I know I did my time in the military (air force), but I don;t get to mention it alot because of the whole situation with me in conversion therapy during the whole "DON'T ASK DON'T TELL" time. Loved the military, hated how some people such their way in to destroy people's lives

DADT was pretty fucking rough to live under. Always focused on how you present yourself in fear that if you are found out you get kicked out. I remember the day it was lifted, all of the straights were loudly saying that "you shouldn't flaunt it" or whatnot. I do not know what the situation is now in the military, but I am sure it has improved. The recruits today have it pretty good in that respect.

Agreed, and the sad part was, that most of my higher ups kinda knew, even if I stayed quiet. I guess they were like "oh he's not playing sports on time off or chasing after the females during break, he must be hiding something"

And I also remember them saying that too, how they were going to get raped by us, when stats show back then that more females were getting raped my males within each brackets.

Either way, I do believe you're right that it's possible better now as opposed to say, 2003-2006. I wish i went in during this year and not wayyy back then

I miss the army as it was from 2003-2005. If I could go back to that time the only thing I would change is DADT.

I was outed in my last unit and treated like shit. People would say that I was shamming (which I eventually shamed to the max since I got treated like crap anyway) and was just riding a profile. Spinal injuries mean nothing to some people. There were always jokes about how I would try to get sexy on people, little did they know that uniforms turn me off and that they are the kind of people that kill my sexual urges.

What always made me wonder is when they would say things like, "I don't want them in the showers with me, staring at me like a piece of meat." It made me wonder if they were just projecting their desires if they were placed into a female latrine. It takes a special kind of shitbag to act like that.

Understandable. I kinda figured the army was full of people like that (though I will admit, I do like the bdu's they had and also there were "some" people who were "pretty attractive/handsome in a uniform", but, other branches had their fair share of good/bad people.

Air Force had either a)Lazy ass people who went off their rockers when something goes bad or b)quite people who are both smart/decent looking but prefer to be behind a desk because reasons. Shower situations were the same, but, by the time you get to tech school, I noticed alot of roomates did not try to hide their urges (oh boy, I had to go through so many roomates who had different jobs because of how quickly they came and went)

But yeah, I fully understand what you went through cause the army liked to leak into the air force areas sometimes

You are so correct. My brother served two tours in the middle east and rarely talks about it with anyone.

It is mostly because of context, if you weren't in a situation like that you could never understand why things happened the way they did. Some of the stories can be hard to think about, especially around others who have no equivalent experience.

On occasion I have told some of my darker stories to people. It can be weird to hear everyone go quiet and see the looks on their faces. It is slightly disturbing.

My brother was with Air Force Intel and had to go over dead bodies to try and find anything with useful info, and that is the most he will say.

To this day my uncle will not even mention anything about his time in Vietnam. All I know is that he was perimeter security for air bases. I can imagine he has seen more than his fair share of twisted, dark shit that he doesn't want to dredge up. I've also heard some screwed-up stories from acquaintances that served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That's enough for me to fully understand that I don't know anything about war other than I have no wish to experience it firsthand.

Hmmm, noticed that with my younger cousin, he came back from iraq acting unusually friendlier towards me, didn't really talk about it too much and uncharacteristically preached mostly about poetry. Apparently he had been jailed over domestic stuff, treated using desomorphine (I think krokodil/heroin?) as if it was a casual experience, and seemed repressive. There was no upset vibe from him even though he got a restraining order from his wife and kid, and his family is split up. Seemed a bit nonchalant the whole time and excited about nothing at all. Heard he saw a few close people die in the marines, but didn't really seem to wanna talk about it.