Posted on 07/06/2009 6:21:18 AM PDT by DFG
Thank you for your kind words. After my Dad’s death, Mom said he had suffered their entire married life with nightmares, waking up covered with sweat, or her waking him up when he was shaking. In over 20 years of marriage, he never told her what it was...but he had been thru 2 wars before they married.
My son-in-law did 2 tours in Marine Infantry in Fallujah. He doesn’t talk much about it either.
Those are the folks we owe so much to, and not McNamara!
Louis Johnson didn’t have anything to do with VN - he was
SecDef from 1947-1950 (succeeded James Forrestal).
I don’t like to wear my religious beliefs or my faith on my sleeve. Faith is a private matter. I don’t preach at people. I never have.
but I have to ask you again. What would the Lord Jesus Christ say about this thread ?
I do not intend on getting in a pi$$ing contest with you over this, but would highly suggest you google “McNamara’s 100,000” to get an idea of who was affected by this madness.
It not only almost destroyed the Military—the minimum score on most batteries was 31 and they were taking people with 8’s and below. A great many of them had less than 5th grade intelligence. These poor guys were being used as cannon fodder. Some of the ‘chosen companies’ were so bad the Marine Corps had to impose a 15% drop out rate from Boot Camp. So weeding through the ‘trash’ put the DI’s in a bad position when the main job was teaching people how to survive war, they were caught up in a ‘social experiment.’
The dolt McNamara and his minions figured ANYONE could go into battle — true if you just arm them and send them off, but when they started disrupting the training process others were affected.
Ollie North started lambasting the replacements he was being sent.
BTW you do appear to have a Marine ‘wannabee’ thing going here.
I most definitely agree.
I never had any respect for McNamara but I had even less for respect for Halberstrom. IMHO, neither could be trusted.
They are upsetting because they are radical.
Deathwishing is a disease that fails to recognize the weakness of our humanity.
This is all really old news. I also recall the Marine Corps DRAFTING young men ~ and you know they don’t do that, but they did.
Bwahahahaha!
Quotas are Quotas.
You sometimes are forced to do things that normally wouldn’t fit into the big picture.
The 100,000 were more of a problem to the USMC than draftees, although neither group was quite as acceptable than the young lads that went into the Corps with eyes wide open....
From a Rand report on Project 100,000 ~ thought this soundbyte was most excellent: “Mental Standards Mental test score standard and educational requirements were lowered, but were still slightly higher than entrance standards during the Korean War. The lowered mental standards still excluded those who scored in the lowest 10% on the entrance tests. The lowered mental standards applied to both volunteers and draftees.”
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG265/images/webG1318.pdf
I dunno. He gets all weepy in the documentary _Fog of War_.
I felt no sympathy for him when I saw him cry on film.
What? Your references are getting more and more vague ~ makes it difficult to figure out what you are referring to. Regarding the Marines, I know some. BTW, the military unit to which I was assigned for the longest time was the 1st and 15th Infantry. They hold the singular distinction of GUARDING THE MARINE CORPS as it withdrew from Chosen. I really don’t think anyone else has been given the job of guarding and protecting the US Marines. If you know, let’s hear about it eh.
McNamara was a military analyst who wrote a report on (then) Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay’s performance with the B-29 while LeMay was in charge of the XX Bomber Command (Kharagpur, India). Big deal!
From what I’ve read, the success of the strategic bombing campaign against Imperial Japan then (and later, when LeMay took charge of the XX Bomber Command) had a lot to do with LeMay and his fine men, and very little to do with “Doctor Strange.”
No, just a lot of vets AFTER the funeral looking for a place to pee.
I’m NOT a vet (I was 11 in 1975). Still pretty angry based upon what I’ve read.
So McNamara was the “conscience of the West.”
Busing, immigration and gun control enthusiast Philip Hart was known as the “conscience of the Senate” around the same time. He didn’t work out so well for the country either.
That’s the only thing I’ve read by Halberstrom—it was actually very good.
Some things you can't forget, and fools like them will never get a free pass from me, dead or alive.
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