Why did you join the military? Why did you leave?

I knew early on that I wanted to serve my country as a soldier. (The Green Berets with John Wayne was a big motivator) I got to do what I always wanted travel, personal challenge, and serve my country.&nbsp;<div><br></div><div>Just last night as I was getting ready to train in Aikido a student from another program came up to me and thanked me for my service. He was born in Panama and had to endure the Noriega regime as a child and was living in Colon when the invasion went down. &nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>Never had that happen before, felt good to this old soldier.</div>

War movies on sat after cartoons

I did not have any intentions of joining the Army.&nbsp; I was confident I would receive a baseball scholarship and that would be where I would go.&nbsp; My Mother came home after I completed my junior year of high school with the parental consent form signed and basically told me if I went to college I would flunk out because I had pushed myself so hard in high school.&nbsp; I talked to the recruiter and enlisted within a week.&nbsp; I left because I had hit 23 years and to me I had done what most NCOs would love to do - be a 1SG taking a 205 man unit to a combat environment with 5 maneuver platoons and bringing them all back.&nbsp; My CSM (CSM Mike Watkins - one of the best senior NCOs I had the pleasure of working for and with!) talked to me about staying in as he was confident I would make SGM or CSM.&nbsp; I told him I respected him as a CSM but to me 1SG was the greatest enlisted rank to achieve because once you make CSM there is no where else to go and technically you don't really have Soldiers.&nbsp; You get to move up with an officer who goes from LTC to COL to MG to General while you stay at CSM.&nbsp; Please don't take offense to this if you are a CSM.&nbsp; It did take a lot of soul searching for me to push forward to go with retirement and there are times now I wonder what would have happened if I had stayed in.&nbsp; Sadly my branch helped with the decision because they wanted to force me into something I didn't want to do - move again - and call it&nbsp;a "reward" for doing 3 deployments.&nbsp;