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Nov 11 at my house
View attachment 631093
To all Veterans here on the forum...Thank you for your service.
You did a job , often far away from home and for little pay.
For those Veterans who have served in combat...
May you find the peace in life that you truly deserve.
Andy
Right back at you my friend! My wife and I both served, she in the Navy for six years and myself in the Marine Corps for eight. Unlike you neither of us served in combat. We were in just after Vietnam, 75-81 for her and 75-83 for me. My largest regret I have from my days are that I did not stay in longer. There were what I thought of at the time valid reasons for getting out (most a critical MOS which I could not get out of with very slow promotion). Never once considered swapping to another branch. Considering all of the Aviation schools I attended were Navy schools. If I had known even a small amount of what I know about the military now it would have been a lot different.
I served from 1975-1980 in the USCG in non-combat related duties. Earned my wings and was a Search and Rescue Aircrewman flying several times a day in fixed wing and helo. You would be familiar with the Sikorsky HH52 single engine but more likely the H3F Pelican dual engine helo that I spent most of my time in. Also the C130 long range search aircraft and the old Goat flying boat. Good times!!
I'm one that also regrets not staying in... it was a good life and a wonderful and honorable mission. At the time I thought I had good reasons for leaving, but later tried to re-enlist and was only offered E3... not doable economically. Had I stayed in I would have retired with my other buddies. Was offered E6 before leaving and would have made Chief in just a few more years... promotion came fast to Airedale Coasties in those days. Life as a chief is mostly walking around with coffee.
Yup, you can tell a Chief or SNCO by the permanent crooked fingers in their coffee cup hand ... LOL. Familiar with all three of those A/C. I worked on CH-46, UH-1N and lastly EA6B beauties. It is interesting, the Naval Air Station I was at for a long while after we had transitioned away from them the Navy still had their 46s for SAR aircraft. Was very common to have me over there working on the Gray/Orange aircraft we no longer had at that Station. But still, it never occurred to me to swap over to the Navy for reenlistment.
I did the same as you, got out after 8 tried to come back in and was offered E4, no guaranteed duty station and could not go to a different MOS. I just could not envision walking around with as many chevrons as hash marks. Should have talked to my shipmates in the Navy for certain.
Semper Piratus Shipmate!