Posted on 04/28/2019 4:20:34 PM PDT by SMGFan
Thumbs up Mom! ;)
Yep, that was a nice tribute.
Volunteers are dying, no way in hell a draft would work, with the unwilling falling like flies
it is not easy going into the military and it should not
I should do sit ups during commercials now! thanks for the suggestion!
During the Vietnam war, I was going to college but had to report for a physical exam in downtown LA for the draft. I played water polo and competitive swimming in high school, and I had never seen so many obese and out-of-shape young men before taking that physical exam. Basic training is tough for those who are out of shape...I took mine at 25 years old and it was still tough when you are not in perfect shape.
I was there for surveillance radar repair (2884)
My most revisited memory was waking up at the base hospital with five Navy nurses (all burly guys) holding me down and trying to get a spinal tap in. None of them had done it before and it took several tries.
Even in peace time, hundreds to thousands of soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen and guardsmen are injured yearly. Many are killed. It is one of the most demanding and dangerous peacetime professions. It requires a level of fitness that can expose underlying or hidden health conditions that may be life threatening. Sad to hear any service connected death. Especially so for a new recruit.
Prayers for her family.
As I recall it, you didn’t dare throw a butt on the ground.
Over at the E-club, I used to to play the hell out of that Pac-man machine. That E-club was a noisy place - they cranked the music loud with a lot of ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Van Halen. Pitchers were $1.50 if I remember right and on more than one occasion, I had to help carry a fellow Marine back to the barracks. I also remember the PX which was in sort of a little outside mall with a barber shop and other little stores. Then you had the theater with a large swimming pool next to it.
Another memory was looking out across the desert and seeing a snow-capped Big Bear mountain on the horizon even though it was 90 degrees where I was. One time, I saw a dust storm moving in from that direction. You could actually see the tumbleweeds coming right at you with a huge cloud of dust.
In the summer, it got so hot that we went to desert hours. Between 11am and 3pm, we were sent to the barracks for a long siesta where we mostly played cards and cooled off with the swamp coolers going full tilt.
Good times.
September in Orlando will do you up a treat also. I’m pretty much from Florida, so it was just another day in paradise. But for some of our Yankee brethren it was quite a trial.
Romney said his sons were serving the nation by working on his campaign.
My husband is retired AF. His first duty assignment was as an
area training officer at Lackland in the early ‘60s. He oversaw 10 old style 2 story barracks. No AC then and the heat in the summer was brutal. When the temp got to a certain point, they put up the “heat flag” and no one was allowed on the drill pads. Even so, quite a few times they had to rush recruits to the hospital and pack them in ice. Some did not survive. Husband was also on funeral detail then. I remember on my 21st birthday he had to bring home the belongings of a 20 year old recruit who died of a heart ailment. Husband had to go through all the belongings and remove anything that might have been detrimental to his memory. There was not a thing that had to be removed, he was just a clean-cut young kid. Still makes me tear up.
The hardest thing we did was march. We marched a great deal. I suppose boot camp could have changed since then. Nevertheless, I suspect there was an underlying condition here. It's still a tragedy.
Any talk of actually reinstituting the draft is insanity
Lived in Cocoa for 24 yrs.
Is that you Andrew?
Physical and general stress. Most kids think they are “stressed” but many of them have literally never been yelled at.
Some of them fold like a cheap camp chair.
Im not celebrating it.
You are a psycho. You are a hater. You are stalking me online and any comment I make you attack me. Jump off a bridge.
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