Login & Share to Win! Given the chance to travel back in time, what advice are you giving yourself?

Go Active Duty.

Go Airforce instead of Army. I have done both and wish I would have done Airforce 1st.

Don't do it!

Listen to my father and not marry my first wife

Do Not accept orders to NAVCOMMSTA Sicily. I enlisted at 22 so I was older than others going to their first command. At my 1st duty station there was a STSC in my division that made it known he disliked me almost immediately. My first 3 months onboard, I was in 67A. The Sonar Shop (67G) had two STS2 and an ET2 as LPO. The 4 of us got along great from the beginning. When the ET2 transferred out, the STS2's quickly petitioned our Division Officer, who was a prior STSCS, now LDO Ensign, who also liked me, to fill the billet of ET LPO in the shop. That made the STSC flip. Mainly because 67G usually got to stay behind when the ship went to sea every quarter (usually 4 out, 4 in a liberty port, 4 back).
When I got to Sicily (6 years later), in the Indoctrination class with the families was when I first saw him. We recognized each other immediately. My wife asked, "What was that look for?" I told her he doesn't like me. That was the downfall of my Naval Career. From SOQ at my previous Command and straight 4.0, I was hounded for every little detail. He tried to court martial me for my son being sick. I only found out after his surgery stateside when I obtained my service record. My son's medical records were reviewed by the Chief Surgeon in Germany. That was the only reason I wasn't court martial because he stated there was no way I could have known of my son's rare disease when 3 previous specialist missed it. However, that was not in my service record so that followed me to my last and final command where the BS got too much. The more you try to redeem yourself at a small command, the deeper the hole gets.

Build a time machine !

Be money smarter!!!!

Accept offer in boot camp to go to OCS

I should have gone to flight school and become a helicopter pilot instead of a helicopter mechanic.

Learn to play dance music on my trombone in HS so I could make the Navy School of Music. It was my only failure in the audition. I grew up in a town of 100 playing march music.