Fun Veteran tidbits.
Only about 7% of Americans are vets.
New York state has the fewest veterans, Alaska has the most as a percentage of the population. There may be some truth to the idea of veterans wanting to get as far away from people as possible. hahaha
We did it for the free meal at Golden Corral and the discount at Lowe's.
Every veteran meets a lot of idiots who "almost joined the military" or was "too important to serve his country" of who "believes in personal freedom and feels he owes no one and refused to serve", on a regular basis. My mother's second husband always mentioned, "He was FARRRRRRRRRRRR to important to have been wasting his time serving in WWII." He was an anti-union labor relations guy who was tasked with fucking workers out of as much money and benefits as possible. He was, "One of America's business leaders", according to him.
How many times did someone walk up to you, while you were in uniform, and ask if you knew their, son, daughter, nephew or niece who was also in the military? I once had a lady at McDonald's tell me her son was in Iceland, we landed there a couple of weeks later on the way back from Norway to refuel. I took him to lunch. I told him his mom asked me to check on him, he was thrilled, he was very homesick. It was one of my favorite days in the service.
When my Dad died we had a memorial service at the VFW. (101st ABN 501st "F" co, WWII) I invited all the strippers from his favorite titty bar to the memorial. Three of them were veterans and the club manager was an Army vet. He closed down the joint and brought everyone, including most of the regulars who knew my dad well. I bought the guys in the post bar a round in memory of my Dad and invited them as well. I let them know there were strippers at the service in the auditorium and that my dad had been a commander of a VFW post for many years. They rounded up their garrison caps and came back. The biggest flower arrangement was from the strip club, hahahaha. Three strippers spoke kindly of him to the audience when it was time to "share" stories of his life. My cunt of a sister about lost her shit and it was priceless. We have not spoken since that day and I'm happy with it.
27 years of active and guard service for me. Some of it really sucked. Every time I think about it, I smile. Four of us got together for lunch a few days ago since we all work today. We have been friends for 20 years or more. It's like family.