Forum Veterans

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Today is Veterans Day. I would like to make a tribute to the Veteran's of this forum. Would all Veterans that are members of this forum, please post a picture of yourselves in Uniform, and the Branch of Service and years you served. yJust one will do. I will collect the photos and make a specific thread as a tribute.

This is not country specific, you do not have to be an American Veteran. All of our veterans here on the forum deserve our recognition and honor.

I will post mine up later tonight after I get home from class.

Thanks everyone, and I hope we get some good participation.

 

[N4521U]

USN, 1961-'64
HS-4 '63-'64
***USS Yorktown CVS-10 '63

***Never blazed any trails. I enlisted during high school and was in boot camp eleven days after graduation at 17 and was due to be discharged the day before turning 21. I was finally discharged on April Fools Day 1964 just before HS-4 was sent of to Viet Nam to serve in ASR, Air Sea Rescue. A pilot and crewman were lost at sea during that time. The crewman I am sure I served with. I feel sometimes I was lucky, other times I wish I could have served.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Picture?

Also everyone. I know that a Veteran typically is defined as someone who has been in combat. Not for this however. If you have served, you were willing to put your life at risk.

So if you have served in the military period, please take part in this.Picture and service info. If you were assigned to a ship, or took part in specific campaigns you can give me that info as well.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I thought there would be more interest in this.

Guess not...

I will close up the thread and move on.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Due to a request by a forum member, I have reopened the thread.

Let's see if we get some participation.

 

[Airframes]

Parachute Regiment, 1969 to 1976, followed by active reserve. And heck, I'm getting old - got my 'Wings' 43 years ago, on Friday, 13th November, 1970. And there's a story behind that date too!

 

[parsifal]

iI dont have a photo here 9at work, but will post one when i get home

RAN 1974-83

Officer training 1974-6
PWO Training 1976-7
Junior officer HMAS Melbourne 1978-81
Patrol Boats (Sub Lt) : 1982
Volunteer Antarctic Supply Ship : Rescued by my old ship the Melbourne
Discharged (medical); late 1983

Depaertment Of Defence Consultant and Training : 1983-90 Department of Defence

Been out since then but always interested in Defence affairs

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

I believe this was taken just before Iraqi Freedom kicked off. We were already in country.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Info on units, years of service?

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

Served in the US Active Army from 1982 to 1996. My first unit was with 3rd and 10th Inf. 5 Division Mechanized, out of Ft. Polk, LA. There for one year. Then assigned to the 25th Division (L) for three years with the 1st 27th Inf. Wolfhounds. This was in Hawaii and we specialized in Anti-Guerrilla, Guerrilla warfare. Later was transferred to the 7th Inf. Division (L) at Ft. Ord, CA. Was here for over 7 years and it was from here that our unit was deployed to Panama to get Noriega. A little later we were deployed again for the Rodney King riots. Finished up as a Recruiter in Provo UT. with the 6th Recruiting Battalion. Was rifted out of the Army in 1996 and joined the Air Guard in 1997 in an effort to gain experience on aircraft and use my avionics degree, not to mention finish my 20 years. Assigned to the 120th AGS (Aircraft Generation Squadron). Deployed to Iraq for Iraqi Freedom in March of 2003. I knew something was up when our planes, F-16s, started coming back empty. We were part of the 410 ELG. Returned later in the year and retired.

 

[parsifal]

Youve been around NFN

 

[tomo pauk]

There is no picture of me on a digital media that I'm aware of, will try to scan one or two of 'regular' ones.

Served in the JNA (Yugoslav People's Army) from Sept 1990 until Aug 1991. Trained (as DaveB knows well ) on 30mm automatic SP AAA gun (on Czech produced Praga trucks, with some armor) as loader, gunner and commander; also trained as infantry ('once the war starts, we are unlikely to have so many Pragas as much as we have the crews, so you will most likely serve as infantry' - we were told). Took part in war against Slovenia (10-day war, July/June 1991), my light anti-aircraft regiment being based in Ljubljana.
I've took flight from JNA in August 1991 (as most of Croats did back then) and started my 1st year of university. Dropped from there within a year, and was called in the Croatian army in March 1993. Served as a member of 126th brigade (infantry) until October of 1993. Called again for Operation 'Storm', served through August of 1995.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Some of you gents have been busy!

 

[FLYBOYJ]

VP-65, USNR 1996-2002

 

[tomo pauk]

Thanks for the like, people. Indeed, some of the members were quite busy.

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

You know what might be fun is hearing some stories from people's time in service.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I will get my pic and info up tomorrow. Been busy with school stuff.

