Back on March 4th, he said he was up for promotion to master sergeant (E8). I told him congratulations, but I was confused by this. The way I remembered it, he was a captain (O3) during the time we were roommates. Since master sergeant's an enlisted rank, and that's not how promotions work, I thought I must have mis-remembered that. 
But it turns out I was right. According to his LinkedIn profile, Andrew finished ROTC and commissioned as a second lieutenant back in 1993. That would have put him in the right year group to be a captain in the late 90s. 
However, he didn't have a lot of gear filling up our room during that time, so I think he'd resigned his commission after his initial service obligation, and held captain rank only on the Inactive Ready Reserve. That's the list you sit on between the time you get out and the 8-year mark. When 2004 rolled around, he answered the call to service again, but this time, he came in as an enlisted soldier. That's why he was sporting sergeant first class stripes in this picture with two years worth of deployment bars.
If that's correct, that would be an amazing act of humility and dedication. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of enlisted personnel who go through Officer Candidate School and become officers every year, but I don't think I've ever heard of anyone who has enlisted *after* having been an officer. That just *doesn't* happen.Yet that's exactly what he did. As it turns out, his 2010-2011 deployment to Afghanistan coincided with mine, even though we were in opposite ends of the country.
Even as I'm writing his, I'm shaking my head. I spent all my 10 years in the Army not realizing he'd joined up again. And now I can't even talk to him about it.
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