I saw some stuff floating around the interwebs about how many soldiers and so forth had played D&D in their youth and even on deployments and I was reminded of our small high schools drama club.
At one point, I tried to quantify the level of military experience of the guys who were in the plays or did props and such.
It is simply unbelievable. Most of these guys did not play sports but most of them played D&D. I was in the plays with them and was invited to play D&D but I never did.
I was more the shit-kickin' farm kid who went out for football and such just to be on the team. I have often thought that if I had grown up in a city or suburb I would probably have done the D&D thing.
Most of these guys graduated a year ahead of me so I finally got to be the bad guy (a pirate) in the play my senior year.
I know of one retired special forces guy, plus lots of other military paths they followed usually at the tip of the spear.