Combat Vets vs Fobbits vs Non-Deployers

I usually take the ribbing I get from my grunt brothers extremely light heartedly, unless I pick up that they mean they really do think I'm a POS just because I had to be a POG (if you must know the why behind that please PM me, I'll be more than happy to share). The only people I ever thought I'll of were those that had a lot more time in than me that hadn't done any B-billets and still hadn't deployed. In other words a 15 year Gunnery Sergeant without any b-billets or deployments raises A LOT of questions, like how hard did they try to avoid deployment. Now that the action has died down that will become less of a suspicion and more of a "sucks for you". But while I was in there were plenty of opportunities for anyone able bodied enough to deploy, no excuses.

Time and time again the answer is we are all veterans regardless of how got that designation.

IMHO. The combat arms guys could not do our job with out everyone else doing theirs. We can't fight with out bullets, beans or bandaids. But that being said, I don't like hearing a fobbit complain about their deployment. Greenbeans being out of carmel and being tired of Burger King is not a hardship. I was jealous that you could get that stuff. I was happy if my dip didn't have sand in it. We make fun of Pogs because we want what they have but we also want combat.

You can't help where you're ordered. You just go. Anyone who served should be proud. If a person pulled strings to get from going, then they should be ashamed.

We made fun of fobbits when I was in Iraq, but we had respect for the ones that wanted to go outside of the wire with us. The ones that wanted to stay and never leave those were the ones we had a problem with. If you didn't want to leave the wire you shouldn't have joined the Marines. Now with that being said, posers were the worst. Ones who acted like they had been there and done that, but in reality barely left their cot. Also, rotation was a pain as well when you have fresh barracks boots coming into country to replace you and they are trying to act like they are in the barracks when you are in the middle of Iraq. Nothing would piss us off more.

I always get a kick out of the guys at the VFW who are so full of themselves that they always ask new members what they did to be able to join the organization. My response to them is "I have an Expeditionary Medal". I have 2 actually and a few other awards that would get me membership there. They don't need to know.

Trust me you did more than enough!!!!!

Now that I've reclassed from infantry (after nearly twenty years of it) to the Army Transportation Corps, I've had mixed feelings. In my career I've been in infantry rifle companies, air assault, Airborne, Stryker, and a National Guard LRSD before it went away. Suddenly I'm a paper pusher, working in a BSB as a transportation coordinator. Sometimes, mostly when there are complaints about living conditions or how hard a duty day is, I get aggravated at the sense of "IF ONLY YOU KNEW WHAT REAL SUCK IS." But then I think about when their fueler teams were out there fueling our Strykers when I was still infantry, and I realize, there's so much that goes on, that even down to the contracting of stevedores to get things loaded and unloaded at port, the machinery that gets the trigger pullers to the fight most of the time requires services organic to the force.

But then there's the volunteer work with veterans organizations, and you find resources soaked by "era veterans" (i.e. not combat veterans) and then repeatedly trying to explain the distinction to civilians who just don't get it that not all service is equivalent and there's a good chance a Cold War vet that worked at a Nike Missile Silo exclusively talks to himself because he's just weird and not because he is visited by some service-related trauma.

That and the complaints about how hard things were for them when deployed to . Sort of like Kuwait. I even remember some of my experiences as an arctic paratrooper in Alaska in the 1990s were tougher physically, perhaps even than the first time I wore the soul crushing weight of SAPI plates, or being of that generation that did time in Bosnia or the Sinai prior to the advent of Internet and email or Skype and having to write and hinge on good old fashion letters or phone banks to talk to people back home.

Maybe having to pretend like all service is equal is something we have to indulge with the civilians who will never understand, but at least we all know the deal. Don't get me wrong, I'm always happy to hang out with veterans of any kind, but I won't pretend like I did or do the equivalent of SEAL Team 6 if they won't pretend working in the S2 is the same as serving in a line company.

I would consider you a combat veteran. Not everyone get to go into the fray but, you did your part and thanks for your service.

I was an Aviation Ordnanceman in the Navy for 20 years and served pretty much everywhere I could possibly serve, from the 7th deck magazine in ship's company weapon's department to flight deck squadron ordnance considered one of the most dangerous workplaces on the planet). I was a recruiter, an instructor, and even worked with the Army at Camp Taji Iraq as a prison guard. I always struggled with the guilt that I was never in actual combat, but when I was on the flight deck and saw admin people come up on deck for FOD walk-down dressed in foul-weather jackets in the middle of 120 degree weather, I realized, that we all do our part in our own way.

This is one thing i'll could never understand.someone thinking less of a fellow Veteran just because of the mission they were given during deployments. During Desert Storm ( as a young PFC/SPC)i served as a cook pulling guard duty, driving in re-supply convoy. doing whatever i got task to do because it was part of the mission. Years Late in 2006, i was deployed to Iraq ( as a newly Promoted SFC). My chain of command assigned to work as a Sargent of the Guard in charge of the pax terminal, ped gate and inspection yard, in charge of a team of 10 personnel. During the train up for the deployment (as a SSG), i was training to run convoys. But my COC decided they needed me somewhere else, and again i did the job assigned to me. during 2010-2011. i was deployed to Afghanistan as the BDE Food Service NCOIC, My COC needed a Senior NCO to set up and run a new PX on one of the FOB's until it could be turned over to the civilians to run, and I got this task. Did i like it no, but it was a mission i was given that had to be done so i did it. i never asked to be a Fobbit it was just the missions i was assigned that kept me on the FOB most of the time.

