OMG!

Per FR member Captain Rhino:

Looked at Chief’s video.

Couple of points for clarification about the pages shown from his service record book (SRB). (BTW, the Chief is connected, this info is definitely not from a DD 214. This is an actual scan of his assignments page.):

1. Rifleman for two days.

This is just an admin entry to put him back on to a Marine Corps unit’s rolls after he returned from his initial recruit training and MOS training. Likely this reserve rifle company was providing admin support for all Marine Corps Reserve (MCR) Marines living in the general Omaha area. He was probably joined on 721106 so he could liquidate his travel claim and get his regular pay. The rifleman designation is a default entry. Once they processed his paperwork, he is transferred (by another unit diary entry) the next day (721107) to a MCR aviation utility unit in Lincoln, Nebraska. That’s were he is going to do his weekend drills.

2. Hanging around Lincoln.

He is joined to Marine Wing Utility Squadron 4 (MWUS-4) the next day (721108). MWUS-4 is a place you would expect a refrigeration mechanic to be assigned. The extract shown in the video for this period has standard entries: annual entries for audits and an entry showing him going onto annual active duty for training (ATD) and coming off it 2 weeks later. The last entry we were shown is of his transfer in December 1973. Since we lack the next entry (being joined to the new unit), we should not read too much into this entry. The earlier DD-214 extract shows him not returning to active duty until August 1974, so he was still somewhere in the reserves, perhaps at a unit a little closer to home.

3. Then Something Happened.

In the normal course of events, a Reservist does initial active duty for recruit training and MOS training. (This can be split up if there are no school slots immediately available after completing recruit training.) When not on active duty, reservists drill one weekend a month with their unit and attend two weeks of active duty for training annually(ATD). This is the pattern for the 6-8 years of a typical reserve contract. If you break the contract (by not attending drill weekends or ATD, failing to maintain standards, etc.), you can be ordered to active duty. I am not certain but I also believe it is possible to request to be called to active duty so you can end your contracted period of service earlier. Given his subsequently less than stellar conduct, he was probably ordered to active duty for some significant infraction.

4. His first UA(AWOL) was the last straw for some CO.

The next assignment page entry the Chief shows us is in May 1975 (750519) when he is run to Unauthorized Absence (UA) status. (Absent Without Leave (AWOL) is entered so that the 30 day minimum clock on that offense is simultaneously started in case the Marine is gone longer than a month.) Two days later, 750521 he is sent to confinement (the Brig) for two months. He returns to duty on 750722. He was UA, according to the entries for one, maybe two days. Under normal circumstances, 2 days UA is not punished by two months in the brig. You get 2 months in the brig (usually along with being reduced in rank and fined) when your enlisted and officer leadership is finally, really, and truly feed up with your nonsense. At this point, he has been back on active duty a little less than a year. Imagine what has been going on to reach this point of exasperation with the private. Interestingly, when he goes UA for six days in September 1975, there is no confinement. He just goes back to duty. He is put in UA status again on 751206 but we don’t have any more entries to see how the offense was handled.

5. He may have “Bad Paper.”

What follows is speculation since his full SRB is not available to examine, but I suspect that he might have already been awaiting an administrative discharge or had been tried by a courts martial.

During the early and mid-1970s, the Marine Corps faced a crisis in the number of poor performing Marines it was having to process for discharge. (It was not the only service experiencing this problem.) This toleration of petty infractions sometimes was the case if the unit was being forced into carrying the Marine on its rolls while awaiting completion of the often considerable time required for the automatic review process by an overburdened military judicial system. This review is required when a bad conduct or dishonorable discharge is ordered as part of the sentence of a courts martial. At times during this period, this process was so long that a Marine would complete the confinement portion of their punishment and return to the unit to await the final administrative process. At that point, how much further punishment could be inflicted on someone who had essentially nothing left to lose? The resulting situation was essentially an uneasy truce between the unit and the Marine awaiting discharge. The unit didn’t unduly harass the Marine if the Marine was more or less conforming to expected minimum standards of performance and behavior. In return, the Marine had three squares a day, a place to sleep and bathe, got some portion of a private’s pay, and could go on liberty if he stayed out of/didn’t cause further trouble.

Later in the 70s, the Marine Corps would develop the “Expeditious Discharge Program,” which streamlined the discharge process and greatly shortened the time required from many months to often less than a month to discharge a poor performing/trouble making Marine. Real criminals, as always, continued to be tried and punished by courts martial.

It is unclear if there was or wasn’t a courts martial in his case because the DD-214 extract lists “Not on File” under Transcript of Courts Martial Trial. Considered in context, “Not on file” cannot be considered the equivalent of “N/A.”

On the other hand, the DD-214 simply states his duty status as “Discharged.” So, if there was no courts martial, he might have gone out the gate with a “General” or “Other Than Honorable” discharge based on his low proficiency and conduct marks.

A General discharge is the very best he could have left with because, as the Chief said, still a private after four years of service says something special - and it isn’t good - about the quality of your service.

