Dishonorable

Since I retired from the Army in 1994, a little over 16 years ago, I've had two people question the character of my service. The first speculated that, since I didn't automatically jump to the defense of the Navy SEALs being tried for abusing prisoners, something must have gone terribly wrong when I was in the Army and so I must be bitter. In fact, I simply believe that the military justice system works pretty well. I also have just as much faith in the officers who accused the SEALs as I do in the SEALs themselves. In the end, they were acquitted. The system worked.
Recently, it was implied oh so subtly, that there must have been some kind of issue, since I "only" retired as a Sergeant First Class. I'm going to explain why that happened, because I want to remove grounds for speculation and false assumptions, but first, let me tell you why there can be no higher insult than to question the integrity of my service. I try very hard not to be PROUD of anything. I was raised with the saying "Pride goeth before a fall." But I'm proud of my 22 years of military service. People who know me and don't think I'm a very military person sometimes ask how I wound up in the military and stayed so long. My answer is always the same: "There's something to be said for a hard life lived well." If I could have put that on my Honorable Discharge and my DD-214, I would have. It sums up my military career very well.
But the question - the mean-spirited, unprofessional, insulting, chickenshit question - hangs out there now. "If you lived that life so well, if you served with honor, why did you retire as ONLY an E-7?"
First, because I served 4 years in the US Air Force first. If you serve in one branch and then transfer to another, those years in the other branch serve as a millstone around your neck. It takes years to overcome the disadvantage. You have to be better than everyone else just to be considered equal. To be honest, I was not very good in the Air Force. I was an electronics technician, but I wasn't good at nor interested in electronics. I got put on night shift and put my time and energy into attending college full time. I got my BA with honors in English from Eastern New Mexico University in 1975, three months before I got my Honorable Discharge from the US Air Force.
I joined the US Army to be a Russian liguist in 1976. I didn't love the Army so much as I loved being a linguist. It didn't hurt that the first thing the Army did after basic training is send me to Monterey, California to study Russian for a year. I still love Monterey. My career progressed very well after that, since promotion from E-4 to E-5 and E-5 to E-6 were primarily controlled at the unit level. If they put you on the promotion list, then you got promoted if you had enough promotion points. My time in service in the Air Force and my bachelor's degree both gave me more than enough points. In my year and a half at Ft Hood, I went from E-4 to E-6, with the minimum time in grade required. This could not have happened if my platoon sergeants, first sergeants, and commanders had not considered me worthy of such quick promotions. I worked hard at Ft Hood simply because there was nothing else to do. After becoming a Staff Sergeant, I went back to Monterey for another year of Russian, then to Field Station Augsburg for 4 years. Many staff sergeants would have been recommended for promotion after 5 years time in grade. I was recommended, but not selected, because an Army-level board looks at your records and evaluates you against all other NCO's in your career field. To them, I was a staff sergeant with a total of 5 years experience as a Russian linguist. The NCO's I was competing against had 10 to 12 years experience. I had hoped to make SFC - we always hope we make it - but I understood very well why others would be promoted ahead of me. Instead, I went back to Monterey for another year of Russian. When it was over, I returned to Germany and eventually became "the Czar of Schneeberg" (the 207th MI Brigade commander dubbed me with this title) - the NCOIC of a remote mountaintop listening post on the Czech border. I loved the place and the job. I was promoted two years into that assignment, so I still made E-7 just after the 12-year mark. It was looking very possible that I would be able to move up even higher in the ranks. And then I met Vera.
I was sent to a civilian Russian course in Germany, and Vera went from her university in Utrecht. She was and still is a Dutch citizen. When we became engaged, I was required by regulation to report my relationship to the military. My top secret, special compartmented information clearance was temporarily suspended. When the background investigation was finished, I was told I could keep my top secret clearance, but I would not be able to have access to special compartmented information, which was required for my job as a voice intercept operator and supervisor. So there was my choice - stay single, keep my job, and expect an eventual promotion to first sergeant, or marry Vera, change careers as an E-7 with 14 years of service, making it almost impossible to compete against career interrogators. I made the only choice I could - I married Vera. It's the best choice I've ever made, even though it caused the one biggest regret I have in the military. After being a successful NCOIC and subsequently a successful platoon sergeant in Desert Storm, I wanted to be a first sergeant and to have my own company. But I knew Army-level boards would look at my record, all my maxed out NCOER's, and still say, "We can't promote a sergeant first class with one year (or a few) before promoting a career interrogator."
I had one last chance. After 3 years at Schneeberg, Vera was pregnant with our first son. She knew I was due to rotate back to the States, and asked if I could request a consecutive tour in Germany (another 3 years). She was afraid to have her baby in a US hospital. This wasn't a hard decision to make - I loved Germany, I loved Schneeberg, and I loved Vera. After I requested the consecutive tour, I got orders to go to Ft Bragg. Without going into too much detail, the timing and events led to my being able to choose - go to Ft Bragg, get Airborne qualified, then suddenly have a renewed chance to move up in rank. In all my years in the Army, Vera only asked this one thing. I told her what it would mean to my career and to me personally, but she was so afraid, not just of having her baby in the States, but of me jumping out of airplanes, that she pleaded with me to stay in Germany. For all intents and purposes, that sealed my fate. I knew I would retire as a sergeant first class.
I didn't really need another nail in the coffin, but I got one anyway. The Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed. The Army stopped promoting any E-7 Russian linguists. Instead, they put promotion and retention emphasis on Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic linguists. My end-of-career award was to be sent back to Monterey to be a Russian instructor. I was allowed to extend two years past the 20-year mark in order to finish my Master of Arts in Teaching Russian, which led to my current career.
My best accomplishment in the military was as platoon sergeant for an interrogation platoon in Desert Storm. My platoon went, accomplished our mission, had some major intelligence accomplishments, and came home whole. My soldiers respected me and worked hard for me. Of this, I am proud.
I look back on my military career with a strong sense of pride for living a hard life well. It hurts and angers me when people who know nothing of my career question it or impugn it. Anyone who ever wanted to know could just have asked, "Robert, why did you retire as only an E-7?" I don't mind explaining it, but then, they wouldn't be able to speculate, to make assumptions, to insult me, would they?
I'm writing this out and posting it more to get it off my chest. I won't respond to this most recent insult directly. After all, my service was honorable - this insult was not.