Posted on 09/09/2004 7:55:59 AM PDT by pabianice
On a previous thread the author makes excellent points about the anachronism error in the "memos" the Liberals have recently "discovered" regarding George Bush's alleged "desertion" and "dereliction of duty" while in the Texas ANG.
A look at these memos shows another problem. A big problem. To understand it, you have to understand a bit about the military. In official documents of any kind, proper rank abbreviations are strictly enforced, to the point that, if they are incorrect, the document has to be destroyed and rewritten. A document forwarded with incorrect acronyms is returned for resubmittal.
The "memos" the Liberal Gang has "discovered," showing Bush to have been a shirker, all carry a consistent incorrect abbreviation for his rank. The only acceptable abbreviation for a USAF or ANG first lieutenant is "1LT." I have also seen, rarely, it written "1/LT," although this is the exception. All the "recently discovered" memos about Bush say "1stLt." While I am Navy and not Air Force, to the best of my knowledge, this is not allowed, let alone a mispunctuated memo addressed to Bush as "1stLt.3244754FG."
I am willing to bet a week's pay that these memos are forgeries.
The Navy is far more rank concious than the USAF, and the active duty tend to be more rank concious than the Guard. And these were memos, not official documents.
I think they ring false, but it would be hard to prove by the rank used...
bump
I think the IBM Executive with proportional spacing was actually introduced in 1947.
The Selectric was introduced in 1961.
It was the one with the "golfball" typehead, not a daisywheel.
Also, it did NOT do proportional spacing.
bump (for more exposure)...
(for the Biblical crowd: last phrase of Numbers 32:23)
Those are Army abbreviations. USAF O-5 = Lt Col
Agree. Contrary to what is being said here the Selectric did not do proportional spacing. You could change the balls and get lots of different symbols on the Selectric but you could not do proportional spacing. The Executive had proportional spacing - which was a pain if you needed to correct a mistake. There were different models. Originally they were used to type very special letters or awards. When the B and C models came out only very high level executives used them. Excuse me, only the secretaries of very high level executives used them. They would never have been used by lower level government typists. Of course Generals Never typed their own memos.
That is what I said at the beginning, Army abrevs. Some asked about those from time to time, I provided here since it was the subject.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.