I joined this world slightly before the first wave of fellow Dutchies arrived. It was at a time that admin had closed registration because of Yellow #5 and the war that soon followed. Ofcourse I had no idea of the meaning of these events so that's what I read up to later.
In any case, this initially small group of what later became FOK spent most of its time techraiding instead of actually building a solid foundation for a powerful alliance. I recall that we butted heads with NpO shortly thereafter (they intervened when a raid by some of us got out of hand), and presumably that is why a feud was started between our respective alliances. Up to this point I had no experience with a 'real' big war though.
That would change soon. As FOK grew after the first mass recruitment drive we positioned ourselves in a corner opposite of NpO, by allying GOONS and MK. This put us squarely in the sphere of what later became known as the Unjust Path. The war that erupted - the Unjust War - was where I got my first war experience. On an individual level, I recall that it wasn't a particularly hard time we had, as NTO and -AiD- were the alliances we fought and the difference in warring capability became clear very quickly - not just to those directly involved but the rest of the world as well.
But for the alliance it was a big deal. This situation led to GATO infamously claiming a PIAT was a justifiable reason to intervene on their friends behalf. That didn't come to pass for obvious reasons, so in the end we got off pretty easily, and indeed our leadership understood that we had gotten lucky. The whole Unjust experience, with all the drama accompanying it, greatly helped in shaping our alliance's future. By proving ourself in this way to the world, we were allowed to play with the big boys and join the Continuum.