[muawiyah]

No amount of additional training was going to make Kerry any more decisive than he always was.

Give it up.

BTW, virtually everyone who did 2 years active duty during the Viet Nam War was granted whatever exemption from reserve duty he or she sought.

We weren't really wanted. The reserves were bloated with folks hiding out from the draft.

[CONSERVE]

We should give it up just after the msm gives up on Bush's guard record. I think the hypocrisy is terrible

[harpu]

"No amount of additional training was going to make Kerry any more decisive than he always was... Give it up.

What the F... are you trying to say here?

[SpeakingUp]

We weren't really wanted. The reserves were bloated with folks hiding out from the draft. I was in the reserves in the 60's and tend to agree with you. But our unit also had a lot of reservists that joined early in the 60's. I joined in the summer of 63 and the US had less that 15,000 troops, one of which was my brother, in Viet Nam at the time. It was widely perceived as a non-issue when I joined. Latter on, as the war progressed in 64 and 65, a lot of draft avoiders joined. We also had a lot of college students who could have been deferred if they chose. One thing to remember about the reserves in that time was that 10 years earlier the reserves were called to duty in Korea where the casualty rate for reservists was extremely high. A reservist exposure to war lasts for 6 years while a 2 year enlisted is exposed to much less than that since tours are for 13 months and must start before a soldier has finished his first year.

The problem in this argument is that the Viet Nam war should not have been brought up.

. It doesn't matter to me why Kerry took the path he took. The ad says 'be all you can be' and that is reason enough to join. He did well on that score. The problem began when he decided to make the cornerstone of his campaign something that he seemed to hold in such disdain.

[Rocket1968]

---BTW, virtually everyone who did 2 years active duty during the Viet Nam War was granted whatever exemption from reserve duty he or she sought.---

Not necessarily true. I was in the same USNR program as Kerry. It was made clear to me at the time I enlisted that I would have two years of active duty, three years of drills/two week activations, and a final year of inactive status. I was required to fulfil my committment. I did not receive my honorable discharge until after my last year of inactive status.

Kerry's record makes no sense to me. It never has. He enlisted for 6 (or possibly 7 due to Officer Training) years in 1966. There is no indication that he re-enlisted, because there is no record of additional drills etc. So why does his honorable discharge occur in 2001, or in 1978, as reported in other places?

Something smells and the truth needs to come out.