Yes, I have. Air Force, mostly; rarely Army and Navy. Behaviour is hugely different. Fighter pilots have zero sense of humour; they are always in conquistador mode. They are formed into a permanent clique, and other branches - transport, rotary wing, engineering - are not welcome. Higher up, they tend to relax and behave human again.
Army, upto Major, they are scrupulously polite and very particular that you stay in the mess, keep drinking, and stay out of their formation's way. In an armoured regiment, you can, on special request, get into a tank, but it is hugely not advisable on Russian tanks. Those are meant for specially grown midgets bred at the Saharanpur stud. Gunners talk loudly to you, because they can't hear you, or themselves. Infantry are normal human beings, but during official meetings, unless you are a subject matter expert, you get that impassive look that has a thought balloon attached that is so easy to read - "How long is this civilian going to keep on sitting here?" Again, Brigadier up are relaxed people, largely because one got to meet them socially.
Navy, good and bad. The old lot, all dead now, trained at Dartmouth and knew what a pink gin was. The new lot are - different. The new lot are spoilt; when I was trying to introduce fingerprint recognition devices to the Navy through WESEE, seven of their kids, very young MTech from the best institutes, sat impassively through our off-base presentation, asked searching questions, then invited us over the next day to meet their boss, a Cdre. We had to pass through seven of those devices that we had presented the previous day. We found ourselves very silent at the meeting.
To sum up, in all three, junior officers are scrupulously polite, but if you don't know what you're talking about, their eyes glaze over, and the clearly wish you were somewhere else. Seniors are more relaxed, except during an official meeting, when they revert to type, glassy eyes and everything.
defensedaily.com
