re: #2 Dark_Falcon

Decades prior to her original enlistment, she had surgery to insert plastic tubes to her middle ears to keep her hearing good. During her time in OCS the Army National Guard decided that wasn’t acceptable. They did not tell her or her unit until after she had 1) graduated first in her class (the first woman to ever do so) and 2) served as a 2nd LT during a particularly difficult REFORGER exercise. They were 2 days from returning from that REFORGER when she received word that her commission had been had been revoked.

She was far stronger than I.

I would have walked away and never mentioned the army again in my life. But I was only an NCO. She was both and, perhaps, that made her stronger for it.