Originally Posted by
theGinsue
I'm embarrassed to admit that in my 20 years of service I never deployed. Hell, I can't even lay claim to being a REMF. Minus a remote tour to Korea, I stayed stateside my entire career. During DS1, I tried hard to deploy. Back then I was all "Gung-Ho G.I. Joe". My repeated requests to deploy were all met with the same response: "You're too valuable here to let you deploy." Maybe I should have felt proud of my contributions but I simply felt cheated. Since they wouldn't deploy me I tried to make up for it in other ways. I did my job the best I could. I joined an OPFOR team to help those who would be deploying think like the bad guys so they could better protect themselves. I "played cop" by volunteering as an AF Security Forces augmentee. During my seven months in that duty I learned the job well, I became "wrap certified" to work with/train the K9's and was eventually allowed to "QC" to ride patrol without a career field cop alongside. When the second Gulf War began, shortly before I retired, I was informed that I was medically disqualified from deploying. While I know my contributions were important, I still feel inferior to those who deployed and were literally in harms way. If I was still active today I'd be quite the oddity as someone who'd never deployed. Perhaps my time in uniform, yet never deploying, helps me know firsthand the genuine appreciation felt by those who've not served. Not everyone can serve. Not everyone should serve. But, appreciating the contributions, sacrifices and experienced dangers of those who did is something everyone should do.
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