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Hey EuroRef,
I officiated in the service for 17 years and it is one of the most difficult situations anyone will ever find.
You officiate games where your friends, enemies, supervisors, subordinates, and commanders play.
As one of the other posts stated, if you keep it professional at all times, then you can leave the court with your head held up.
The military never had enough good officials so a lot of training was required and some people who never would ever get it right you had to use just to fill the spots. In Heidelberg, Germany I scheduled for 7 gyms, 6 nights a week and did it with about 25 officials. Talk about work.
The good thing about that situation was that new officials worked a lot of games and therefore were able to be involved in many different situations which officials in other locations were not seeing since their total number of games was considerably lower.
Back in the 80s military intersrvice basketball was equivalent to Divison II--numerous high school and college all-americans. I missed refereeing David Robinson while he was in the Navy by 1 year.
Keep a positive attitude and when you return to the states get involved in your local association so you can progress to the higher level.
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