My father served 26 years in the Air Force as a pilot and a pioneer in our missile programs. I learned early about the sacrifices a family makes when a member is repeatedly deployed, and also the fulfillment that comes from serving our country. My brother, my son and I all became Marines.
My dad has been in the military for 35 years. My brother's in the Air Force. I'm familiar with what it's like being in a military family - the unusual traumas you carry around with you.
I grew up in a military family, and there's something about that military-style uniform, all cleaned up, a brutal control effort the military necessarily breeds.
I am an Air Force brat who grew up at various Air Force bases. I changed six schools in about five years and got stability for the first time when I was sent to a boarding school, Rishi Valley. I lived outside of a cantonment-style living and was among an eclectic mix of kids and got exposed to books and other things.
When my father went back into the military in 1947 and was gone for 3-1/2 years, my mother was 24 years old with four kids in a town she didn't know that well with no military services available, no family services available through the military, and that was the norm.
I virtually grew up at Air Force bases, and when I was younger, I'd dream of wearing a uniform like my father and grandfather. But when I turned 10, I felt theatre and acting were my calling.
I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General.
I always wanted to go into the military or something like that - my whole family, all my friends are either Air Force, Navy, or Marines.
Father served in the Air Force for 22 years.
If you are 26 years old and you're waking up under Star Wars sheets... the Force is not with you.
San Antonio is like a military town. It's like literally - when I was growing up there, there were five Air Force bases, plus Fort Sam Houston. I was always sort of near the military.
The other thing that happened was my last military assignment - this was in the air force; I had enlisted in order to avoid being drafted as a private, and of course I only practiced medicine or psychiatry in the air force so I was never in any kind of violent combat.
I grew up thinking that I would become a fighter pilot and was fascinated by aircrafts as I had grown up around that. But my father encouraged me to not become an Air Force person, given the varied interests I had, be it books, movies, sports or fighter flying.
My husband was an Air Force pilot man years ago and recently an Air Force wife thanked me for my service! I laughed and said, 'No, I wasn't in the Air Force, my husband was!' And she smiled and said, 'If he served, you served. And thank you.'
I had a great family. My father was in the Air Force, so we were always disciplined, goal oriented.
United States has comparative advantage in military force. It tends to react to anything at first with military force, that's what it's good at. And I think they overdid it. There was more military force than was necessary.