Who gets Military Discount?

[Eldorado2k]

Who here has served in the United States Armed Forces? Do you enjoy your military discount? Do you remember to use it?

 

[Desertnate]

Here at AG? I honestly have forgotten they offer it, but I don't shop here very often either. I do remember using it a few times long ago.

 

[Eldorado2k]

Here at AG? I honestly have forgotten they offer it, but I don't shop here very often either. I do remember using it a few times long ago.

Lol. I meant in general, everywhere. For example you could be buying a new set of tires, don’t forget to use your military discount, right?

 

[Desertnate]

Ah. Understand now.

As a military retiree, I do get one in some places. I don't actively seek them out, or ask about them when I go places. However, if the business has something posted saying they offer one or the sales person asks if I'm eligible for their military discount (not uncommon since the area where I live has a base), then I'll take them up on it.

The only two places I consistently get/use one is my barber and Lowes.

 

[chilly]

My wife did 25 years to earn it so we use military discount whenever and wherever possible

A trend I am noticing is small businesses that bill themselves as "veteran owned" yet they don't offer military discount

Obviously not every business can absorb the discount hit, I just think it is ironic

 

[chilly]

Who here has served in the United States Armed Forces? Do you enjoy your military discount? Do you remember to use it?

Just to clarify, there are currently 8 "uniformed services" that a person can belong too and retire from with the exact same benefits, pay, retirement, etc

All "military" are in a "uniformed service"; however, not all "uniformed service" personnel are in the "military"

Not trying to stir anything up, just trying to enlighten

 

[Setec Astronomy]

Just to clarify, there are currently 8 "uniformed services" that a person can belong too and retire from with the exact same benefits, pay, retirement, etc

Wait a minute...Space Force is its own branch? So if you join Space Force you could never have an Air Force job? It's like the Marines is to the Navy?

 

[chilly]

Wait a minute...Space Force is its own branch? So if you join Space Force you could never have an Air Force job? It's like the Marines is to the Navy?

I’m honestly not sure

I’ve seen conflicting information on that

Let’s go with 7 1/2 uniformed services

I mean every thing else in the government is apparently open to interpretation on a daily basis so let’s go with the flow


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[chilly]

I’m honestly not sure

I’ve seen conflicting information on that

Let’s go with 7 1/2 uniformed services

I mean every thing else in the government is apparently open to interpretation on a daily basis so let’s go with the flow


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Quoting from the ever suspect Wikipedia

“Then on 20 December 2019, the United States Space Force Act, part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020, was signed, creating an independent space service by renaming and reorganizing Air Force Space Command into the United States Space Force”




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[Setec Astronomy]

I’m honestly not sure

I’ve seen conflicting information on that

Let’s go with 7 1/2 uniformed services

When I googled it, it showed Space Force as a distinct branch, I guess I didn't pay that much attention when they created Space Force because I thought it was stupid. However I guess some people couldn't understand how the military "space" stuff was part of the "Air" Force. Of course once upon a time, the "Air Corps" was part of the Army; USAF wasn't created until after the war.

EDIT: Oh, I see you posted while I was typing this. Apparently this was something that had been contemplated since Reagan was president and is a lot more complicated than I thought it was, I presumed it was just a "marketing" exercise, but as previously noted it is a separate division within the Department of the Air Force, the way the Marines is part of the Navy. Something I was just reading indicated at some point it would be more independent from the Air Force, I don't know if that means a separate Space Force Academy or what.

 

[chilly]

When I googled it, it showed Space Force as a distinct branch, I guess I didn't pay that much attention when they created Space Force because I thought it was stupid. However I guess some people couldn't understand how the military "space" stuff was part of the "Air" Force. Of course once upon a time, the "Air Corps" was part of the Army; USAF wasn't created until after the war.

I actually thought it was a joke when I first heard about it

I guess space technology being weaponized is inevitable

And yup, my dad was US Army Air Corps in WWII

By the time he was recalled for the Korean War he went into the USAF


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[chilly]

Who here has served in the United States Armed Forces? Do you enjoy your military discount? Do you remember to use it?

