Like everyone else I looked to get off-planet as soon as I could. I joined the army and became a grunt. I was good at it and got commissioned as a Lieutenant leading an infantry platoon. Learned a lot of leadership and small unit tactics-but I got tired of leading my troops into high casualty situations based on orders from above.

For my second term in the army I decided I didn’t want to lead troops anymore so I became a forward observer. I figured laying in support fire would help keep the troop alive. What I didn’t count on was that rather than fighting aliens, I’d be involved in putting down rebellions against the empire- and calling in fire and seeing the collateral damage that was involved among innocents who were being used as shields by the rebels was not for me either.

Left the army and joined the navy after that. My forward observer skills lead to a natural transition into gunnery- and I learned how to pilot and navigate a starship too. But the navy aristocrats were even worse than the army- planetary bombardments were a game to them and they kept score by number of missions completed without ever seeing the effects of their actions on the ground.

I’d had enough of the military after that. I joined the scouts and spent two terms mostly on my own surveying planets. moons and asteroids for the service. I did have a chance to keep up my combat skills through some encounters with rogue strip miners and the like, and learn some other useful skills. Those long trips in space between stops also gave me a chance to finish my PhD in Alien Cultures which I know will come in handy.

Now I figure it’s time to reconnect with the Empire outside the military and see what the next step brings me.