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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:26:09 AM EDT
[#1]
Good rule, If they talk about it, they've never done it.
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:28:11 AM EDT
[#2]
<-------
 ETA - Seriously though, I "knew" a guy who was a SEAL in Vietnam. He lived down the road from a charity that I did volunteer work for back in Michigan. Today he owns a car shop and he repairs the vehicles for this charity for free. You could tell just by looking at him that he was a bad dude, and he only rarely ever talked about Vietnam. He never told any war stories or anything and never gave any detail about anything that happened over there, but you got the feeling just from looking into his eyes when he would talk that he had seen (and done) some pretty terrible things. I think that even though he was doing his job and fighting for his country his conscience still bothered him about Vietnam. |
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:28:42 AM EDT
[#3]
my good bud was 4 years active with the 3/75th
he only talks about it to people who he is close with, and never in front a lot of people... always real entertaining and life-learning stories.. |
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:30:05 AM EDT
[#4]
I'd give my left testicle to be a SEAL.
But I'm not. Never have been. Never will be. Never pretend to be even remotely close to one. I've accomplished other things I can be proud of. 
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:30:52 AM EDT
[#5]
By and large...
Those who know, don't talk. Those who talk, don't know. 
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:31:35 AM EDT
[#6]
My dog was in Nam and he never talks about it. Sometimes when helocopters fly over he runs and hides under the shed.
At night when he dreams he makes little woofing sounds and I imagine he is probably sniffing for the enemy or maybe barking at a hidden spider hole or something. 
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:32:00 AM EDT
[#7]
There is nothing better than seeing some liar/commando get coined (the non-internet version of "owned" for those of you who have the high post counts) by a guy you never knew was a Ranger.
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:32:05 AM EDT
[#8]
I dated a girl in high school for four years and didn't find out her dad was a former SEAL until a few months before we broke up. I knew he had been in the military, but all he talked about was how cool he thought other guys were that he had met (pilots, snipers, etc.). Four years and never a word.
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:32:42 AM EDT
[#9]
Of all the SpecOp type guys I know, none ever brag to strangers. I have seen some service rivalry type stuff but that is between different branches.
There are several guys I can think of you would never guess to be SpecOps types who actually are. While there are some guys that make you wonder, 99% or more have been on the level, and I have had the opportunity to work with all types and branches. |
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:32:55 AM EDT
[#10]
From what I've seen/read SEALs are the most talkative about who they are.
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:35:18 AM EDT
[#11]
I would venture to say that most vets (be they specops or not), especially combat vets, generally don't go out of their way to boast. |
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:35:19 AM EDT
[#12]
havnt you learned, everyone EVERYONE at the gun show who weighs more than 300lbs used to be SEALS, but they were in during a special program where they could also cross train with the Rangers AND Delta, and once got a chance to be the door gunner on the Lunar Lander
As said before: if they talk about it, they didnt do it. People like to straight up LIE about what they have done with their meaningless lives. think about this: the internet is annomyous. What makes you sound cooler? Lunar lander door gunner, or what you REALLY are? a 300lb insulation installer who drives a 1994 Toyota Tacoma covered in "buy american" stickers and terrorist hunting permit stickers? |
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:37:15 AM EDT
[#13]
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:37:38 AM EDT
[#14]
My dad was a Green Beret and he's not afraid to talk about it. But he does have two sets of stories. The funny ones that every one hears, and some that I've only heard the one time I saw him get drunk... Let's just say that I'll be glad if I never have to redo that night.
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:39:31 AM EDT
[#15]
Feel like sharing? 