Eldo

I apologize for hijacking your thread

My bad


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[Setec Astronomy]

I deserve at least as much credit for that as you do, Chilly.

 

[Desertnate]

Wait a minute...Space Force is its own branch? So if you join Space Force you could never have an Air Force job? It's like the Marines is to the Navy?

The comparison to the Navy and Marines is exactly how the Air Force and Space Force are organized today. The Air Force and Space Force are two separate military services, each with their own representative on the Joint Chiefs. Also like the Navy and the Marines, they both fall under the one common civilian department secretary, the Secretary of the Air Force.

As a Space Force member or an Air Force member you may end up in an assignment in one or the other's organization depending on what you do, but the chances are a lot lower than some of the blending you see between the Navy and Marines (espicially when it comes to the JAG and medical personnel). Since Space Force was a Major Command under the Air Force before the change they already had manning positions for all the career fields they needed to run themselves. Those manning positions were simply converted. Personnel were all given the choice of which way they wanted to go, Air Force or Space Force.

 

[Eldorado2k]

Not trying to stir anything up, just trying to enlighten

Eldo

I apologize for hijacking your thread

My bad

This is actually quite funny as this whole thread had ulterior motives to begin with… lol.

TBO I wanted to gather up as many of you with a military background to ask your opinion on Tim Walz and if you thought he was stolen valor. Lol. I say it jokingly, but at the same time it’s a legit question.

I had been wanting to ask someone I knew who had been in the military and that same day I actually texted a good friend of mine, a Veteran Marine who I hadn’t spoken with in a while and got his opinion.

But since we’re here, that’s my question to you, I’d like to hear what you think of what’s happened and how he’s gone about it. In your opinion, is he stolen valor?

 

[Eldorado2k]

Btw no obligation to answer. Totally understand as I’m not trying to start an unnecessary chitstorm. I actually find the situation quite humorous.

 

[chilly]

This is actually quite funny as this whole thread had ulterior motives to begin with… lol.

TBO I wanted to gather up as many of you with a military background to ask your opinion on Tim Walz and if you thought he was stolen valor. Lol. I say it jokingly, but at the same time it’s a legit question.

I had been wanting to ask someone I knew who had been in the military and that same day I actually texted a good friend of mine, a Veteran Marine who I hadn’t spoken with in a while and got his opinion.

But since we’re here, that’s my question to you, I’d like to hear what you think of what’s happened and how he’s gone about it. In your opinion, is he stolen valor?

All I know is what I have read concerning statements made by his former commanding officer, and his opinion was pretty low

This gets into the whole “served” vs “deployed to a war zone” discussion

There was a guy up here running for office years back and he claimed to be a Vietnam Veteran

When pushed on the subject he changed his claim to “Vietnam ERA Veteran” as he was in the Army during the duration of the war but never once deployed overseas

It sounds to me like this is what we are looking at with Walz

But I never served so I’m certainly not qualified to judge


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[Desertnate]

I'll start of by saying I'm HIGHLY a-political at this point in life (and I'm not that old!) and haven't been paying any attention to anything related to the storyline in question. No idea what may have been said/claimed.

All I know is what I have read concerning statements made by his former commanding officer, and his opinion was pretty low

This gets into the whole “served” vs “deployed to a war zone” discussion

There was a guy up here running for office years back and he claimed to be a Vietnam Veteran

When pushed on the subject he changed his claim to “Vietnam ERA Veteran” as he was in the Army during the duration of the war but never once deployed overseas

I will comment here as I think I can provide some thoughts on these comments how this can become a touchy subject and also pretty complicated.

The whole "served" vs. "deployed to a combat zone" and how much you can claim if you're trying to impress people can be manipulated in may ways. I think there are several factors.

