Poll: Military Service

[Ed the Coastie]

Originally Posted by jester

Hmmm?

Again I ask, why on earth would someone downgrade?

Coast Guard=boats=no humping, and they sleep in beds and have hot food. Why on earth would anyone want to give that up for being bounced and battered in a armored vehicle, choking on diesel fumes and living in the cold or heat?

Ed, by any chance are you tall? Did you possibly bang your head on those bulkheads and do yourself an injury? Thats the only explaination I can fathom...

It's a long story, but in a nutshell I had the "misfortune" of being the boarding officer on a drug bust that involved in a VERY negative way a close family member of a then-prominent United States senator. As a result, I became a political hot potato for the Coast Guard...so the Army offered to take me off of the Coast Guard's hands, put me through officer training and do it's best to hide me within it's own ranks.

It worked out pretty well for both sides. The Coast Guard was shielded from a potentially embarrassing inquiry, and the Army wound up with an officer possessing an unconventional enough background to comfortably fulfill various oddball assignments.