Hello all,

I am curious as to how many of us here are/were in the military.

I am in the USAF as a SATCOM, WIDEBAND and TELEMETRY systems technician, and have served for 13 years. I am currently enjoying Germany as my home, but have been stationed in OK, KS, South Korea, and Guam. I am looking forward to hearing of ya'lls experiences in the military, and hearing some good campfire stories relative to military lifestyle / possible survival scenarios.

I suppose I'll start with one of my own, although it isn't necessarily relative to the military. While stationed in Wichita KS, I decided to take a vacation in neighboring Colorado with my girlfriend at the time. We wanted to explore the beautiful Rockies and 4 corners area, so I packed up my Nissan Pathfinder to the max with supplies and camping goodies and we headed into the great wilderness of Estes National Park. We had a great time exploring, hiking, camping and we even did some fly fishing. Over 2 weeks, we drove through the State and stayed in a few hotels and bed and breakfasts as well as campsites. I remember my girlfriend complimenting me on my preparedness, since we seemed to have everything we wound up needing when left to our own devices. While driving through Wolfcreek Pass, we were surprised by whiteout snowfall conditions, making driving less than desirable. Well, since I was 2 days out from the time I was to return from my leave, I needed to make Colorado Springs to stay on track to be back to work on schedule. I decided to push through the record breaking snowfall by following a snowplow truck down the mountain. As I hunched over the steering wheel following the flashing yellow beacon from the truck, I recall stating that if the pathfinder got us out of this okay, then I'd keep her longer (since I was contemplating a new vehicle). As it turned out, we made it safely to Denver, and stayed in a nice Holiday Inn, but awoke in the morning to a fresh foot of snow. This of course closed all interstate traffic back to Kansas, so I desperately searched for back road access towards the East. After having successfully maneuvered through the worst of conditions the night before, I was confident that we'd pull through the last leg and and return home on schedule. As the roads became clearer and clearer, the more confident I became, and hence sped up to the posted speed limits. Suddenly my rear broke free and I was doing 60 mph doughnuts on a back country road in Brush, CO. As the vehicle left the road surface, the tires quickly gripped the dirt off the shoulder and we did 1.5 flips before sliding on the roof into a ditch and finally resting on the passenger side door. We quickly assessed the situation and escaped the vehicle relatively unharmed (insert seatbelt plug here), and were greeted by an ambulance and taken in for scans, etc.
What a crazy end to such a relaxing vacation!
I definitely learned a few things from this experience.
First, no matter how prepared you are to take on the great wide open, ML can and will happen.
Second, tire tread is your friend. I realize now that I live in Europe how serious people are about having winter tires AND summer tires. Ensuring that tire tread is at an acceptable level is can also prove detrimental.
Lastly, and possibly more importantly be flexible. I should have waited it out in the hotel prior to trying to evac with closed routes. They close them for a reason! My Commander later told me that it would have been no problem to extend my leave for a day. So regardless of you being stranded in the wild or in a hotel; if you have the means to wait out bad weather, then it's usually much safer of an option, and one that I will give much closer attention to in future endeavors. Thanks for bearing with my extended writing style, and hopefully someone can add to this with their own fortunate/misfortunate experiences.
~7~