I don't want to act as though my deployment was particularly rough, because it wasn't. I had a very mild deployment; I was a staff officer.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I am a military police officer and I have served on two deployments; my first was to Iraq, in a medical unit, and my second deployment was to Kuwait, as a military police platoon leader.
I volunteered to deploy to Iraq. I was one of the few soldiers who were not on the mandatory deployment roster - close to 3,000 Hawaii soldiers were.
I served two tours in Iraq, in the Marine Corps.
When I first went to school, I was fighting all the time. The soldier mentality was still in me. I kept getting expelled. I found it hard to take instructions from anyone who wasn't a military commander.
The other thing that happened was my last military assignment - this was in the air force; I had enlisted in order to avoid being drafted as a private, and of course I only practiced medicine or psychiatry in the air force so I was never in any kind of violent combat.
After I was discharged from the military, it was difficult trying to become a civilian.
Some of the best advice I've had comes from junior officers and enlisted men.
You know, I was a regular on the Friday afternoon drill squad. Um, which... The year after I left school, I went back and thanked the sergeant major because I was so fit.
I was a soldier in WWII. The last couple of months of the war I was actually in combat.
My own military background is wholly un-distinguished. I was a sergeant.