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:42:19 AM EDT
[#16]
I own a green beret and a SEAL UDT t-shirt with a trident but I dont wear it in public 
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:44:16 AM EDT
[#17]
US Army Special Forces: The QUIET Professionals
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:45:20 AM EDT
[#18]
The plus side of Air Force special ops not getting any publicity is that you don't get the posers who claim to be PJ's
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:46:54 AM EDT
[#19]
My brother is a big guy (weightlifter) and in good shape. Has never been in the service but is in awe of the SPECOP's community. Reads everything he can get his hands on about them. He got a SEAL bumper sticker at a funshow and put it on his jeep. A real SEAL (retired) who is a friend of mine asked him if he what class he was in. My brother bout pissed his pants. He subsequently took the sticker off of his jeep.  Most of the Navy SEAL's I have met sell Jerky at gunshows. |
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:48:07 AM EDT
[#20]
i got a buddy that was in nam.
he was reg army. nothing special about him or what he did. well that's what he will tell you. then you look a little closer and he's been shot to hell.  yep. nothing special about him
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:48:37 AM EDT
[#21]
i knew my step father for atleast 5 years tell he told me about being in marine force recon. i knew he was in the marines and shit tell one day we were digging threw the stuff in the garage and came across his sea bag full of gear and pictures. after that he told me a few insane storys but never talked about it unless he knew ya really well.
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:49:19 AM EDT
[#22]
Don't forget the air soft guns and chinese made medeval knives! |
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:51:05 AM EDT
[#23]
My pops was special forces as well. Only stories he ever told me were from when he was in Germany, I hope I can be half the man he is some day.
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:51:11 AM EDT
[#24]
That just goes without saying.
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:53:30 AM EDT
[#25]
My friend's dad was a Son Tay raider. My friend has some pretty neat pictures and has some good stories that he heard from his dad and some of the others during the reunions.
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Posted: 2/20/2006 11:56:42 AM EDT
[#26]
I've worked with SEAL teams
 They typically deploy a team to a carrier battlegroup for training and exercise. The guys are just like regular squids it's they just get to work out all day long and carry M-4's and MP-5's around while doing it. Polite, quiet spoken, and professional. Following the attack of the USS Cole in Yemen they flew in a special boat unit for our port security. That effort managed to get us 18 hours of liberty the day on either side of Christmas or Christmas depending on your duty section. |
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Posted: 2/20/2006 12:02:38 PM EDT
[#27]
When I was in the Army, I was a drunk. The only enemy I ever fought was boredom. It never ceases to amaze me why some people have such a hard time with the truth.
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Posted: 2/20/2006 12:04:02 PM EDT
[#28]
I was a 91B(Medic) for 7.5 Years in the US Army.
I served with 1/7 Cav, 3-66 AR, and, 1BDE Recon Troop (4th ID) Pougeish assignments included USAMRIID (FT Detrick)-Ever seen "Outbreak"? That's us and Graf, GE Health Clinic. I'm proud of what I did. I'm proud of my assignments, and, I have a DD214 to back them up. My company employs exlusivly prior service .mil and, LEOs....... Just this last site I was on one of my guys was claiming he was a SEAL to client personnel...He ended up screwing up and I sent him home. I only found out about his SEAL claims after he was off site.....He never tried that crap with me. I have no idea why people aren't proud of thier service. |
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Posted: 2/20/2006 8:35:06 PM EDT
[#29]
Well, after getting back from Vietnam, he didn't adjust to 'the world' very well. He spent several years coping with drugs and alcohol. After my oldest brother was born, I guess he decided to man-up and kick it all. My whole life, alcohol was 'the devil'. I was 26 before I drank my first beer in front of him. Needless to say, it was quite a surprise to get the call from my brother that night that he was drunk, crying on the floor talking about the war and some guy we'd never heard of. Now let me back up for a second here to explain. I've heard the stories that he's willing to talk about so many times that within 30 seconds of him starting one, I can finish it. Complete with names and locations. I thought I'd heard it all. We've had a lot of talks, and as I grew up, they got pretty graphic. This is a man that’s really been thru some bad shit. But he always says that there were a lot of guys that had it much worse than he did. That night for some reason he got a hair up his ass and drank 1/2 a bottle of gin. A few weeks before he was supposed to come home, his squad was doing a sweep around the fire-base, and he told his buddy to take the left flank (he was the squad leader). This is the guy that slept in the bunk next to him from their first day in basic, until that night. He started to move left and stepped on a land mine. I guess telling your best friend to do something that gets him killed right in front of you isn't something you get over. Anyway, the alcohol helped him relive it several times that night. When he finally passed out, My two brothers and I put him to bed and never spoke about it again. |
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Posted: 2/20/2006 8:52:02 PM EDT
[#30]
I have a friend who was a GB and he's pushing 60. He still has some REALLY big biceps! He wears the patches, dons the bumper stickers, talks about "when I was a green beret" etc. and train you in the ways of survival, martial arts, shooting, or bug out bags and that stuff...