Lets get some more participation. In order for this thing to work, we need as many veterans and soldiers/former soldiers to participate.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Ok folks, I've nothing inspiring to show, seems I stopped taking pics of me after I'd left training. Anyway, thought I'd give you all a bit of a laugh at 'sprog me'.

Joining the RAF in May 1959, my service was officially for 12 years but taking in training and by youth I was there for almost 15 years and departed in October 1974.

The year is early 1959 and I was just 15½ and what was then caller a Boy Entrant. This was an intense period of learning a trade (I was in supply), there were lots of drill lessons, seemingly more that trade lessons, we ended up doing a 20 minute silent drill display at one of the passing out parades. Anyway my entry into the real 'mans service' as it was referred to at the time came when I was a full 16 years old, which was still too young in the eyes of the powers that be for me to be given my full rank of…………….wait for it…………….Senior Aircraftsman, so I was just a plain old AC serving at a front line fighter station in Suffolk where for two years I was excited by the thunder of English Electric Lightning's shattering the air both night and day. While I was there we had the 56 Squadron Lightning's performing as the 'Firebirds Aerobatic Display Team.

Come the age of almost 19 and by then no longer considered a 'sprog', they shipped me off to the Aden Peninsular in defence of the Empire. For two years I was, along with about 20.000 others, the target of some very irate Arabs hell bent on gaining independence from our mighty empire!! As far as I was concerned, they could have the place, stinking hot, highly humid and not a blade of grass to be seen. The fanfare of my arrival in Aden was somewhat overshadowed some 7 days later by the assassination of John F Kennedy and this in turn was overshadowed just before Christmas 1963 by the attempted assassination of the British High Commissioner to Aden, his life was saved by the Deputy High Commissioner who sacrificed himself by diving onto the grenade lobbed at the gathering.

After the events of that two year stint of seemingly endless guard duties, my following years seemed somewhat mundane, This time I was at a flying training unit in the South West of England, plenty of grass down this way and smack next to the ocean. Nothing wrong with this posting, the south west was and most likely still is the holiday Mecca of England, I was working in the north of the county (Devon) and my folks lived in the south. I had it made, chasing chicks and boozing during the week nights and using my folks home as a base to troll the hot spots of Torquay, Plymouth and all points between at the weekend. They were good times.

All good things come to an end though and I next found myself up in Lincolnshire at the RAF College, not as an officer cadet but just another of the 'erks' who did all the work. Life changed dramatically here, it was back to some discipline, couldn't have the 'erks' not having regular parades, this was the college, we had standards to upkeep. I also got hitched while here and started a family. Like I said, it was life changing and we lived some 23k from the base but as it was a married quarters patch, transport was provided to take us to and from work the bus being left on the patch overnight. Like I have said, parades on a Saturday morning were the monthly event even in the depth of winter and onetime with the snow some 2 feet thick on the ground word came through on the Friday that the parade would still be held, they had even had us out clearing a patch of snow on the aircraft apron. Someone very quietly that night let all the air out of the bus tyres. So no parade for us that day, but as a consequence the bus was never left overnight again.

From her I was posted with family in tow to Cyprus, this was in April 1971 and was almost like a 3 year holiday on this lovely Mediterranean island. Grog was cheap especially brandy (10/- a demijohn), fags were cheap, food was good and one could go for a swim every lunchtime. Groups of us would spend the weekend on the beach or just disco the nights away. This was before the Turkish invasion and the whole Island was open to our exploration, they had some fantastic open beaches (sadly now though most are all hemmed in with skyscrapers). The Limassol annual wine festival was always a treat, going for a couple of weeks in late August and early September, a time of perpetual hangover and hell at work during the week. It was a sad day when we left the island.

As for my last posting, It was Training Command again, this time very near Chequers (the British Prime ministers country residence) which was our responsibility to keep functioning. It so happened that my boss here was a former corporal under my Father in the mid 1950's and my dad had done him a couple of big favours at a time when life in the RAF was not so good (politicians interfering again). Needless to say my time here though short was a breeze. Three weeks after leaving and on demob leave but still officially in service, I was in Saudi Arabia working as an expat with the then British Aircraft Corporation.

 

[Wayne Little]

Excellent, look forward to reading up on you Guys...

 

[Angels one-five]

I thought I'd add my piece to the forum mix!

A quick pic from the Prairies of Suffield in Canada when I was commanding an Armoured Infantry Company.

My service spanned one Navy, two armies and 22 years...