-Time: Timing of when you served and how long you serve can both play into any narrative. As mentioned above, a person may have been in uniform at the time a particular event was going on, but that doesn't mean you had any direct contribution to what was going on, or even were impacted. The person may have done their job same as always and watched things play out like everyone else. Also, if you were in uniform long enough you might have seen several events play out over the span of a career. I was in 22 years and plenty of conflicts passed during that time, but I'm not going to claim I had anything to do with more than a handful of them. This topic of timing gets even trickier if someone is in the Reserves or National Guard. Any meaningful participation is a bit of a stretch unless they were called up on Federal orders and put in an Active Duty status.

- Career field/Job performed: Moreso now than in the pre-Desert Storm days, you can perform a particular job from your home base, never get placed on any kind of deployment/combat orders, yet still have direct involvement with combat operations anywhere in the world. Pre-1990's it was a bit harder to make a claim list this as the world was a different place technologically, and the US fought wars a bit differently too.

- Location: A person can be directly involved in combat operations from somewhere hundreds or thousands of miles away just the same as someone else dodging mortar rounds on a forward operating base, or having their armored vehicle getting shot at while charging across a field.

I can use myself in all three of those scenarios. A healthy number of military operations happened the same time I was in uniform. Could I claim I was a veteran of all of them? Not with any honesty since I only supported a few in any meaningful way. When Operation Iraqi Freedom kicked off, I was stationed in Europe. I was part of the team that directly supported combat operations over/in Iraq which launched from our base around the clock for weeks. However, I never received a campaign medal for it because I was at my home station and never deployed on any type of orders. As for a particular job, I worked in several of those where I directly supported stuff going on abroad, but never left the comforts of the US.

I don't say this to brag, but just show it's not always straight forward. When people publicly claim a military service record publicly, regardless of venue, I always tend to analyze what they are saying to see if the truth is being bent or stretched in some way. I will never discount anyone for doing their time, but someone who appears to be making themselves seem more important than they really were, makes my "Spidey Senses" tingle.

 

[chilly]

I'll start of by saying I'm HIGHLY a-political at this point in life (and I'm not that old!) and haven't been paying any attention to anything related to the storyline in question. No idea what may have been said/claimed.



I will comment here as I think I can provide some thoughts on these comments how this can become a touchy subject and also pretty complicated.

The whole "served" vs. "deployed to a combat zone" and how much you can claim if you're trying to impress people can be manipulated in may ways. I think there are several factors.

-Time: Timing of when you served and how long you serve can both play into any narrative. As mentioned above, a person may have been in uniform at the time a particular event was going on, but that doesn't mean you had any direct contribution to what was going on, or even were impacted. The person may have done their job same as always and watched things play out like everyone else. Also, if you were in uniform long enough you might have seen several events play out over the span of a career. I was in 22 years and plenty of conflicts passed during that time, but I'm not going to claim I had anything to do with more than a handful of them. This topic of timing gets even trickier if someone is in the Reserves or National Guard. Any meaningful participation is a bit of a stretch unless they were called up on Federal orders and put in an Active Duty status.

- Career field/Job performed: Moreso now than in the pre-Desert Storm days, you can perform a particular job from your home base, never get placed on any kind of deployment/combat orders, yet still have direct involvement with combat operations anywhere in the world. Pre-1990's it was a bit harder to make a claim list this as the world was a different place technologically, and the US fought wars a bit differently too.

- Location: A person can be directly involvement on combat operations from somewhere hundreds or thousands of miles away just the same as someone else dodging mortar rounds on a forward operating base, or having their armored vehicle getting shot at while charging across a field.

I can use myself in all three of those scenarios. A healthy number of military operations happened the same time I was in uniform. Could I claim I was a veteran of all of them? Not with any honesty since I only supported a few in any meaningful way. When Operation Iraqi Freedom kicked off, I was stationed in Europe. I was part of the team that directly supported combat operations over/in Iraq which launched from our base around the clock for weeks. However, I never received a campaign medal for it because I was at my home station and never deployed on any type of orders. As for a particular job, I worked in several of those where I directly supported stuff going on abroad, but never left the comforts of the US.