BUT, will NEVER talk about any of his missions or what he HAD to do to stay alive or keep his Team alive. And you learn real quick NOT to ask... If he wants you to know, he'll tell you. He says much of what he did is still classified. Who am I to call BS to a guy who has a 3rd degree blackbelt, is a former GB and can kick my ass just by looking at me???? |
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Posted: 2/20/2006 8:58:48 PM EDT
[#31]
3rd degree BB in what?
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Posted: 2/20/2006 9:06:30 PM EDT
[#32]
I have a friend that was a SEAL and he rarely talks to me about it and we went through Navy "E" Core school together.
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Posted: 2/20/2006 9:15:24 PM EDT
[#33]
From a news article about him. I can't give a url to it because I don't have his permission to give his name here...
"Grandmaster in Keumgang Taekwondo and Hapkido" |
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Posted: 2/20/2006 9:17:00 PM EDT
[#34]
Thought thems was Warrant Officers. |
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Posted: 2/20/2006 9:19:59 PM EDT
[#35]
www.professionalsoldiers.com
DON'T start trolling that site, you won't last, and there is TONs of good info if you want to read it. |
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Posted: 2/20/2006 9:26:24 PM EDT
[#36]
War is hell. Sometimes necessary, but always hell. 
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Posted: 2/20/2006 9:32:08 PM EDT
[#37]
I went through phase 1 of the q course as an 18b trainee, our company had only 50 some people out of almost 300 come back from phase 1, and only 7 of us were 18b prospects, so they held us over for more 18b trainees from the next phase 1 class so they would have a big enough phase 2 class. We were just doing cq duty for the company that was preparing for and going through phase 1. I was injured at home in wv inbetween before I ever started phase 2.
Never got back down there and served the remainder of my time in the national guard. Lots of good stories come out of the forests of camp mackall and the hoffman training area, particularly from the land nav training. 1 of the better stories when I was down there was when we were on cq duty after our phase 1. Some foreign officer from some african country was doing land nav training and got lost and fell into some pit which he couldn't get out of, had fractured his leg, attempted to fire his emergency cluster flare but it never made it out of the pit and came back down on him and caught him on fire, had 1st degree burns also. They were lookin for this guy for almost 3 days and had mobilized another company of sf students who were walkin in scrimmage lines out there lookin for him. Worst story I heard ws about the foreign officer who flunked out of sf school back in the early '80s and was executed for it when he got back to his country. They adopted the policy that all foreign officers pass the q course. |
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Posted: 2/21/2006 5:11:08 AM EDT
[#38]
My Uncle talks about it all the time. It was the best thing he ever did in his life. We all thought he was full of shit until he started breaking out evidence. DD-214, war trophies, and pictures. However, he talks mostly about the schools and time he spent in Thailand. My aunt spent some time in Thailand with him and has a number of stories about him disappearing for a few days and coming home with uniforms covered in blood, etc. |
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Posted: 2/21/2006 5:16:31 AM EDT
[#39]
+1 I hang out with those guys all the time. All the high speed guys from SOCOM. |
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Posted: 2/21/2006 5:28:40 AM EDT
[#40]
tag, and my brielf story
Back in my high school days, early high school a long time ago, a friend of a friend invited us over to her neighbor's house. I quickly discovered he was a Vietnam vet of some special kind (spec ops?). Man, he had some stories. As we stood there in his basement, and he got more and more high, he went through stories regarding his service and things he had done in Cambodia, in the bush, etc. He was really messed up, and it made me uncomfortable. He didn't have any proof there with him, but the intensity of his stories, and the mood behind his words convinced me that they were atleast half true. He was on significant anxiety/crazy drugs which I presume made it easy for him to talk about without going bonkers. He was a beaten, drugged man that I think the VA was helping hang on by a thread. That was the last time that I visited him, but he is my image that appears when I hear of the Vietnam vets that were forever changed by the war. Sad, man, real sad. |
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Posted: 2/21/2006 5:31:19 AM EDT
[#41]
My cousin was in 7th group and then later on 20th. He only talks about it when I ask. WarDawg
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Posted: 2/21/2006 5:49:27 AM EDT
[#42]
He's got some great stories bro... 
