Previously Held MOS 11C10-Indirect Fire Infantryman
11B10-Infantryman
11B20-Infantryman
09R-Simultaneous MBR Program (RC)
11B-Light Infantry Officer
11A-Infantry Officer
54A-Operations Plans Training Officer
I now have a chance to help my TWS brothers in preserving their history. I enjoy reading the funny experiences on their reflections. I do this seven days a week. We only have one rank after the military = Veteran. I'll get to the next paragraph one day.
Living the dream of being fully retired before one is too old to really enjoy it. Here on the Islands and like any place else, life is really how you make it around you. I don't like getting all wrapped up about what I was, rather on what I'll be. So please leave the rank thing at your "I Love Me Wall." I don't think I'm the typical former Officer that thinks he is better than the rest. We are equal here since being a Veteran has only one rank to it.
My nickname "Rowdy" came around because after I joined the Signal Corps, Roger was used for everything. Since I was always getting into the thick of things being proactive like Clint Eastwood in Rawhide series character Rowdy Yates. I was also called Rowdy by several commanders. I added Mustang on the advice of a good NCO because most don't know what PFC means, lol.
Since I came in the Army as a PFC, I am back to being a different PFC; A Proud Fu***ing Civilian. I don't play the rank card after leaving the Army. That is for Officers that don't have a life after the Army.
Earned my EIB in the Berlin Brigade, 1983. I was so proud of earning it as a young Soldier at the time back then. Now it is just another thing of the past.
The purpose of my story here is that no award is better than anyone else's just because you are Infantry or any other MOS or Branch. Don't go around saying you earned your badge harder. Those that bragg, most likely never engaged in combat but sat back in the rear as a TOC monkey. Both awards are equal in the AR and in the beholder's possession. Actually the EIB is equal too, lol, I certainly would not say anything but it was hard work.
I earned my CAB back in 2003/04 when I thought as it touted to be earned while under direct or indirect fire as many of us were during that time. Now the value of the CAB has gone to the point everyone that deploys picks up one. Some will say they earned their combat badges and patches harder than myself. Or how their war was a real war and mine wasn't. I say tell that to the thousands that have died in vain. I say these are little narrow mind people that are just very insecure. I say really? For example, if you were in-country in an Infantry unit working as a clerk at the company CP and picked up your CIB/CAB or Combat patch at the local PX hooch on the way out. That is not my problem. I will never be the one to judge or ever say anything in public, they know inside if they really earned it. Again as they say if you lie enough to yourself, you will really believe you earned it. This is what fakes and posers do claiming such awards and they when are confronted they get angry. We have many joining our site everyday until they are found out.
If you earned your badges and awards why don't you post your DD-214, photos and write your reflections about how hard you earned more than everyone else. In the end they cannot buy you a cup of coffee. Don't come crying to me on how you earned yours more than mine. I have more respect for a guy that retired as a E-4 cook with just a photo, DD-214, reflections and a good conduct medal on his profile than one with nothing in his profile but a CIB.
I don't give a damn on why you are insecure, filled with penis envy, biased, uneducated, prejudiced that you have no respect for others or yourself. So you need to respect everyone here, even if they were not in combat or as "special" as you.
You can hide behind some rank, badges and a faceless profile, but you cannot hide your reputation. I respect everyone regardless of rank or what they earned. It is the man and his reputation I respect. Leave your ego behind before sending me any of your opinions that I didn't ask for. Keep your opinions to the forums. I stay with the facts as a historian of military history.
If you don't have anything nice and respectful to say, keep you mouth shut. We are all equal here on TWS.
I give all my badges and awards back just to bring one Soldier back that died.
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Other Comments:
Events like this changes your life forever, knowing how you could have been in that seat of the other guys that were from the same unit that you just had been with in Berlin. I didn't realize a DA-4187 would change my life from going to Fort Campbell's 502nd Infantry to Fort Lewis's 60th Infantry.
The Lucky Ones--They Missed the Fateful Flight
December 15, 1985|From Times Wire Services
One soldier lost his passport, another's orders disappeared and a third gave up his seat for a comrade. All three thus were spared when the Arrow Air military charter flight crashed Thursday in Canada, killing all 256 aboard.
"Clumsy Eric. He just misplaced his passport. I'm so happy I don't know what to do," said Jonnie Harrington, mother of Pfc. Eric Harrington of Lake City, Fla., who was forbidden to board the plane in Cairo without his passport.
"Well, he's not really that clumsy, but that was a good time to be clumsy," she said.
"It was God's miracle. It was his intent for my son to miss that plane."
Harrington, 20, remained behind in Egypt while 248 comrades of the Army's 101st Airborne Division and eight civilian crew members perished when the DC-8 jetliner crashed shortly after takeoff from Gander, Newfoundland.
The plane, bringing the soldiers home to Ft. Campbell, Ky., from peacekeeping duties in the Sinai Peninsula, had landed at Gander for refueling.
Harrington's parents learned Thursday night that he had missed the plane after their son called his wife, Brenda, 20. She said her husband told her he was the only one in his company not to get on the plane and that all his teammates on the unit's basketball squad were killed.
Sgt. Greg Yarber, 27, of Texarkana, Ark., missed the plane because his military orders were lost, family members said.
"He was mad because he wouldn't be able to make it home for Christmas," his sister Clare, said. "But somehow, thank God, his orders got lost."
"I sat there thinking last night, 'This is really something to be thankful for,' " said his father, the Rev. C.K. Yarber.
In Kansas City, Mo., the parents of Sgt. Mark Brady heard the news of the plane crash on the radio Thursday and feared for four hours that their son had been killed. Then the phone rang.
"I had become desperate and Donna was so distraught," Frank Brady said of his wife. "Donna picked up the telephone, and it was a long-distance call from an Egyptian operator who asked if this was Missouri. I heard her scream and I picked up the other phone and it was Mark. Oh, my God."
Mark Brady and another man had volunteered to wait for a later flight when there wasn't enough room for all who wanted to go, his father said.
"Apparently some other folks needed to get home. It was either an emergency or they had families. Mark and the other man stayed behind," planning to fly home later, the elder Brady said.
"We can't believe our own good fortune, but our hearts go out to all of those other folks."
