What Things Were Difficult to Communicate to Family and Friends About Your Military Service? Login & Share to Win!

Calling my brothers and sisters family. It really felt like it.

People would ask for updates on what I was doing or what I would be doing. Both of my deployments ended up being MEU’s, so I usually just said we have been training and will be doing more training. It’s hard to explain that you’re not training for something specific necessarily, you’re training for the possibility of a conflict during “peacetime”. There’s more stuff, but most people will cover the rest.

It was hard to share anything with my family. They always had a negative outlook about the military

The biggest thing I believe occurred resulting from my experience in the Corps is my sense of humor. It is a coping mechanism and no one or thing is free from this. I have internalized the jokes that we would find funny and tend to not make them unless I am in the company of other veterans or service members.

The fact that you don't have the same rights as every other citizen, at least not fully. You cannot just simply say no to deployment, and that many things are not fair or right. You cant come home for special occasions many times, and that being deployed is stressful. The other thing that is very difficult for non-military to understand is the dark humor that develops in order to deal with serious situations and why it is so effective.

There are many things that family and friends find difficult understand about my military service. Though I'm close to friends and family, they understand the bond that I have with other military members. They are all my Brother's and Sister's to me.

Vietnam, of course from the first day back to this very day, I can discuss it with my sons as they too are combat Vets. Beyond Nam, it's difficult for friends/family to appreciate the bonds with fellow Vets, especially those who I served with. We still talk and visit and are scheduled to have a reunion next month. The wife is supportive but doesn't understand how other Vets and I can still be friends after as much as fifty years.

Sharing incredibly close quarters with others and not getting weirded out by invasions of privacy. The only other place I have seen this is in EMS, where we work and live basically in a box on wheels with people of varying degrees of hygiene. I don't think the average person can appreciate or understand.

That being in the Navy actually gave me a purpose in life and that purpose was to serve my country as needed. That the friends and colleagues that came into my life as a sailor were and always would be my circle. That going to the base or ship every day was more than a job, it was my duty. That coming to a halt and saluting during morning and evening colors was an honor. It was then and still to this day was and is an honor. My family could not understand that friends from 40+ years ago are still my "brothers" and "sisters" and that I LOVE my flag and country.

what life on a submarine was relly like, and why there was things I went though on some of my deployments that I can't talk about.