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Posted: 2/21/2006 6:31:35 AM EDT
[#43]
My wifes dad was old school OSS during WWII, spoke fluent french, parachuted into France to help the resistance. I only met him once when we were dating but he had really bad Alzheimers before he passed away.
From what she and her brothers said he never talked about his work in the "company". |
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Posted: 2/21/2006 6:50:52 AM EDT
[#44]
Wifes uncle was SF and three tours in Nam. Never talked about it much and is very religious. Every now and then he attends veterans ceramonies on invitatation because he's highly decorated but that's about it. Kenny was a badass before he went into the service but he sure wan't after he got out.
Have two other friends who were SEALs which I didn't even know for years till one showed up with a silver star ribbon lapel button for dinner one night and I asked him if it was real. He's the one who told me the other buddy was too. Quite frankly I think he did it just see if I would notice and know what it was. I really didn't all I said was is that real? We've talked about it some but not much usually duty stations the usually veteran BS stuff. Closest we came to discussing actual combat events was going swiming once I noticed one of the guys had enough bullet holes in him to impress the moves. He gave me the name of some river I never heard of as where it happened and that's about all of that. Oh yea I almost forgot, my dad worked with the now deceased Mouse Thompson of Darby Rangers fame. He was great guy but never talked about his WWII experience except how he jumped the train to get away from Germans. If I recall he's mentioned in Darby's book. I did know quite SF guys a few in the Service and served with some during training but no great stories from that and I can't even remember their names even. Tj |
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Posted: 2/21/2006 6:54:40 AM EDT
[#45]
I've had the distinct honor of knowing several members of a SEAL team (worked with them as well - for a short period of time), Force Recon Team and most recently I've had the pleasure of working for a Green Beret (my TC).
They're all the nicest guys you'll ever meet, quiet as a church mouse as well. I would just hate to be the other guy when they're switched on. On this note - i also know a few FBI and US Marshal types. Same attitude.
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Posted: 2/21/2006 7:02:58 AM EDT
[#46]
My Mom's Uncle was a GB in Nam. He is proud of his service, But NEVER talks about it. I have asked him some questions about the training and he does not give detailed answers.
I would have to say that he is very professional about everything he does, but never brags. |
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Posted: 2/21/2006 7:22:42 AM EDT
[#47]
I have an uncle who was SF in Vietnam. He did 2 tours. It took me almost 20 yrs to get him to talk about ANYTHING. He didn't talk to anybody about it and I believe it contributed to his divorce. When I was a kid he was the guy that everybody was always on pins and needles around and I just treated him normal. I didn't bug him but I let him know after I was old enough that I was interested. He has told me quite a few "stories" since then, almost none of them heroic in the classic sense. What strikes me as heroic is that anybody can go through war and not be terminally screwed up. I know what crisis and stress tend to do in the civilian world and training not withstanding I can't imagine the actual stress of combat. My hat is off to all who have "BTDT" whether they choose to talk about it or not.
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Posted: 2/21/2006 7:50:38 AM EDT
[#48]
Well I wasn’t a SEAL or Spec Ops, I was an Aero Scout Crew Chief in attack units and in a 1st AD CAV unit during Desert Storm.
I’ve seen and experienced some things that members from other branches have not experienced and civilians never will experience. When talk of Desert Storm came up in the past I’ve told others about some of my experiences and often just got strange looks like I was lying or was even called a “story teller” once. So from now on I just keep my mouth shut. And in the words of our infamous Delta Force film character “Hoot” : “Ya know what I'll say? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand.” |
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Posted: 2/21/2006 8:02:55 AM EDT
[#49]
The real ones are called "quiet professionals" for a reason.
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Posted: 2/21/2006 8:04:58 AM EDT
[#50]
I couldn't figure that one out either..... guys should be proud of what they did in the service.... And oh.... "Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it" -M.G.
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