I was in VA-35 and made 2 Med cruises in the '80's

Got to agree that 2nd Class was about the best enlisted rate in the Navy.  High enuf not to be bothered by/with most details and low enut that most of the wheels just ignored you.  
For me it was even better because I was flight crew on P2V-7 Neptunes and my only responsibility was to the A/C!  It flew, I flew.  It sat on the ramp w/o any maint. being needed/performed, we were long gone out of sight.

I volunteered for the patrol sqdn at Camhran Bay, RVN a couple of times, but never got reassigned.  Pissed me Off big time so at reenlistment time I   transferred to the Army and volunteered for Special Forces (Picked up a stripe in the process).  
The switch worked like a charm!  Went thru Tng Gp at Ft Bragg and directly to Nha Trang, RVN (SF Hq for RVN) for assignment.  Ended up in the B55 Mike Force which was Hq'd in Nha Trang.  Worked around in much if II & IV Korp.  Was an enjoyable time untill Easter Sun morning 1970 on the Cambodian border in IV Korps.  Got caught in the NVA Easter offensive - they tried to over run the A camp I was at (in from the field for a couple of days-talk about wrong time/wrong place!) and I ended up in the hospital.  After over a year in hospitals in RVN, japan & US I was medically discharged.  Thus ended my military career!  
Sarge

I've got to agree, Tolz was a good duty station!  Lots to do around the area and Munich/Oktober fest was only a short buss ride away.  
Unfortunately I was never stationed there, just passed thru several time to visit old friends from RVN during my periodic sojourns over from the states.  Being able to fly "Space-A" was Wunderfull!  
Got to agree - live "pop-Up" shoot back targets were almost always fun!  
Sarge

FAST team member out of Ali Al Salem Air Base, April-July 2015. Only got to fly twice while I was there, and I learned to despise the C-130, but I look back on it now very fondly. Flying big bearded killers from Baghdad to Camp Taji, getting shot at while landing at Al Asad and again at Al Taqqadum, actually getting to feel like I was deployed instead of TDY to a shitty middle eastern country...good times. Security Forces don't often get to do a ton of fun shit, but that definitely ranks way up there. Spending 3 weeks at Aberdeen ARL T/E'ing the M17/M18 was another ridiculously fun assignment. We had no rules other than range safety, show up on time and wear a presentable uniform. Don't think I wore my uniform top a single day on the range, and I got to mingle with folks from the Army, Navy and Marine Corps to include snipers from the 25th ID, a Marine Raider and a particularly salty SEAL.

Damage control / VBSS / crash and smash team.  Loved the extra pay, miss the gun shoots and instructing.  When else will I get to fire m60s, and the 25mm? Plus all the free ammo.

I was only a Navy Reservist... but, I had some good times working in a joint environment while attached to EUCOM JAC - both at the JRISE and in Molesworth it self.  Wish I would have re-enlisted as the upcoming mobilizations would have been with some interesting folks.  Too bad my Fed LEO job got in the way while I was working in Europe.  :(

I was in the military, didn't have a job I liked.

I was at Ellsworth AFB.  I had a lot of the usual staff-officer jobs after I left regular crew duty - Flight Commander, MPT, Safety, tons of briefings, managing various projects etc.

FMs had a tough job in the winter up north.  When I was Flight Commander at Oscar Flight, I had a good one.  He did things his own way, but that was fine with me.  
Any time I had an NCO working fore me, I always told him that I would never tell him how to do his job.  I told him what I wanted done and when I wanted it completed.  The "how" was up to him.  After all, if he wasn't competent, he wouldn't be there.  
My philosophy was, delegate everything I could to my Lieutenants and Jr Captains, so they’d know what was what when they moved up to my job.

