Admiral Rockwell Tory
Diamond Member
Another point, Gator: By the time your pro career ends, you're likely married with young children. Not the best time to do your mandatory service either.
In reality, the best time to do your service is right after you graduate. All of that you learned in a military academy is current and fresh in your mind when you go to serve, so you're of the most use to the service. You're accustomed to the discipline and expectations of military life, and as you pointed out, you don't have any injuries which would prevent your service.
I just don't see ANYONE going into military service after a successful pro sports career. I don't see multi-millionaire athletes, with family obligations, doing 5 years as a military officer. These athletes will try to buy their way out of it.
Last but not least is the message it sends. When young men and women enrol in West Point or Annapolis, they are making a commitment to their country. Many are setting out on a lifelong path of public service. JFK said "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country". West Point and Annapolis are the educational institutions which live that ethos. Trump is saying "Your promises to your country mean nothing. Get it while you can".
Just as JFK's words reveal the kind of man he was, so do Trump's.
That's odd! By the time I finished my Navy service obligation, I had been married for 5 years and had two children.
My daughter's Army service obligation is up next August, and she is unmarried with no children. It all depends on the individual.
Would you have started you service obligation with a wife and two children? My father-in-law left the Navy when his second child was born.
I did somewhat, with a wife and one on the way. I was married a year before I was commissioned and had a daughter two months afterward.
My third and last child was born three weeks before I left active duty ten years later.
Your father-iin-law leaving the Navy when his second child was born was his guarantee that he would be there for the conception of anymore children rather than just the birth. He wanted to make sure the children he was supporting were his!
"He wanted to make sure the children he was supporting were his!"
probably you are making a joke BUT
I lived near a navy base and there was this bar where the wives went to get picked up when the sailors were out to sea.....(not by me)
AND
there are MORE bordellos near military bases than ANYWHERE ELSE in the WHOLE UNIVERSE!
AND
prostitutes say that they look forward MORE to republican conventions (as opposed to democratic) because conservative republicans spend a lot more on whores!
All of this is true.
In the Marines you could tell when a unit deployed as there were a lot more new women at the E Club. And Marines have quint little sayings like "nobody is married after 50 miles" and "what happens on deployment, stays on deployment".
The best though was at the end of my last WestPac, the Chaplin from our base in the states flew over for a briefing at the end of the 6 months and told us that if something happened not to feel obligated to tell our wives and then he flew back and had a briefing with the wives and told them not to ask questions they did not want answer to. Quite the man of God he was
Was the "Chaplin"'s (sic) first name Charlie perhaps?