Jody Siever spends his Friday nights like so many American servicemen and women, mingling while kicking back drinks at a local bar. Recognizing the giveaway military haircut of a fellow patron, he approaches with an arm extended.
“Welcome home, soldier.” Smiling, though apparently puzzled, the stranger returns a firm, brief handshake.
“Thanks, but I’m in the Navy. And I haven’t been anywhere—I’m in Nuke School,” he replies, referring to the Naval Nuclear Power Training Center in Goose Creek, S.C.
“That’s cool,” Siever says, “I almost thought about joining the Navy for a while, but if I did join the service, I would have gone into the Army. I’m just kind of hardcore like that. Shooting bad guys in the face—that’s the life for me. If I wanted it.”
Siever, you see, never actually enlisted.
via Halfway Heroes, ‘Near Veterans’ Seek Recognition For Almost Serving In Military | The Duffel Blog.
I’ve met a lot of members of this cohort…
Craig Swain
dgharvey
ultimaratioregis
roamingfirehydrant
themavf14d
xbradtc
OK – that one almost got me. It’s just too damn believable. Bros before Joes…..love it.
“Sen. Inouye declared it “a perversion of our American values,” and refused to touch it, even with his prosthetic arm”
Classic!
Excellent. Now I can start telling all my “near veteran” stories and not be embarrassed around actual veterans! I hesitated to tell Roger Donlon and Robert Maxwell that I’d almost served or that if I’d been in the right place at the right time, that I, too, could have been recognized for my heroism, if only I’d actually done something.
That is brilliant. Simply brilliant.
I wonder if Obamacare will cover the OTHER PTSD. Pre-traumatic stress disorder. “I woulda joined the Marines, but they wouldn’t take me cuz I was too crazy bad-ass!”
This reminds me of a mutual co-worker who complained (whined) that reader SwampHeathen1 was collecting Army retirement while working for NASA. SH1 suggested he join the Army and get in on the action, even offering to drive him to the recruiting office. That shut him up in a hurry.
That’s hilarious, actually.
One of the interesting things about military retirement pay is that it’s actually given out as “reduced pay for reduced services,” alluding to the ability of the DOD to call up retired personnel involuntarily for reasons of national security.
http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/135201p.pdf
Few Civvies understand what Retirement pay actually means. Had Oliver North’s conviction stood, he would have lost his retirement pay as he would not have been able to be recalled to active duty as he would have been a convicted felon.
Guess my 24 years with the National Guard prepping for the Fulda Gap Live-Fire Exercise that got cancelled in 1989 qualifies me as almost a vet. I do get a retirement check every month and get to pay for my TriCare Prime though.
Incorrect, you’re an actual military veteran. The joke is about people that say things like “Yeah, I was gonna join, but my dog died that day.”
Or in my line: “I was going to go to Jump School but…”. Yes majmike you ARE a bona fide military veteran and not to be confused with the subject matter here in.