I'm working on the book a bit this morning and ran across this story that is now eligible for reposting. As always, lightly edited. Enjoy.

When I got to Korea, I found out how cold things could be. I had lived through a few blizzards in Colorado that got to -20 F or so. Korea got to -60 F more than once the winter I was there.

After the first cold snap, the prediction for a week of temps -40 F or...

I was a bit on the fence about wether or not to post this story already, but then I thought why not. Again, please mind the usual disclaimer that these stories can sometimes be a bit vague due to the nature of what state me and my dad were in when he told them to me. You know, Whiskey and sleep deprivation. Anyway, here it goes.

The avid reader of the previous stories may have already guessed that...

Just to preface – I’m not a current or prior service member, please excuse any mistakes in military jargon.

So, to paint the picture, in the late 60’s/early 70’s, a lot of young Aussie guys were Nasho’s (national service/conscripts). My dad was one of these, and was drafted into service, and like so many other young men, was sent to Vietnam.

My Dad was fortunate in that he was studying to be a med...

I was working at the local Army recruiting station today and I had plenty of time to stare at the photos of the chain of command. I determined that officers have it easier because all of them were smiling in their photos while the enlisted looked like they wanted to rip off my head and shit down my neck. When I mentioned that to Top, he just said, "yep" and grabbed another cup of hate-filled...

It’s been a while, but I was explaining a story in the locker room while—you know what, it doesn’t matter. Here’s another story:

In basic training I was the Platoon Guide (trainee leader) of second platoon. We had a couple of really good drill sergeants, and I even happened to run into one of them years later while training up for a deployment. We were walking into the PX, he was walking out. A...

Long time lurker and decided it was time to make a contribution.

This is a silly story from when I was a conscript in the norwegian army. I was stationed too far north of the Arctic circle, which is anywhere that's north of the Arctic circle. Part of the job was manning different OP's (observation post) in our ao.

This could be a full squad, but sometimes just two battle buddies. Me and my...

The Gentle Warrior

By the time the war began in the 1990s my dad was only 17 and was selected to fight along with five other of his close cousins and one of them who moved to Australia with my dad and a really close. And at first sight he may not anything like a soldier and his name in croatian translates as gentle deer but the story my dad told was crazy and went like this. It was 1994 and my...

I thought I should try and tell another story from my father’s time in the army. Again, please excuse the vague nature of this as most of these stories were told to me years ago when we drunkenly sat together at our kitchen table in the middle of the night. Anyways, here’s the story.

My father hates to sleep on soft mattresses. He can barely get any sleep if they’re anywhere near soft, which has...

When I was in the Navy, they'd ride the hard workers and just have them do everything because it was easier on leadership.

My dept painted the sides of the ship. We were on my first deployment. We had pulled into a port and they would have us paint the sides all day in the heat. I'm talking 12-14 hours and they set it up so no one on duty could be given a day watch.

I'm talking rubber on your...

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Happy July! Below are the monthly winners for last month. Before we get into that, the a few of us moderators were talking after hearing from some of you. So, regarding the API protests that have spread...