set up their aid stations and help on daily patrols when needed. It was a position that was created for me personally both because the battalion needed something like this but also because my leadership wanted to punish me. They had no idea what to do with a loudmouthed anti-authority personality type. So I flew all over the country. Mazar-e-Sharif, Bala Murghab, Helmand, Arghandab. It was in the Arghandab where we ran into the most trouble, though. We had something like a 33 percent casualty rate in that valley—I’m told it was one of the highest casualty rates in the whole twenty-year war. So that was pretty rough. I almost exclusively went on dismounted patrols every single day, sometimes twice a day. We would get intel from a local or the eye in the sky and go check it out. Mostly weapons caches or potential bombs or landmines. A lot of the time we did movement to contact patrols. This is a fancy military term for go walk in circles until you get shot at and then shoot back. We got into a lot of little fire fights but we mostly lost guys to landmines. We lost 28 guys in the valley, and as of last month, thirty to suicide. Damn the valley.
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
This is a lesson I relearn every day, but I started learning it in the military. The more you learn the less you know. And I learned a lot in the military. Carry a clipboard if you want to look busy. Life is short but it’s the longest thing you’ll ever do. The only thing more important than proper weapons maintenance is proper foot care. Being alone isn’t nearly as lonely as being with people. If you can’t tie a knot, tie a lot. There is no way to go on in a world in which you have no choice but to go on. And finally, eat when you can eat, sleep when you can sleep and shit when you can shit; you’ll never know when you’ll get another chance.
How has being in the military impacted your relationships or social life?
I will be forever intrinsically tied to the military whether I like it or not. Although I left no mark on it, it left its mark on me. Good or bad, the military remains the way people look at me, engage with me, pity me, hate me, respect me.
Has being in the service changed the way you think about the military?
I believe these two polar opposites to be true simultaneously: I hate the military; I love the military. I don’t think I could have come to that conclusion without having served. It seems most people will fall into “I hate the military” or “I love the military” camps. And that’s fine. But that’s not the best way to look at it.
What is the military for?
The military is good because it is bad. I hate to admit that there are just plain bad people out there but there are. Sometimes these bad people do bad things to themselves but other times they do bad things to others. Sometimes they even do bad things to you, just because you are who you are. And now, I fully understand American imperialism is the primary reason others don’t like us, but it is also true there are just plain bad people in the world. It is only logical and rational to want to defend yourself against bad people. One of the reasons the military not only exists but is good is because it does bad things to bad people.
However, the military is bad because it could be good. Could be great. The military could be used exclusively as a defensive posture, a show of strength against bad people. Unfortunately, the current military is not only a defensive element. Far too often the military attacks, offensively, predatorily, becomes a hammer of capitalism and imperialism, used to secure gains for a few rich and powerful individuals. Far too often the military makes pawns of human beings, relegating them to a life of drug abuse and alcoholism and suicide and self-loathing.
The military could give young people, fit and eager and ready to serve others, a sense of pride and community through developing relationships with civilians and other service members from all over the country, from all different backgrounds, as together they build bridges, repair waterways, provide basic infrastructure needs to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are currently going without these basic rights. Imagine if we spent trillions of dollars fixing our roads, freshwater pipes, bridges, canals, dams, building hospitals, affordable housing tracks, electric railways and stronger internet, all the while giving young soldiers on-the-job training by teaming them up with civilian contractors in their respective fields of specialty. Civilian construction workers won’t lose their jobs, we’d still have the largest and most trained military in the world, young people who look to serve could serve in a way that won’t leave them broken physically and morally and, best of all, we’d still be spending trillions of dollars “on defense,” which is practically our entire economy at this point.
Maybe defense is the best answer, defense is what the military is for; we just have the wrong idea of what defense looks like.
I’m sorry for ranting. I’m a frozen pizza and a few whiskies deep into my evening so I’m feeling frisky.
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J.G.P. MacAdam
Army Sergeant, 2003-10
Hood River, Oregon
Why did you join the military?
I’ve been asking myself the same question for almost twenty years… and I’ve realized that a little context is required. I was a high school dropout. Working at the local grocery store opposite the rail yard where coal trains still run along the Susquehanna. Living with my mom and sister and niece and nephew in a “charity house” run by the local church. I ran away. To New York City. Half an idea in my head of joining up. What else was I going to do? I visited the block-wide hole in the ground that was the World Trade Center. Then I went to the recruitment office.
