Vets tell me something that you would remembered by with those you served, me land nav.

[Duncanpup]

Yea my wife got hit on Facebook this morning my last name is Eastern European and and it’s not common. The message was do you know so and so and if so ask him if he still sucks at land navigation, and if so tell him to call me.

It has been what thirty five years since I land nav from that cornfield to the Hardee’s drive through in Fayetteville yet when it was time to navigate always at night it seemed , my airborne infantry platoon brothers were always vocal.

With words like awww come on sarge don’t let the pollack do it we’re going to once again be pulling a Moses and wandering around and my ETS is two years away I need that DD214 sarge or a question to me how in the fuck did you get your EIB, I’d respond back hey shut your lips I found the DZ from the bird I got it under control.

So tell me vets what you would be remembered by from fellow service members that you served with. I’ll call my friend later he lives in Alaska and it seems he is still a sarcastic asshole.

[Glorfindel]

1. I worked as an MS71C30, Admin. Assist./Sec. Stenographer in G2

(intelligence) at a corps-level headquarters in Vietnam. Our boss, full-bird colonel (the G2) was a total stickler for perfection. No misspellings, no strikeovers, no erasures, no errors. Period. If I should be remembered for anything by my fellow service members, it would be for being able to meet this colonel's rigid standards of perfection. He would actually hold finished typing up to a window to make sure there were no mistakes.

Once he made me re-type an entire page because he thought I'd misspelled "subtly." He thought it should be "subtlely." He later admitted that he had been mistaken, but he was sure it could be spelled both ways.

I haven't kept up with anyone with whom I was in the Army, so I have no idea if any of them remember me at all.

[Tetrachloride]

2. One of my father's right hand sergeants said of him:

to new company members, When he say shit, you shit.

They were not joking nor harassing the new members. They were an infantry company in Korea. My father was a veteran from under Patton. The sergeant was impressing that all people will follow the orders of my father.

[70sEraVet]

3. Either way, naked

What I would classify as a silent protest, my shipmates would describe as 'streaking across the quarter deck'. My division officer had revoked my 'civilian clothes privilege', because, in a surprise seabag inspection, I didn't have the appropriate 'uniform of the day' (we had pulled into a warm-climate port in February, and I had my dress whites instead of dress blues - I worked in the boiler rooms, and we never wore dress uniforms anyway). By taking away my 'civilian clothes privilege' for not having the correct 'uniform of the day', my division officer had effectively restricted me to the ship, a punishment that only our captain could give.
I took the only alternative left to me.

[Aristus]

4. My fellow tank crewmen would remember me as that weird guy who liked Shakespeare

and classical music, but could load the main gun lightning-fast. The speed with which I could load those heavy, cumbersome rounds into the gun gave my tank an almost rapid-fire target engagement rate.

[Duncanpup]

5. Did you read about

The old German soldier that had a anti aircraft cannon and tank in his garage. I googled it you don’t have a M1 in your garage do you if so call me will go cruising.

[Aristus]

6. Shoot, I don't even have a CAR in my garage.

The place is so jam-packed with things that Mrs. Aristus can't bear to get rid of.

Yeah, the German guy with the old World War II Panther tank in his basement is well-known among tank enthusiasts. In a way, we owe him a debt of thanks. So few Panthers (and other models like the Panzer III & IV and the Tiger) survived the war. And the ones that did were used for target practice, or left to rust away in the elements as lawn ornaments. German panzers in running condition are so rare as to be worth their weight in gold.

He kept his Panther in reasonably good condition, in out of the elements. And it probably won't take too much work to get it in full running order. Who knows? Maybe someone will make a film along the lines of "Fury" which starred an authentic Tiger tank, only this time featuring the Panther.