{"id":13,"date":"2013-11-11T15:29:16","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T15:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.60\/?p=13"},"modified":"2016-07-20T15:48:20","modified_gmt":"2016-07-20T15:48:20","slug":"veterans-at-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/i.dodbu.com\/index.php\/2013\/11\/11\/veterans-at-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Veterans at work!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blogpic-225x300\"Today is Veteran\u2019s Day, the official day to honor all those who have served in the military.\u00a0 I am a veteran.\u00a0 Although, sometimes I feel guilty calling myself one.\u00a0 In today\u2019s world, most military veterans have seen action in some of the many conflicts over the last 25 years.\u00a0 They have been stripped from their families, shipped to foreign countries, thrown on the front line, one hundred degree weather with sand filling their nostrils, bullets flying overhead\u2026the whole bit.\u00a0 Not me.\u00a0 I was on active duty in the early 80\u2019s and while the Invasion of Grenada (Operation Urgent Fury) happened during my tour in Panama, most of my time in the service was spent sending up weather balloons and crunching weather data to pass on to pilots (otherwise, I was drinking beer on Fort Kobbe beach by the Pacific Ocean with other soldiers)!<\/p>\n

Still, I am glad to have served and can be labelled \u2018a veteran\u2019.\u00a0 As I travel to IBM i conferences all over the country, I have met many more military veterans and \u2018war horses\u2019 that now work in the computer field.\u00a0 The \u2018veteran\u2019 status supplies instant comradery and a brotherhood, whether it be after a military career spent on desk duty or a short term deployment in the battlefield.\u00a0 We, veterans, have that subtle connection which is hard to put a finger on.\u00a0 It could be that we can relate to having our identities stripped upon our entrance to boot camp or the humiliation of cleaning the floors with toothbrushes or \u2018falling out\u2019 at 5am to march to military technical school in zero degree temperatures at Chanute AFB or all the psychological games the T.I.\u2019s played on us.\u00a0 We had no contact with friends or family for weeks or months on end (no cell phones back then!).\u00a0 The whole military experience forced us to become independent, self-disciplined, loyal, hardworking, combat-ready soldiers at the ripe old age of EIGHTEEN!<\/p>\n

ProData has four veterans working in the office.\u00a0 For the most part, you can tell they are solid, old soldiers.\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018War\u2019\u00a0 stories are shared.\u00a0 They are never late to work, they voice few (if any) complaints and they are focused on getting the job done, no questions asked.\u00a0 This is what military service instilled in them,\u00a0 in us\u2026a focused work ethic.\u00a0 I often razz ProData\u2019s owners to let us \u2018old war heroes\u2019\u00a0 have Veteran\u2019s Day off!\u00a0 But instead, we \u2018vets\u2019 come in just like every other day and battle the work put in front of us.<\/p>\n

\u201cFall out soldier.\u00a0 Get to work!\u201d<\/p>\n

Military then, military now.\u00a0 It\u2019s who we are.\u00a0 Something we can be proud of.\u00a0 Happy Veteran\u2019s Day!<\/p>\n

PS.\u00a0 That\u2019s my Dad pictured with his parents (above) as he goes off to the military in the late 50\u2019s! The stories and pictures of his service time at Camp Darby,\u00a0 Italy inspired me to join the USAF.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is Veteran\u2019s Day, the official day to honor all those who have served in the military.\u00a0 I am a veteran.\u00a0 Although, sometimes I feel guilty calling myself one.\u00a0 In […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"Layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-shelli","post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i.dodbu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i.dodbu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i.dodbu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i.dodbu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i.dodbu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/i.dodbu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15,"href":"https:\/\/i.dodbu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/15"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i.dodbu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i.dodbu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i.dodbu.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}