The 14 People You Meet In The Army

[WooWooWoo]

In my book, which I have yet to even start, I’m going to explain in great detail, the cast of characters I came across in my time in Afghanistan as well as in the military in general. They all have unique aspects of their life stories and personalities that shaped how they appeared to me.

Meet a small group of people for a short period of time and you walk away impressed with the surface-level diversity of America’s armed forces. You see Blacks and Whites, Asians and Hispanics, city folk and rural folk, men who’ve been through five deployments and kids just out of high school.

However, if you meet a large number of people and live in and around them for years, and you begin to see familiar patterns emerge and the fundamental aspects of human character become more clearly separated.

The following are, as best as I could separate them, the 14 “types” of soldiers I met in my time in the Army, which I believe, best represent the essence of the Army, much more deeply than regular statistics like race, religion, or income.

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Note: Keep in mind, though, these only apply to males in the Army, as I was not around enough female soldiers to observe them beyond second-hand stereotypes, which I refuse to lend any credence to.

--snip--

12. The Snarky computer geek

The complete opposite of the muscle-head. This guy would rather be inside playing World of Warcraft than in a gym. He usually does just enough to pass a PFT, and would prefer to sit at a desk all day than be at a range or out in the field anywhere, for that matter. When he is out in the field he usually has as many electronic gadgets as he’s allowed to take with him.

11. The Partier

Monday through Friday the guy is the model soldier. Shows up to work at the right place, at the right time, and in the right uniform. But approximately 15 minutes after his Friday afternoon “Safety Brief”* he’s already either drunk, on his way out to get drunk, or making plans to go out and get drunk. Sometimes he’ll show up Monday morning smelling like booze, but he’s there. Sometimes he’ll show up Wednesday morning smelling like booze as well.

10. The Ladies man

He’s the one you’ll see with a parade of local women coming out of his barracks room from Friday night through Monday morning. He’s the one with a girl back home (or a wife) who is a very good husband and father, who just ran off for two hours at the Forward Operating Base to have a quickie with the first willing pair of boots he could find.

9. The Family man

He’s the one who didn’t. The one who wouldn’t do that because he loves his girl, loves his wife, loves his kids. He doesn’t go out on Friday nights with the guys. He stays home and plays “dad” after spending the last five days playing “soldier.” Between the Ladies man and the Family man, the family man is much more common. That doesn’t mean the family man isn’t occasionally…

8. The Porn addict

He likes pornography. He really likes pornography. Like, two terabytes on his hard-drive worth or pornography. He’s been deployed a lot and met a lot of guys who shared their porn with him. (note – sharing in general is a thing you do on a deployment, but porn-sharing is nearly a requirement if you have something new). He wouldn’t cheat on anyone, but porn isn’t cheating, right? And hey, most of the time he was thinking of you.

-snip-

http://thesterlingroad.com/2013/09/30/the-14-people-you-meet-in-the-army/

[tularetom]

1. I was definitely an "it's a job" type guy

But this was 53 years ago, I wasn't there voluntarily and all I was doing was counting days until I could get out.

This was true of 90% of the other draftees I met.

I honestly don't remember many of the other 13 types, except the "under educated". There were a hell of a lot of them as well.

[WooWooWoo]

4. I met some incredibly bright people

and some people who were clearly smarter than they let others see. Which I always found odd.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

2. I love this image:

[warrant46]

3. So So True

[Aristus]

5. I was #5.

And if that sounds like "I'm-so-smart" self-congratulation, I'll bet you everyone who knew me in the Army would have put me in the same category.

Although, people being people, I had a few of the other traits, as well. The Partier...

[WooWooWoo]

6. i knew a lot of people

who overlapped into different categories, but the traits are distinctive enough I had to separate them.

[Blue_Tires]

7. I stumbled on the "8 Things You Won’t Believe Crawled Into My Bunk"

The new U.S. military policy in the Mideast should be to KILL numbers 1,2,4,5,6,7