What Things Did You Learn About Yourself That Were Unexpected or Surprising During Your Military Service? Login & Share to Win!

I learned that I could be something different than what I previously limited myself to. The thought of joining the military never even crossed my mind until 9/11. I learned discipline, but also how to have the confidence to rely on my training and my fellow soldiers. There were also darker lessons learned as a woman during my time in the Army. I also never expected to reach a higher level of pushing through difficult situations or physical injury. The military also taught me to look beyond the narrow-mindedness of nationalism and to be truly devoted to creating a more just and free world. It gave me the experience I needed to see that for myself. I really enjoyed my training and was always reaching higher for goals that I had no motivation to do prior to my service.

Not so much about myself, but what my dad endured in WWII as a member of the 101st in combat. While I was a door gunner and he airborne infantry, I gained a whole new respect for the man and other veterans of wars.

I found out that when a true emergency happens that I didn't even think twice about jumping in and helping out . I saw burned and mangled people at the Ramstein Air Show crash in 1988 and proceeded to load them in a Polizei Helicopter and a News Helicopter to get them airlifted to Landstuhl Hospital .

It shouldn't have been unexpected and it shouldn't have been surprising, but ...

I was a small town kid from the rural northwest. Tiny school. All the neighboring communities combined added up to a graduating class of fifty-five. Nearly a quarter of us enlisted upon graduation.

Amongst other things, basic training was a crash course in diversity (or, at least, as diverse as the country really got in the early 90s). I come from a predominately white, rural, northern community. My high school had minimal minorities (a few Hispanic families, probably some people with Native American blood, and I think only one Asian American (half or quarter), at least in my class.

Zero black students. The Cosby Show, hardly representative, was the closest exposure I got to a large swarth of America. Oh, and Mr. T. on the A-Team. And even then, I didn't watch TV much.

Were there even any POC in the books that I read? Outside of Huck Finn and a few other things from class, none that I recall. Maybe they were, but it was never explicitly stated so. YA fiction in small town libraries was all the Hardy Boys or The Black Cauldron or Nancy Drew or the like.

So I got to boot camp loaded up with unconscious biases, stereotypes, prejudice, and no small amount of animus toward other groups.

Sad to say it took until my late teens to realize that people are people regardless of skintone, regardless of rural/urban, regardless of so many other divides.

Military service did an awful lot for me -- not all of it good (I was in during the era of "Don't Ask; Don't Tell") -- but the very best thing it did was help me see and break the biases I had. Maybe college would have done the same, but considering that I most likely would have gone to a small, rural, northern college, maybe not.

Courage is not being fearless. Courage is being afraid, but doing your best because the others are counting on you.

I was only 19 (1981) and was in the Army during the Ronald Reagan years (cold war). What I learned about myself is I was a lot stronger mentally than most of my comrades. I hated working for dumb people apparently 'work harder not smarter' was the motto. I was 26 when I ETS'd and ready for what life had to offer. What I learned is there are dumb people everywhere not just the military!

You learn how to handle situations you never havr before or ever thought you could do. You certainly get to learn about other kinds of people, yes they may be different and possibly strange yet they're not really 'strange' and we are all the same - human beings. I learned that I am stronger and tougher than I thought before. I witnessed, seen, been thru and survived more than I ever anticipated or expected.
I also learned that I can change and adjust to scenarios when needed. I took responsibility and lived on my own. Military live is MORE than just following orders. You have to use your head in sudden situations and I learned that I can react when the situation requires it.
I found that I'm more open to the facts when they're presented to me. I'm able to learn newer ideas and much of what we were taught in school is a bunch of crap. You need to think outside the box, where you grew and went to school is not the world.

That I could run! I had never done that very much. Around the bases, maybe...a little neighborhood football...but as a teen and adult, never. Oh, and I could climb a rope, get over the top of "The High One", run-dodge-and jump, you say? Like a rabbit! I found I could gut it out...grit my teeth and handle a little pain...and that it felt good!!! Really good to come to the end, successfully. Gave me the spirit to do more!