Can you share a little about your experience on deployment or at a duty station? What was day-to-day life like?
I have served in many duty stations and forward operating bases. Korea. Washington, D.C. Fort Drum. Afghanistan. And others while working a civilian career in the Department of Defense. The thing that sticks out to me the most about it all is the ID card, or what is called your CAC card. It’s what you log into your work computer with; along with building badges, it’s what gets you in the door. The CAC card, to me, symbolizes what separates military personnel and DoD civilians from the vast majority of Americans and non-Americans who live their lives, knowingly or unknowingly, around hundreds of U.S. military bases across the world. The civil-military divide starts right there. Who has access? Who doesn’t?
What lessons, if any, have you learned from your time in the military?
Wars and militaries and the people who serve in them aren’t all the same. But they are.
How has being in the military impacted your relationships or social life?
Not a lot of people have served in my family. There’s no tradition of military service, so it was actually a surprise to my family when I joined up. But, afterwards, I noticed my sister hanging up one of those award cases I got from Korea in her living room—I’d left it there while I went on to my next duty station, not really caring whether it was stored in an attic or wherever. Why did she want to hang it up, display it, for all visitors to see?
Has being in the service changed the way you think about the military?
I don’t see how it couldn’t. For one thing, what branch, what occupational specialty, what rank you are in the military affects your perception of everyone else in the military. The military is very hierarchical but that hierarchy isn’t necessarily dependent on rank alone. I was infantry. Everyone else—Navy, Air Force, other non-infantry Army or Marine Corps people, regardless of their rank—were pogues, a derogatory term. It’s part of the esprit de corps of the infantry corps to somewhat look down on everyone else in uniform. Because what the infantry goes through—the sleeping-in-the-mud field exercises, the long, hot patrols, the days spent out of the wire, the face-to-face proximity with the enemy and wounds and blood and death—it’s its own form of rank, respect, status. It’s why grunts want to get into a fight. It’s why some people change their occupational specialty, or had been in during the Nineties but then joined back up after 9/11. They want to be where the shooting’s at. Because it’s its own gravitas. And, within the military, itself a fraction of the U.S. population, the people who actually see combat, who sign up for it, are themselves a fraction of a fraction. And though this fraction of a fraction seems to be the one everyone wants to tell stories about, I’ve personally read accounts from Air Force officers, cooks, Navy hospital ship staff, logistics personnel, Marine paper-pushers, men and women of all ranks and specialties, and lemme tell ya they’ve all got stories to tell.
What is something you would want civilians to know about the military?
I’d like civilians to know more about the military’s scope. Not just the military-industrial-congressional complex but the scope of the military’s operations, the countries we, the United States, are operating in, the staggering amount of money, materiel, people employed by the military the world over. Do we, United States citizens—does the world—really need so much American military power? Do we—really?
What is the military for?
Great question. Near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, there’s a welder who’s repairing the armor on an Army truck. What’s the military for—for him? It’s a job. And, also, whenever he lifts his welder’s helmet and sees the Stars and Stripes hanging at the end of the bay, a source of national pride. In Guam, there’s a naval officer looking a little to the northwest, over the Pacific, from the deck of a ship. Toward China. The U.S. military is there, in Guam, and has been for decades, among many other bases across the Pacific, to project U.S. power and to protect U.S. interests from foreign competitors. There’s a general working in the Pentagon in D.C. She’s proud of serving her country. She’s grateful for the opportunity to finish out her career in the Pentagon because think tanks and other private-sector defense firms are by and large located within the Beltway and they’re interviewing. There’s a Marine recruit in San Diego listening to his recruiter tell war stories, hanging on his every word. There’s a Palauan who heads to Hawaii for school, but then decides to join the Army instead. The military, for him, is a path to U.S. citizenship. There’s a college graduate getting her first internship at Fox News. She hears of a story about a war hero who rehabilitates service dogs. She begins a draft report before she’s even interviewed the guy. A kid watches the latest Hollywood war movie. Everyone is excited to attend the air show. Flick on the news—another terrorist leader’s been killed by drone or raid or whatever. Special inside details of the raid. Who was this person and why did he hate the United States?
Image credit: U.S. Department of Defense. Soldiers board an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III during Operation Agile Spartan II at Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait, 2022. Photo by Air Force Technical Sergeant Patrick Evenson.
The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.
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