Little Details

Setting: contemporary America / the world, between 1990-2007
Previous research: numerous different Google searches on retirement, mandatory retirement, US Army etc as well as digging through several US armed forces websites. Military.com's Army Professional Developement Center was very helpful, as was Wikipedia's information on the US Army.

Subject: The subject is a retired ex-Special Forces soldier from the U.S. army, specifically a career NCO that spent most of his career assigned to the 1st Special Forces Group, which is based in Okinawa and is responsible for the Pacific Rim, and his career extended from Vietnam to the first Gulf War (1960-1991).  Warning: I'm throwing around years and timelines here, trying to see what is within the realm of general plausibility.


Now, that last is a big part of the question: is it plausible for a man to be in the Special Forces for 8 years before reaching the rank of E-5?
If not, then the character will have to be an E-9 in the time period that I am concerned about. If it is, then E-8 is definitely still an option.

To prepare for a story, I'm looking for countries/eras/kingdoms that have alternative calendars. For example, North Korea's is based on the birthdate of its first leader and Taiwan's on the date it was founded. I'm looking for modern examples like these, but past ones would be good as well, preferably ones that lasted longer than one person's reign.

Google-fu has failed me, since I could only think of "alternative" + "calendar" (religious date calendars - not what I'm looking for) + "north korea" + "taiwan" (political documents).

I'm not looking for religious ones. I'm more focused on countries with calendars based on historical events or famous people.

I don't know much about dogs. I'm pretty sure they have four legs and I remember hearing once that they all go to Heaven.

Anyway, I'm using this image as a reference for a character but I have no idea how to describe it in terms of breed or breeds. Is it a mutt or is it just scruffy? If it is a mutt, what might be floating in its gene pool?

Hello, I need a small mite of help here.  :)

I'm animating a short film for my school's Film Festival, and as the short will have some decidedly Inuit influence in it, I feel it would make sense to have the characters with names in the same language and grounded in the culture.  I've already looked all over Google for resources on Inuit mythology, for names, and have successfully found a chart of the Inukitut alphabet, as well as a decent dictionary, but nothing good enough to find what I'm looking for.

Does anyone know of any mermaid-like creatures, or sea-people, in Inuit mythology?  I'm already aware of Sedna, but she's not the sort of being I have in mind.  A female being of the kinder persuasion would be preferred, or one with dominion over and/or with seals.  If nothing of that sort exists, then common names for seals will do as well.

Also, if there are any easily jealous or fickle goddesses that exist within Inuit mythology, I'd greatly appreciate if I knew about them.  If not, then a generic girl's name will suffice.

Thank you very much!