How long I could go without sleep, How much COLD and Snow I learned to deal with.
I can not swim, And it seems to be the only thing that really scares me.
But when it came to jumping into the ocean. Out of a Black hawk for some training I was given a pass. Being in a leadership position I made the jump. I felt that no matter how this made me feel.
I could not ask my men to do something that I could not do myself.

That is one of the biggest problems we have in the Military. It's leadership's inability to do what they tell there subordinates to do.

I learned that I was more healthy than I thought and now after serving I will have lifelong physical and mental limitations. I learned that I could have a kid taken out of my custody simply because I served.

So many things but perhaps the one that has lasted longest is working at as a team to achieve exceptional outcomes.

Following Infantry OCS I had leadership ability that was of use in Nam.

I learned a lot of little things, but the biggest was that I could not always take no for an answer. If I was given a problem but no support, the job was taken care of anyway. Even if I had to go around a supply Sargent to get the parts. He was furious to have 1400 line items to process after I repaired everything at an AFRTS TV station that Depot hadn't visited in years.
The funny thing was, I built a TV tuner to repair a piece of test equipment to replace one that could not be purchased. Rather than being satisfied that it was working again, I was threatened with a Court Martial for 'Destruction of Government Property'. I had saved an otherwise irreparable piece of equipment that would have cost $600 to $800 to replace, at no expense to the Army.
I learned to politely but firmly deal with incompetent 'leaders'. They may have outranked me, but they didn't have my MOS, or my skills so I refused to let them interfere with my duty.
I was E3, and at an Air Traffic Control Tower to swap out their video monitors for PM. A new lieutenant that had graduated only a few minutes earlier ordered me to drop a large monitor to salute him. He slammed the tower's door shut and blocked my way. I yelled at him to open the damned door and step aside, and that I wasn't going to destroy a $300+ piece of equipment just to give him his first salute from an enlisted.
I was so loud that the Colonel who had conduced his graduation ceremony came running. He yelled, "At Ease! What the hell is going on?" "Sir! This moron ordered me to destroy this monitor, just to give him his first salute. I only have nine minutes left to get this upstairs, or make a phone call to shut down the flight school and have him sent to Ft Leavenworth. Sir!" He turned to the Lieutenant, "Open that damn door and apologize to this man! If I ever find out that you try this again, I will make you swallow those butterbars without the backers." Then he turned to me, "Have a good day , soldier!" "Yes sir! Thank you, Sir" At that moment I learned that I would not be pushed around by self important people when I had a mission critical job to do. Get it done, and deal with it later. I learned to be confident and to deal with idiots.
I apologize if there are any typos. I am waiting for cataract surgery.

I CAN have confidence & accomplishment!

In spite of a previously poor academic career, I learned I could excel in the classroom at Hospital Corps School. At Field Medical Service School, Camp Pendleton, tough Marines taught me I could be strong enough to proudly serve in the FMF. And, in that service I learned I could use those skills taught me to keep Marines and sailors alive. All this prepared me well for my following civilian life. And I am grateful, most grateful for it all.

I learned that I don't panic in an emergency I just get really calm and logical instead. So I never worry about panicking in a new situation even when my husband got his hand caught in a running lawn mower I kept it together, wrapped his mangled hand in clean towels put the kids in their car seats and calmly drove to the base hospital at Travis AFB. The nurses thought I must be in shock and checked me over but I was fine.my husband not so much it took 18 hours of micro surgery,six weeks in the Oakland hospital, and 12 months of therapy before he could work again.

I learned I am Rh negative (O Negative, to be exact, the universal donor). Shocked the hell out of my O positive mother (nothing nefarious, it's just a recessive gene).

What I learned about myself is that I am not a quitter, I am determined, I am a fighter and I can do all things I truly put my mind to do. I also learned that loving on your family is so very important; after being away all that time.

I learned that I really did like Kids, And not all of them are the same.
Most kids that I dealt with in Afghanistan showed me that most kids in Afghanistan showed me the one's that I dealt with where vary great full of the attention we gave them. I know that some of them just tried to play us for anything they could get. Seeing how they lived and how they where treated changed I thought of them. And just how lucky most of us have it here.

Some of the skills I found that I learned that transferred into civilian life was being able to multi task and meet or beat deadlines. I also learned I had a talent for writing.