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grumpycoconut,
[quote: No sailors or airmen but then it's hard to think of them as members of "armed" services.]
Coast Guardsmen risk their lives during weather which causes other ships to run for port. They’re “manly” enough to put their lives on the line for you when you’ve ignored the gale warnings.
Every branch of service has many non-combatants; without whom the service could not function. However, there is no branch of the military which does not have the primary purpose of combat.
Every sailor aboard ship is in a combat role. The cook in the galley will face the same sharks the fighter pilot will if the ship sinks. The Machinist Mate on a cargo ship drowns as easily as the Torpedo man in a submarine.
The Air Force probably has the highest ratio of support personnel to combat crew but combat air crew, of any branch, is more exposed to the enemy than any other specialty. Here’s little poem I wrote during my days as an Air Force gunner:
There is no quarter,
It’s kill or die,
There are no foxholes
In the sky.
I’m sure your remark was not intended to slam the Navy, Air Force, or Coast Guard, but was just a momentary slip. I have responded to you, hopefully taken, as a gentle reminder that “he also serves who only stands and waits”—Churchill.
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