I respect combat service and all, but I'm also beginning to doubt if you are for real. The people I know that are in the military are the more laid back the more "Special Ops" they are.
That's the Hollywood version of the 'silent macho hero' you're feeding on and 'respecting'. The real version acts, and isn't afraid to speak up when necessary. Nor does he feel any need to 'fit in' for its own sake in order to preserve status, reputation or guard ego.
For instance I don't feel any need to go our 'celebrating' war with my kids 'proudly' wearing a chestful of 'grandpa's medals' on Anzac Day. War is nothing to be proud of.
"I galloped down the drive to what, in my youthful folly, I supposed was going to be death or glory. I had yet to learn that in war there is plenty of death but little glory; that in war only death is real; that glory is simply gilt and tinsel to wrap around the other so that it looks less like what it really is." - Captain W.E. Johns
That pretty much sums it up. Silent respectful remembrance is more my style.
If it is true that you served, it's a shame the military did nothing to get that huge chip off your shoulder. Guess you need to earn some more ribbons and jump wings, huh?
Why would you suggest I lie? Because you're too dim or lack sufficient experience yourself to recognise the truth when you read it? Or is it because this is the internet and something the dominant generation who infest this forum would do and deem the natural order of things? To which I would respond to your delusion with, memento mori.
I explained in considerable detail why tactical smoke wasn't used, and got ridiculed by the forum children for having both that operational experience and specialist knowledge. So a link to Wikipedia link or some academic nonce with a plagiarised bibliography five pages long would have more cred with Gen stupid because it's formally published?
I'm retired. So no. Personally done enough to satisfy my personal lust of adventure and long since departed flawed idealogical motivation or desire to achieve, more than most of you ever will in a lifetime. I'm 'denonouced' a liar or implied delusional because I don't exhibit sufficient false modesty too fit into your Hollywood or preferred sub-cultural belief system? Exceptionally gifted intuitive and perceptional 'intelligence' you exhibit there 'General' Yoda.
That fact is that I claim no more than I have done, but no less. Why is it you find it so difficult to believe or accept that? Because you've done so little with your own life?
I had three brothers. One is dead. Of the three, one, like me, was drawn to a life in the military, and journalism afterwards. He joined as a lad soldier private infantryman at 17. He qualified and served with Parachute Regiment (US=Airborne) at 19, before being selected and serving with SAS Regiment and was a SAS Warrant Officer at 24. Recognising the truth after participating in support of CIA spook ops during Vietnam, and having his wife killed by rocket fire during the Tet Offensive, he became a field war correspondent. He was wounded accompanying a US Air Cav deployment when they were ambushed by a tactically superior NVA. After recuperating in a Hong Kong hospital to where he was evacuated, he spent the next 10 years in Indo China photographing and reporting on front line ops and other SEA political and military issues before returning to AU. Are you suggesting I am lying or making this all up too? Carpe diem. Some will do, most won't. Life is short as you will discover.
Yer, I know I'm done on COH2.org after this post. Nothing to be missed here for adults. I was moving on anyway. In any case I'll be in good company.