I joined the Royal Navy in Jan 1988 as a Midshipman as a pilot hopeful. After a term at Dartmouth, I moved to flying grading and the Chipmunk and after 14 or so hours, the Royal Navy wisely decided that I would probably kill myself and more importantly damage aircraft if I continued into flying training proper. Therefore I shifted into the mainstream Seaman officer branch and completed a further two terms at Dartmouth before moving to my first ship for Fleet Time - Junior officer makey-learney time - onboard HMS Hecate, a survey ship. My final medical at Dartmouth had picked up that my eyesight had begun to deteriorate and during Fleet Time, I was deemed to be visually unfit for bridge watchkeeping duties (despite Nelson only having one eye!) and was unable to continue in the Seaman branch (particularly annoying was the fact that I had put in for fleet time on small ships to get onto Type 21 Frigates, then regularly part of the West Indies Guardship rotation, and the order to stop training came through days after my drafting notice to HMS Arrow which was taking over as WIGS!). Options in the RN for me were then limited to the Supply and Secretariat branch (which was overborne in any case) and the Air Traffic Control branch (which didn't appeal), so the Navy and I parted company amicably in June 1990.

Being shortsighted, I naturally felt drawn to a career where you could be blind, so joined the Army... I arrived at Sandhurst in May 1991 to commence Army officer training (similar to RN officer training but with more shouting and fewer parties). I commissioned from Sandhurst into 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Wales in April 1992 and after Platoon Commanders Battle Course joined my Battalion at Stanley Fort in Hong Kong in August 1992. Five months after joining them, the Battalion moved back to UK on completion of 2 years in the Colony and we settled in to life in Shropshire - a poor exchange after Hong Kong - and started focusing on preparation for Northern Ireland. We also filled in roles as Spearhead Battalion, I spent time in the Falklands as part of the Reinforced Infantry Company and went to Jamaica on exercise. In July 1994, we moved to Ballykelly in Northern Ireland as a Residential Battalion, with rifle companies rotating between Ops1, Ops2, Guards and leave/ training roles. A good period, which coincided with the first ceasefire and allowed us to get out and see a bit more of the Province. I posted out of the Battalion in June 1995 and spent the next 18 months as a training platoon commander at the Infantry Training Centre Catterick.

From Catterick I promoted to Captain and attended the Dismounted Recce Commanders course before returning to Battalion as the Recce Platoon Commander. The Battalion was now back on the mainland and filling a role as a Public Duties Battalion, so not much recce, but lots of time at Windsor, Buckingham Palace and The Tower of London. We managed a lengthy exercise in the US which allowed us to get some soldiering in, but Public Duties was the very unpopular focus!

From Hounslow, we re-roled as an Armoured Infantry Battalion and moved to Paderborn, Germany. I also moved from Recce to be the Battalion G2. We arrived in Paderborn in late 1997, locked up the vehicles and began Northern Ireland Training before taking over as the East Tyrone Battalion in '98. We had a successful tour, which was overshadowed by the tragedy of the Omagh bombing in our neighbouring AO. At the end of that tour, I attended my Junior Staff course and was posted to HQ 3rd Division for my first staff post as part of the UK element of the ACE Mobile Force Land (AMF(L)). AMF(L) was a hoot - winter in Norway and Summer in Greece, with occasional easter exercises in Eastern Europe in then PfP nations. I promoted to Major at AMF(L) and was selected for staff college. I had 6 months to kill so managed to get released for ops and went to Bosnia, working with the Office of the High rep in Sarajevo and living outside the wire in downtown Sarajevo. Good times!

Two years at staff college followed by another two at MoD and then I rejoined 1 RRW, this time in Iraq on Op TELIC 6. I caught the last three months of that tour and then settled into life in Tidworth, went to Canada on Armoured exercises and then began Iraq training again (with an amalgamation with 1 RWF thrown in for good measure). We deployed to Iraq on Op TELIC 10 in May 07 (15 months after recovering from Telic 6) and had a fairly fruity tour. I left the Battalion for the last time in September 07 and took up my final job in the British Army instructing on the Junior staff course. During the preceding year, I had picked up an opportunity to move to the Australian Defence Force, so in Aug 2008, exchanged my beret for a slouch hat and transferred to the ADF.

I spent 12 months at the School of Infantry in Singleton before deploying to East Timor as part of the JTF HQ, which was a fantastic experience. On completion, I moved to my final posting with the Defence Materiel Organisation in Melbourne. Unfortunately Oz didn't pan out as well as I had hoped, and my wife got terribly homesick and wanted to move back to UK, so I reluctantly discharged from the ADF in Aug 2011 and even more reluctantly headed back north.

I look back on all of my time in uniform with great fondness and although I am not sorry to now be out of uniform, I do miss some aspects of service life which simply don't exist on the outside. I haven't moved too far from the military however and I now work for a defence engineering company