As researchers, our multiple identities influence our research in various ways. Our racial, sexual, national or gender identities may facilitate or complicate access to, or interaction with, individuals that we deem essential to encounter for our research aims. Less formal identities, such as those based on particular hobbies, sports or interests, can play important roles in our relations with potential or actual interviewees. Building on the first Roundtable 'Researching the armed forces (1) : Getting Access and Building Trust', this Roundtable examines and explores the different ways and means by which researchers build trust and interact with armed forces in the framework of their research. The aim of the panel is both to encourage an open discussion of methodological reflexivity and to explore in the different ways we build trust with the military and how we perform different identities in these processes. It also reflects on how these processes and strategies influence our research in different ways. By examining personal, lived experiences recounted and shaped in academic article format, it delves into personal narratives and opens for questions of ethics, gender and identities in research.