I'm in my fifties, a tech support and some-time programming geek who had a stint in the military back when the US was not actually involved in any conflicts. The military protocol I use in my fics is based on what I remember from my own experience.

The way Fuery approaches tech support is the way I do. Other than that, Fuery and I don't have much in common. He's much sweeter than I am.

I write my fic like I write support manuals: to the point and as clearly as possible. Unfortunately, I don't have the screenshots for my fics that I use for my manuals.

I wrote fanfiction for Harry Potter over at occlumency dot sycophanthex dot com until the last volume of the series came out. I was close to finished with "The Highest Value", an attempt to solve the mystery of what had happened at Godric's Hollow when Voldemort attacked the Potters, and an attempt to explain Snape. Unfortunately, the last volume blew most of my theories completely out of the water and left so many loose ends and inconsistencies that I lost all heart to finish it.

Recently, I've read the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, at the behest of my daughter and her friends, and fallen in love with it. I particularly like the portrayal of the military in the manga, and specifically how women in the military are portrayed. I also love the portrayal of Mustang's team, which is probably obvious, since most of my writing focuses on them.

Unfortunately, this doesn't apply to the first anime. I can't stand Riza shooting guns to keep order in the office. [In the manga, she handles guns properly, not frivolously, except for the "dog of the military" omake.] And the team plays little more than a supporting role.

I also am sick to death of the Roy and mini-skirts jokes. The only fic I've read that refers miniskirts in a way that I like is favilla's excellent "All Along the Eastern Front."

I began writing fanfiction again, here, because I was dissatisfied with the easy solution Marcoh presents to Roy in the last chapter of the manga/second anime. My solution turned into "The Toll."

More recently, I'm working on "Team Players", which is a significant departure from how I usually write. In my other fictions, I know pretty much where I'm going. In this one, the first chapters I posted: Havoc, Fuery, Falman and Breda were going to be all of it. Now I'm adding chapters and sticking them in where I think they fit. I don't know how this is going turn out. I'm particularly nervous about writing Riza.

Notes on Military Customs

In general, I base military customs on what I remember from the US Air Force. I've made a few exceptions based on the manga.

Sir: In the US, "sir" is used for male officers and "ma'am" is used for female officers. The Japanese term that is translated "sir" is not gender specific. Some parts of the manga seem to use "sir" for female officers, and I think I've seen it use "ma'am" in some places as well. Since outside of the military, the term "ma'am" has a somewhat old-fashioned, "old-lady" feel, and since some science fiction shows have used "sir" to refer to female officers as well, I've decided to use "sir" for all officers and "ma'am" as a polite form of address for civilian women. I must say, it still sounds weird me to me though.

Rank address: In the US, it is extremely rare to address a soldier by their two-word rank. A First Lieutenant and Second Lieutenant are both addressed as Lieutenant, a Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel are both addressed as Colonel, and all the grades of General are addressed as General. In the manga, however, the full rank is always used, because Japanese doesn't appear to use compound ranks. Second Lieutenant and First Lieutenant, for example, are two different two (or three, I'm not sure) syllable words in Japanese. I've mostly kept the full rank, to match the manga, even though it's awkward and not common usage in English.

Saluting: In the US, you don't need to salute when you're in a "covered" area. Indoors and some outdoor areas are considered "covered". The rule of thumb is that if you're wearing your hat, you salute, and if you aren't, you don't. The most common exception is that you do salute even in a covered area when you are formally reporting for duty to a new commanding officer. In the manga, there is a lot more saluting than there would be in a normal US military situation. Also, there's a lot less wearing of uniform hats, which you'd almost always wear outside. I've compromised by having my characters salute indoors if they tend to be very formal (like Falman), want to be friendly (like Fuery with Miles), or there is a big difference in rank (most characters with the Fuhrer).