I don't say this to brag, but just show it's not always straight forward. When people publicly claim a military service record publicly, regardless of venue, I always tend to analyze what they are saying to see if the truth is being bent or stretched in some way. I will never discount anyone for doing their time, but someone who appears to be making themselves seem more important than they really were, makes my "Spidey Senses" tingle.

Man, that’s the most honest and accurate statement about that situation I’ve ever heard

To further complicate matters you have people like my wife who was a commissioned officer in one of the uniform services that is not a military/combat service

Those would be USPHS (US Public Health Service) and NOAA (the weather and ocean folks)

Both these services wear Navy uniforms with different service emblems, and they use Navy rank

She was never expected to be deployed into combat but was actually deployed stateside on a couple of occasions for natural disasters or to fill in for actual military medical officers that were deployed to combat zones

She did 25 years, was injured twice on duty, and retired with the same pension, medical, privileges, etc

She has a 100% VA disability rating and has Disabled Veteran plates

That in and of itself is very misleading, and she has had people give her crap about “posing” as a “veteran”

The irony of that is there are plenty of military people out there who were injured stateside and never deployed anywhere that are disabled veterans

I guess the distinction is my wife had almost a zero percent chance of going to a war zone so some veterans feel she isn’t entitled to the same status

The further irony is that USPHS officers HAVE deployed to places like Haiti following earthquakes and storms and you want to talk about a war zone?

They deployed to Katrina and had to have National Guard escorts in some areas

Yeah, not quite Mosul or Baghdad but getting shot by a looter still counts as a sucky day

Sorry, time to climb down off my soapbox

I’ll end by saying my wife went to some really bad duty stations, wore her body out, achieved a lot, and I’m proud of her


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[chilly]

I'll start of by saying I'm HIGHLY a-political at this point in life (and I'm not that old!) and haven't been paying any attention to anything related to the storyline in question. No idea what may have been said/claimed.



I will comment here as I think I can provide some thoughts on these comments how this can become a touchy subject and also pretty complicated.

The whole "served" vs. "deployed to a combat zone" and how much you can claim if you're trying to impress people can be manipulated in may ways. I think there are several factors.

-Time: Timing of when you served and how long you serve can both play into any narrative. As mentioned above, a person may have been in uniform at the time a particular event was going on, but that doesn't mean you had any direct contribution to what was going on, or even were impacted. The person may have done their job same as always and watched things play out like everyone else. Also, if you were in uniform long enough you might have seen several events play out over the span of a career. I was in 22 years and plenty of conflicts passed during that time, but I'm not going to claim I had anything to do with more than a handful of them. This topic of timing gets even trickier if someone is in the Reserves or National Guard. Any meaningful participation is a bit of a stretch unless they were called up on Federal orders and put in an Active Duty status.

- Career field/Job performed: Moreso now than in the pre-Desert Storm days, you can perform a particular job from your home base, never get placed on any kind of deployment/combat orders, yet still have direct involvement with combat operations anywhere in the world. Pre-1990's it was a bit harder to make a claim list this as the world was a different place technologically, and the US fought wars a bit differently too.

- Location: A person can be directly involved in combat operations from somewhere hundreds or thousands of miles away just the same as someone else dodging mortar rounds on a forward operating base, or having their armored vehicle getting shot at while charging across a field.

I can use myself in all three of those scenarios. A healthy number of military operations happened the same time I was in uniform. Could I claim I was a veteran of all of them? Not with any honesty since I only supported a few in any meaningful way. When Operation Iraqi Freedom kicked off, I was stationed in Europe. I was part of the team that directly supported combat operations over/in Iraq which launched from our base around the clock for weeks. However, I never received a campaign medal for it because I was at my home station and never deployed on any type of orders. As for a particular job, I worked in several of those where I directly supported stuff going on abroad, but never left the comforts of the US.

I don't say this to brag, but just show it's not always straight forward. When people publicly claim a military service record publicly, regardless of venue, I always tend to analyze what they are saying to see if the truth is being bent or stretched in some way. I will never discount anyone for doing their time, but someone who appears to be making themselves seem more important than they really were, makes my "Spidey Senses" tingle.

Thank you for your service sir!


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