Aircraft Director (79-82) on the Bow of the Flight-deck of the Aircraft Carrier, CV-62, USS Independence. Absolutely nothing beats the Deafening Rumble and Vibration of an F4 or F14 in full
Afterburner 1 second before the Flight-deck Officer Signals the catapult operator to launch that Mother Fucker into the Wild Blue yonder as the wingtip whips over your head!  Pure American Power!!
God Bless the United States of America and the Proud Sailors and Airmen of the US Navy!  

Sergeant of Marines.  Platoon Sergeant.
Later on, NCOIC of the engineering section.

When in the MT ANG, I got paid to work airshows. 16 hr days doing launch/recover/refuel on a smorgasbord of military acft. All the chow and beverages You could ask for and adult drinks after the days end.

Plus I got to watch the airshow.
My favorite was babysitting a double MIG killing Phantom from the OR ANG. I got to ride brakes on a tow job. I was over Hanoi in '72 for a minute or two.

The Ol' Crew Chief

Lets see.

Worked a flight deck as a PC in Tonkin Gulf.  Interesting and at times scary but probably not the best job I had.

Radar Operator/Technician in the late 70s at the Electronic Warfare Range in Fallon.  For a few years I worked on a vintage Army Nike system.  Later worked on a AAA system in front of the center scoring tower at the B17 Bombing Range.  On the east side of us was the live ordnance impact area.  To the west side was the target for gun runs.  We had an air show almost every day.  There was a civilian tech rep there when we were accepting the radar.  One day there was a loud WHOOMP and the van shook.  Guy jumped up and yelled.  I told him it was just bombs and not to worry.  Turns out EOD had lit off a large pile of un-exploded bombs.  He was gone the next day.

Probably the best job was Line Division Chief at an F/A-18 training squadron.  I had 120 kids working for me and we had 53 aircraft.  To this day I am still The Chief to a some of those kids.

Those of us who were line rats as kids were positively impacted by our line chiefs! Good for you!

TDY several times with the Commanding General and CSM while at Ft Knox.  Was invited to drink with a medal of Honor recipient also.  MSG Benavidez.

C-5 flight engineer, 301st AS, 349 AMW, Travis AFB.  1984-2005. Unreliable broke dick piece of crap airplane broke down in some really great Places , seriously was a great job, met and worked with some of the best people in the Air Force.

Edit*  already posted here!

P-3 Combat Aircrew Master Race checking in!

Infantry Platoon Sergeant in Korea

I enjoyed being a Platoon Sergeant much more than being a First Sergeant or a Sergeant Major.

Infantry Platoon leader. Hands down the best job in the world. Surrounded by people who can no bullshit do your job better than you. At the height of the war I controlled everything from Kiowas to an AC130.  I wouldn've done it for 30 years with not a penny bump in pay if they'd have let me. God I loved it.

Made into a meme


These guys would do anything for each other. And did.

Hands down, commanding the 103rd/101st Military Intelligence Battalion in Wuerzburg, Germany 1995-97. I was in command when the division was reflagged from 3ID to 1ID which gave me two battalions to command.

I deployed the battalion to Bosnia in 1996 and turned over command there in 97.

My entire 6 year Air Force enlistment I was stuck on an army base (ft. Meade). I didn't have any fun until I got out, became a contractor, and deployed.

I've been told Air Force bases are nice...

I passed out towels at the gym, every once in a while I'd do TDY to airports to hug troops as they came home

MEDEVAC Pilot in Helmand. Most of the Marines hate the Army, but they all seem to like Dustoff. Plus my platoon was split off from the Army chain of command and got to hang on our own with the Marines. T-rations were terrible but the work was rewarding.

Best TDY - going to Vermont to do biathlon training. Yup, had to learn to XC Ski and shoot rifles. Biathlon is a hell of a workout.

Reminds me of one of my better days in the Army.  While stationed in Bad Tolz, Germany with 1/10th SFG on a dive team.  Did a pool dive for PT in the indoor pool next to the team room (Tolz was the SS Officers school in WWII), after breakfast did a hop and pop (parachute jump) out of a UH-1 into the snow and after lunch went down the road 5km and into the Alps for an afternoon of downhill skiing.  Three methods of infiltration in one day: air, land and sea.