That’s just the nytimes. What about all the others?????

the RC Church was the only big institution that made efforts to try and restrict unrestrained brutally towards the native Indians

Well since Catholics engaged in much brutality toward Indians (which is till protested against today: Man Who Helped Kill Thousands of Native Americans to Be Made a saint.) that is good.

Now while the likes of WAPO (The Catholic Church's shameful history of Native American abuses ... https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../catholic-churchs-shameful-history-native-american-... ), and the NYT (Pope Concedes Unjustifiable Crimes in Converting South Americans ... https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/world/americas/24pope.html) are biased, yet while I myself are not well read on the subject, I think you may have been reading from a biased source as well.

Perhaps something like Christian Missions to American Indians by Carol L. Higham ( Oxford Research Encyclopedias) would help.

The Puritans in new England couldn't find the Indians in their Bible so they declared them to be Satan's imps, Roger Williams being an honorable exception to this eliminationist mindset.

The fact that you ignorant of the Praying Indians and John Eliot also indicates bias on your part. Simply reading wikipedia would inform,

"Praying Indian" is a 17th-century term referring to Native Americans of New England, New York, Ontario, and Quebec who converted to Christianity. Many groups are referred to by this term, but it is more commonly used for tribes that were organized into villages. These villages were known as praying towns and were established by those such as Puritan leader John Eliot

Your sources are not accurate. I’m detecting the Catholic Encyclopedia. Read something less one-sided before commenting.

Yup, as usual.

Catholics claiming that their church was the only to (fill in the blank).

|At least if it’s good.

If it’s bad, well, hey, everyone does it and they are even worse. We’re just sinners like everyone else (but they are still worse).

That’s just the nytimes. What about all the others?????

The lawyer representing the boys has given all the offending media 48 hours to retract their statements or they may be sued.

Good One!!

The Puritans in new England couldn't find the Indians in their Bible so they declared them to be Satan's imps,

The Catholics in Spain couldn't find Protestants in their Bible so they declared them to be ripe to be loved into the Only True Church; with the likes of the Rack, Iron Maiden, Wheel, Heretic's Fork, Wheel... etc.

No Ivy League college will accept their grads.

But there is still Notre Dame.

Oh; wait...

And this was long before there were a large enough number of Catholics, in the colonies, to do ANYTHING AT ALL to or for the Indians.

Nice qualifier!

In the words of one member of Cortés' band of conquistadors, the Spanish came to the New World "to serve God, and to get rich as all men want to do."

Whether or not Bernal Diaz del Castillo got rich is one thing—serving God was quite another. Spain after 1492 was a Catholic country. Seriously, everyone living in Spain was officially a Catholic, since Spain had expelled the Jews and converted the Muslims living there. Technically, in 1492, there was no distinction between Catholic or Protestant—there was only Christian. But after 1517 and the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, Spain became the great defender of the Roman Catholic religion.

And the New World was the perfect place for Spain to recapture the souls it had lost to Protestant "heresy" in Europe. Bernal Diaz wasn't being sarcastic when he added religion to wealth as the main goals of the Spaniards in the New World. Mendicant friars—also known as Dominicans and Franciscans—traveled throughout the New World converting the natives as they went. The Jesuits, founded in 1540, also played a major role in proselytizing in America, and together, Spanish priests were able to make nearly the entire population of Spanish America into Catholics, at least in name.

The Spanish firmly believed they had the right to conquer and colonize the New World to bring Christianity to the Native Americans. In their minds, saving souls was worth destroying bodies, if need be. They used this argument to justify almost anything they did in the New World, and forced conversion was common. On the frontier of New Spain, in areas that would one day become the American Southwest, the procedure was somewhat different than it was in the heavily-populated areas of the Aztec and Mayan lands to the south.

Basically, there weren't even close to enough priests, and there were a lot of Native Americans.

Priests traveling alone or in small groups would ride out to distant Native American villages and preach the gospel for a few days. Language as always was a barrier, but usually, the curious natives would listen politely to what the priests had to say. Then one local citizen who seemed most eager to become a Christian would be chosen and the priest would spend a day or two teaching him—being all men, priests usually dealt only with men—the entire Gospel, or at least enough to make him the local authority. When the teaching was done and the priest had taught the Native American who Jesus was and how to perform baptism, the priest would move on to the next village, counting the one he'd left as "converted," and it would be up to the lucky local to teach all the other people living in the area about their new religion.

Needless to say, confusion popped up every so often—or always—so American Catholicism, especially in the American Southwest, developed to be very different than that practiced in Europe, or even farther south in Mexico. Native cultures and understandings of divinity mixed with strict Catholic teachings to create a hybrid religion that incorporated native religion into a larger frame of Catholicism. The best example of this is the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe. As the story goes, the Virgin of Guadalupe first appeared to a poor Native American peasant in 1531—and she's been worshiped ever since in America, but not by native Spaniards.