Well Thom, I look at it this way, those so called fobbits did the jobs necessary to keep the base/fob running. Allowed those of us to do our jobs outside the wire. JB Balad was mortar city when I was there and a lot of folks were injured by mortar fire. Fobbits as you say are combat vets, it's those who dodged deployments are the ones I have issues with.

I was an 88M who left the wire almost daily. I saw very little combat, and the little I've seen was really nothing more than pop shots at a check point, a few mortar attacks which landed nowhere near us, or found IED's. Nobody in my unit got hurt due to combat related incidents. I deployed twice. First time in 07 and 08 and the second was 09 and 10. Even if you do leave the wire incidents were few and far between for us. Finding IED's were common and I remember waiting endlessly for EOD to come detonate the IED.

I think the rivalries are fun and I never take them too seriously. In the end we all volunteered. In this war, people who weren't of combat MOS's were still killed or wounded in action. I don't look down on anyone who served honorably. However, when somebody who dodged deployments or missions starts playing themselves up like they're better than everyone else, they're pretty sorry individuals to say the least. I think everybody can agree on that. And don't worry what civilians think. You served, they didn't. Doesn't matter if their brother was in Delta Force.

We all have different jobs. Each of those jobs serves a function. We are each like a cog in a clock, if you take one out, the clock won't work. We also go where the military tells us (even if you volunteer for deployment, depending on your job they may deny it). No one should be derided for how they served. They stood up and took the oath, and deserve respect for that alone.

What's a Combat AFSC? I'm a Public Affairs Officer, total staff weannie right?

I was the IO and deputy S3 on a PRT. We lived on a French FOB and I was an MC and TC on numerous mounted and dismounted combat patrols. I was also the S3 when the lead S3 was home for R and R so I planned, got approved, battle tracked, and did post mission analysis of dozens of missions. I'm only one of many PAs who has done the exact same thing.

Lot's of guys and gals in "non-combat" jobs have seen plenty of combat. It doesn't make them infantry with all the right and privileges they have (and crap they have to deal with), but I'd say that line is as blurry after the last 12 years as it's ever been.

Meh. Veteran is veteran is veteran. It's not like people get to dictate when they will or will not see combat.

You have earned the right to be a called a Combat Vet. I have been deployed twice in combat while in the Air force as a mechanic And twice as an Infantry Soldier with the Louisiana National Guard. I understand the arguments that you are having from both sides of the fence. The Infantry is rewarded with the Combat Infantry Badge. Yes they do patrol the streets and do most of the door kicking. In today's non linear combat the support is also sometimes under indirect and even direct fire. You have risked your life for this country and let NO ONE ever tell you any different.

Infantry soldiers have a different mind set because of the job required of them. They are mostly made up of that "type A personality" if they don't have that they usually cross train or ETS and go to college. They have to be mentally tough and think they are better than everyone else, due to the fact you cant be the first one to enter a bldg. when clearing it and not think you are the baddest man on the planet. if you have doubts you will hesitate and that will get you killed. This mind set once established is very hard to turn off unless you are bi-polar.

Back to the original discussion you have earned your combat vet status and be proud of that.

I'm sorry I haven't been able to reply to everyone's responses. In my immediate post-service mode, I am busy looking for work and helping my wife take care of our 4 kids. You have all posted thought-provoking replies which tell me without a doubt that we are all indeed brothers and sisters, no matter what our individual service experience may have been. RP is an awesome place. I'm glad it's here to bring us all together.

When I was a Specialist (E4) my unit was assigned to a peacekeeping operation in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula; a mission completely anathema to the coordinated high-operational tempo, violence of action based culture of an Infantry unit, let alone a well-respected one that had already been activated 4 times in a 10 year period following 9/11/2001 including two year long tours to Iraq.

I and several of my closest buddies had missed out on the Iraq tours by a matter of weeks , we had arrived at our company just past the deadline to be sent over to meet our unit already in country, and we had to be ready for the next one. Therefore, when we got orders to the Sinai, despite the fact that we would spend our entire tour in the midst of the Egyptian Revolution, we were bummed to say the least.

It took my PSG, a man very well-respected throughout our platoon, with multiple combat tours to take us aside and tell us that combat patches, CIBs and campaign medals were worthless without the soldier bearing them making them important. In other words, the fact that we were not on a combat mission was irrelevant if we performed as trained and as required.

That didn't affect me much then, but looking back on it now as an E6 I can honestly say he was right. We despised our lot in life, being assigned to garrison duty in a relatively peaceful country when it contradicted everything we had ever trained for, but at the end of the day we sucked it up and performed the mission to the best of our ability and that's all that mattered then, and its all that matters now. We brought everyone home, and ensured that Israel and Egypt continued to abide by the Accords they had signed in 1979. The rest is irrelevant.

As it stands now I feel that everyone has a place and a purpose. Some Soldiers shouldn't be Soldiers and mess it up for others. In country I hated the "Fobbits" due to the fact they would steal our stories and post them on fb as if they went with us AND coming back from 16-24 hour operations and being yelled at for not having a pt belt or being to dirty to eat even though we only had a hour or two to refit to go back out...

However, the 99% of those who stayed on the FOB did the right thing and allowed me to get the support I needed. They also hooked us up with cases and cases of RIP-Its so cheers to them and those like them.

A final point is, those that hid from deployments should be booted. Several of my peers volunteered for non-deployable tours of duty when we were getting activated. Those who tried to volunteer and were denied probably have a guilt I personally can not imagine. I think this is another reason why suicides are up. Those that wanted to go, that needed to go, and didn't - feel ashamed. They shouldn't. You had our backs when we were over there, and many Soldier's needed that support you gave.

It should just be Soldiers vs Ish-Bags because non-combat/fobbits aren't a bad thing at all.