CD

I spent a year mapping the Ocean floor. I was an E5 in a two person state room. My last couple of 30 day runs I had a room all to myself. Depending on crew count, we either worked a 6 or 8 hour watch each day underway. Ship was a converted freighter, that had waaaaay more space than needed. We had an entire hold (3 decks) dedicated to exercise. We had a racquetball court complete with uneven deck and bulkheads, a half sized basketball court that was easily converted to volleyball. Volleyball was often played as gorilla ball, which meant you could play off the bulkheads and overhead . It was on the lowest deck, so it was the most stable. The first CO loved to play midnight basketball and volleyball. If he needed more people, he'd call down to survey, and see if we could spare some people. We had a pretty decent weight room and running track. Forget the lap count, but it was ~30 or 40 laps = 1 mile. I always ran for time because I'd lose count, or I'd end up running sideways as much as forward in heavy seas. I was in the best shape of my life when I got off that ship.

The cooks were civilians, so the food was usually pretty good. The chief cook had a standing policy that anybody could prepare a meal, if they could make it for ~80 people. There was a civilian mariner named Evelyn who liked to make fried chicken and lasagna. We actually had printed menus each day, and they'd put the cook's name on it if it wasn't one of the normal ones. Anytime I saw Evelyn's name on the menu, I'd get up and eat that meal whether it was my sleep time or not.

ETA: My best friend was a nuke on fast attack subs. He claims I wasn't really in the Navy since I spent time on two USNS ships and a tender.

Adversary pilot. Flying Warsaw pact formations and tactics in an A-4, which was a good Mig-21 simulator.

Damn, I was Echo 2/5 1981-83!

Aircrew on this for almost 5 years

Attached File

Tongue in cheek I had posted that I dug out dandelions but the truth be told.  I was an instrument mechanic on an RF-101C and then an F-106A.  From Laon AB in northern France to George AFB in Southern California.  66th Camron to 329th FIS.

XO for a deployed task force. Worked for one of the best (if not the best) officers I ever met.  Got to interact with all kinds of people from a bunch of different nations/allies.  Just cool stuff every day with some uncool stuff mixed in that made the job exciting

The USAF paid me to fly around in an AC-130U Spooky Gunship and blow things up.  I have flown many missions in the AC-130U (0509) in the pic below but my favorite AC-130U was tail number 90-0167.

Door Gunner on a Chinook.( I'm a signal weenie)

Company Commander of an EOD det in New Jersey.  Did a shit ton of Secret Service and State Dept protective details in NYC.
Company Commander of a Ammo Supply unit in ROK.  I activated the unit and took it from just me to fully operational in 3 months, 9 months ahead of schedule.
PAL team member at PACOM, got to work hands on with deployed nukes around the Pacific.  Even got to fly in a P-3 from Hawaii to Adak.

My career closeout was as CoS of a JSOTF in support of GWOT.

I have had a couple of jobs that I have liked. Being an Instructor for my MOS was pretty fun, because I discovered that I enjoy teaching others my job...although I hated the Army-style training system that we had to adhere to.

The other job that I like was being one of the Ops NCOs in S3. I learned how to write OPORDS, WARNOS, and FRAGOS, (and discovered that I was pretty damn good at it), and I learned a lot about how shit works at the Battalion and Brigade level. It was an interesting experience being a SSG who was damn near on a first name basis with all the 1SGs in the BN.

USS Midway CV-41  I spent 1981-1985 on her.

Last six months of service I spent in Germany. I was the only enlisted college graduate in the battalion. I was the battalion PIO, wrote the news letter, sent promotion press releases to hometown newspapers, and tutored guys for their GED. It was a a non-NCO slot, I was an E5, but there wasn't anyone else to do it and it was a pleasure after the previous year.