Spanish influence was able to convert many, many indigenous people. The problem? Even the Spanish weren't exactly sure what they were converting people to.

https://www.shmoop.com/spanish-colonization/religion.html

There is a difference between the punishment of heresy and the declaration that an entire subset of person are not humans. The maintenance of ecclesiastical uniformity seems really silly today but it was at the heart of the conflicts over all major heresies, as the church declared any deviation from declared worship and doctrine. It is difficult to penetrate the mentality of the past. However, it has been instructive for me to see the anger and horror that the allegations of priestly sexual misconduct have produced in some of the families of boys who complained about priests pawing them. A smack in the face and an outrages'Never say that again, Father X is a holy man.’ I presume that the battles over heresy did amount to some degree of real fervor and not just considerations of policy, wealth and power. I personally don't care for most organized religion either puritanical bluenoses or clerical fanatics. However, the truth is where the Catholic church held sway there are today native peoples, in say New England the numbers of Indians are minuscule.

There is a difference between the punishment of heresy and the declaration that an entire subset of person are not humans.

I guess they failed to notice; in SCRIPTURE...

Matthew 13:24-30 (NKJV)

²⁴Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; ²⁵but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. ²⁶But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.

²⁷So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’

²⁸He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’

The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’

²⁹But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. ³⁰Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”

It is difficult to penetrate the mentality of the past.

Yet Catholics CLING, bitterly it seems at times; to the words of the ECFs.

At other times; they reject them.

Guess what is in vogue THESE days...

As regards the oft-quoted Mt. 16:18, note the following Early Church Fathers promise in the profession of faith of Vatican 1:

• Basil of Seleucia, Oratio 25:

'You are Christ, Son of the living God.'...Now Christ called this confession a rock, and he named the one who confessed it 'Peter,' perceiving the appellation which was suitable to the author of this confession. For this is the solemn rock of religion, this the basis of salvation, this the wall of faith and the foundation of truth: 'For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.' To whom be glory and power forever. — Oratio XXV.4, M.P.G., Vol. 85, Col. 296-297.

• Bede, Matthaei Evangelium Expositio, 3:

You are Peter and on this rock from which you have taken your name, that is, on myself, I will build my Church, upon that perfection of faith which you confessed I will build my Church by whose society of confession should anyone deviate although in himself he seems to do great things he does not belong to the building of my Church...Metaphorically it is said to him on this rock, that is, the Saviour which you confessed, the Church is to be built, who granted participation to the faithful confessor of his name. — 80Homily 23, M.P.L., Vol. 94, Col. 260. Cited by Karlfried Froehlich, Formen, Footnote #204, p. 156 [unable to verify by me].

• Cassiodorus, Psalm 45.5:

'It will not be moved' is said about the Church to which alone that promise has been given: 'You are Peter and upon this rock I shall build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.' For the Church cannot be moved because it is known to have been founded on that most solid rock, namely, Christ the Lord. — Expositions in the Psalms, Volume 1; Volume 51, Psalm 45.5, p. 455

• Chrysostom (John) [who affirmed Peter was a rock, but here not the rock in Mt. 16:18]:

Therefore He added this, 'And I say unto thee, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church; that is, on the faith of his confession. — Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Homily LIIl; Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf110.iii.LII.html)

• Cyril of Alexandria:

When [Peter] wisely and blamelessly confessed his faith to Jesus saying, 'You are Christ, Son of the living God,' Jesus said to divine Peter: 'You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church.' Now by the word 'rock', Jesus indicated, I think, the immoveable faith of the disciple.”. — Cyril Commentary on Isaiah 4.2.

• Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Book XII):

“For a rock is every disciple of Christ of whom those drank who drank of the spiritual rock which followed them, 1 Corinthians 10:4 and upon every such rock is built every word of the church, and the polity in accordance with it; for in each of the perfect, who have the combination of words and deeds and thoughts which fill up the blessedness, is the church built by God.'

“For all bear the surname ‘rock’ who are the imitators of Christ, that is, of the spiritual rock which followed those who are being saved, that they may drink from it the spiritual draught. But these bear the surname of rock just as Christ does. But also as members of Christ deriving their surname from Him they are called Christians, and from the rock, Peters.” — Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Book XII), sect. 10,11 ( http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/101612.htm)

• Hilary of Potier, On the Trinity (Book II):

Thus our one immovable foundation, our one blissful rock of faith, is the confession from Peter's mouth, Thou art the Son of the living God. On it we can base an answer to every objection with which perverted ingenuity or embittered treachery may assail the truth."-- (Hilary of Potier, On the Trinity (Book II), para 23; Philip Schaff, editor, The Nicene & Post Nicene Fathers Series 2, Vol 9.

However, the truth is where the Catholic church held sway there are today native peoples, in say New England the numbers of Indians are minuscule.

Oh?

The ruling class of these Catholic majority countries look VERY European in their features.

Mexico not so much and beyond Lima Peru really not so much