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I think I mentioned being "in the club" before.
Willard puts in distinct levels, but it boils down to "are you a veteran or not?" and "have you been shot at or not?"
There's things you can talk about with other people in "the club" that you can't or won't with people who aren't.
This post reminded me of a time.
A car guy friend's dad was a Korean War vet.
We started comparing notes about how different our respective Army was and then we started comparing notes to decide which club membership level we were at.
Once that was established, we got to talking about shared experiences and such.
His wife, overhearing the topic of conversation wandered in to listen better to this part of her husband that was closed to her for the past... many years.
As soon as he spotted her, he changed topic to cars and didn't return to military stuff.
That ticked her off.
The son asked me about it and I told him it was a frame of reference thing.
You can't explain some of it unless you were there, and if you were, you don't need it explained.
So there's things you can't talk to most people about because they're going to need an explanation that cannot be supplied politely.
He and his step-mom didn't like that explanation, but they accepted it.
Where on the club membership level does "endured multiple SCUD alerts during OIF 1" fall?
ReplyDeleteDuring DESERT STORM before the ground offensive, I was too far forward to worry about SCUDs. Iraqi artillery, OTOH, was a distinct possibility....
Above just being a veteran and below actual combat veteran.
DeleteBeing in the same theater as the combat often elevates the status a bit.
I've seen Nam vets who were infantry and in contact with the enemy be open with my father in law who was just a crewman on a refrigerator ship that put into Vietnam.
The closest Bubba got was seeing some explosions from Sappers while docked.
The stratus layers are VERY nebulous.
DeleteBeing a veteran let me into the big club. My idiotic side trip into the silly world of three-letter agencies let me into a smaller club. For the record, Senator, the Green Beret you assigned me to could have learned everything about tanks in an afternoon that I brought to the event. I, on the other hand, did NOT learn even 1% of what that Green Beret knew and I should not have been sent along.
In case that was confusing, some group of Senators decided that the CIA and DIA weren't competent and that the Green Beret's they were sending to places didn't understand what they were doing. So, to a politician, a tanker would be more qualified to assess Soviet tanks than a Green Beret. So several of us, foolishly, volunteered to do armor assessment without knowing it involved travel and adventure.
DeleteFor just TDY pay.
You put it a lot better than I did... Wife and daughter could not understand when the son-in-law and I could just make that connection with both being combat vets and there were just whole areas that simply do not get discussed with "outsiders"... Took some time, but they get it now. Don't like it, but...
ReplyDeleteI made an exception to the anon comments here. Sign your comments!
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