Sad to hear that, GallopingGhostler, truly. It has been my experience that military folks living on-base make more of an effort to be friendly with neighbors than civilians living in subdivisions. Plus, there are lots of folks from around the country, unlike a lot of civilian areas where some have never been out of the county they were born in, which is also sad.
I found out about 10 years ago that one of my cousins, a 1st generation American born farm boy from Central California, fluent in German, was a spy in Europe during WWII. Smart guy, but I can envision him playing the part of a half-wit bum. I think he lived to be late 80's or early 90's on the family farm. I stopped by and visited on the way to the last GSSC in Clovis ...2008 or 2009. 
Steve
Steve, I am not familiar with the abbreviation GSSC. One of my motivations in joining the Reserves was just to be around normal folk. It got me away from office politics for 2 days out of the month. Most were prior service, just regular folk, could relax. During the 2 week summer training, one could even leave their wallet on top the bunk they slept in, go shower, no one messed with one's stuff. (Actually, am speaking of the reserve band unit I was with, played both clarinet and sax.) Since reaching age 60, now get a small pension from the Army, plus the medical benefits, now on Tricare for Life as the second payer to Medicare. We pay very little out of pocket.
One of the neatest things I thought was when we did our annual training at Presidio Army Base in San Francisco, when it was still an active Army Base. We'd do all the jobs of the Army Band there, while they were taking their 2 week blanket leave. (They did this to keep the band intact. Hard to have a band if one is missing a few instrumentalists.)
Scotty, our alto sax player after hours, would take his sax off base to Fisherman's Wharf, a couple blocks away, play his sax. One evening he returned back to barracks, had a handful of cash in his hands from people tossing money in his open case as appreciation for his street musician playing. That was back in the late 1980's.
The 63rd Army Reserve Command flew us from Los Angeles to Tucson, AZ to play for a ceremony, opening of a new unit. While getting breakfast at the hotel, one of the cooks was glad to see us. Found out he was prior service as a cook, now working in the hotel's kitchen. He put on a little show by showing what he used to do in the Army Mess. Had about a dozen pairs of eggs frying on the grill, omelets too, all done to perfection, doing bulk service at its best. The Army was good training for him, could understand why the hotel snapped him up.
Topic: Sickening a$$holes (Read 6778 times)