Dan Rather, Bed Wetter (fake but accurate)
Posted on 09/20/2004 5:27:26 AM PDT by DJ Taylor
Dan Rather is Not an Ex-Marine
Dan Rather cannot call himself an Ex-Marine, and he must stop referring to himself as such. To be a Marine, a recruit must graduate from boot camp, and Dan Rather did not; he was medically discharged before graduation. According to him, he was medically discharged from the Marine Corps due to a medical disability caused by a childhood case of rheumatic fever.
I went through Marine Corps boot camp at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) San Diego about the same time Dan Rather was there, and here’s my take on his brief tour in the Marine Corps. First of all, I find it highly unlikely that the Marine Corps would allow Dan Rather to enlist in spite of a known disability. At the time, a childhood case of rheumatic fever would have made him ineligible for enlistment in the Marines. So, if Dan Rather did not simply medically "wash out" through no fault of his own, as he says, then how did he manage to enlist and then leave the Marine Corps in such a short period of time (three months)? I cannot say with certainty that I know how he did it, but here is how I saw others do it at the time:
I remember well that my recruit-training platoon consisted of about 50 recruits. About 20 of us were high school graduates, about 20 were high school dropouts and about 10 were college boys in their third or fourth year of college. However, come graduation day, none of the college boys were there for graduation; they had all dropped out along the way, as did Dan Rather. I knew at the time how they did it, but I had to think about it for a while to figure out why.
In the Marine Corps of the 1950s, it was not easy to simply quit once you entered recruit training. A recruit quickly learned that it was much easier to go through to graduation than it was to attempt to quit. For a recruit to attempt to quit, he revealed that he lacked motivation. If a recruit required additional motivation, he was removed from his platoon and sent to the Special Training Platoon (STP). In STP, a recruit’s life was a living hell until he could show that he was properly motivated, and then he was sent back to a training platoon. All that attempting to quit would gain a recruit was an additional few weeks in STP before he could return to a training platoon, complete training, graduate and leave.
A medical discharge from recruit training due to a preexisting disability was seldom attained, simply because the enlistment physical was so thorough that very few recruits were admitted with existing physical defects. A medical staff who had seen it all could easily identify recruits who attempted to fake injuries or infirmaries, and these recruits quickly found themselves doing time in STP. So how did Dan Rather receive a medical discharge from the United States Marine Corps in May 1954? In all likelihood, he did it the same way the college boys did in my recruit-training platoon.
There was one so-called medical condition that the Marine Corps would not put up with, or even question, and that was bed-wetting. If a recruit wet the bed, you never saw him again. He was gone, out, no STP, no second chance, no counseling, he was quickly medically discharged and sent home, as was Dan Rather.
The reason for these rapid medical discharges for bed-wetting was simple. If a man truly could not control his bladder, he did not belong in the Marine Corps for obvious reasons. If a man wanted out of the Marine Corps so badly that he would wet the bed in order to leave, then no Marine wanted to breath the same air that such a man breathed. He was removed from the Marine Corps and good riddance.
I believe Dan Rather received one of these bed-wetter medical discharges just as the college boys did in my recruit-training platoon, and he probably did it for the same reasons. The college boys in my platoon had avoided the draft throughout the Korean War by claiming student deferments, as did Dan Rather. Now, they were soon to graduate from college and would no longer be eligible for a student deferment. However, if they were to obtain a medical discharge from the Marine Corps, they would no longer be eligible for draft into the U.S. Army. So, they dropped out of college for a semester, enlisted in the Marine Corps, wet the bed, received a medical discharge and no longer had to worry about the draft after graduation from college.
If you ask why these bed-wetters didn’t simply allow themselves to be drafted and then receive a medical discharge for bed-wetting, it just didn’t work that way. You must remember that, at that time, the Marine Corps was all volunteer and it was into the U.S. Army that a draftee was inducted. If a draftee wet the bed in Army basic training, he was simply issued rubber sheets and he continued on with basic training. There was always a job in a unit somewhere in the vast U.S. Army that even a bed-wetter could do, but he Marine Corps was too small and too proud to even consider trying to place such a person in any Marine unit.
In my over 30 years of military service, I found only one type of man more scurrilous than a bed-wetter, and that was a man who would feign wounds in combat in order to receive Purple Hearts. Yes, any man who will use fake awards to abandon his comrades in combat is even more shameless than a man who will wet the bed in order to avoid service to his country in time of war. Dan Rather is in his true element defending John F. Kerry’s traitorous conduct while amateurishly and feloniously forging official U.S. Government documents in an attempt to damage the reputation of the President of the United States during an election year.
I believe that Dan Rather is a bed-wetter, and I will continue to believe that until he releases his medical records and proves me wrong. If he has nothing to hide, he will fill out and sign Standard Form 180 and release his military records to the news media just as he has demanded of our Commander in Chief, President George W. Bush.
Donald J. Taylor Semper Fi
"At the time, a childhood case of rheumatic fever would have made him ineligible for enlistment in the Marines."
I just saw this thread tonight some 2 months after you initially posted it.
Perhaps things were different in the 1950's! During the mid 1970's I attempted to join the Marines. I was eligible after I had passed all of the physicals and other testing. The one thing which prevented me from actually joining was that the Marines only allowed 6 months for a delayed enlistment. At the time, I required an 8 month lead. I wanted to be home for the birth of my first born, ultimately my daughter.
The Army allowed up to 12 months for a delayed enlistment. I was therefore compelled to join the Army. I in fact did suffer a bout with rheumatic fever in my youth, but there was no heart valve damage, and so I never had any physical anomalies and thus no restrictions. I was fit to join the Marines or any other military branch.
I found your post to be interesting and enlightening. I despise Dan Rather, and I feel quite fortunate now that I was able to serve. I did not see any actual conflict, but I knew what my oath meant when I made it back then.
Gosh it continues to amaze as to just how much of a dick Dan Rather truly is.
Thank you for your post on this, and for your service.
Stick Around Marine, you're welcome here!
USMC 1977-1981
Rather’s Lawyer: ‘Nobody’s Proved the Documents Were Forgeries’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1899589/posts?page=5
Heck, just hearing him deny it, would be a barrel of laughs.
“I am not a bedwetter.”
Yep...he could look the camera in the eye, wag a finger and say, "I did not wet the bed in boot camp, no not once, not ever"
ROFLOL!!
I would pay to watch....HA!!
Great details there. So many of us would have no idea without your sharing this account. I would have guessed that washing out of the Marines for bedwetting would have resulted in transfer to another branch of the service. Thanks for the info.
Dan Rather, Bed Wetter (fake but accurate)
Some of guys went AWOL, they would wind up in the hospital with broken arms/legs, a another blew his brain out at the gun range.
The trick was not to make the DI dislike you, other wise life was hell. I was a college boy so the DI didn't like me. But I was in superb physical condition so I could do with ease just about anything they told me to do. Did spend a day or two in motovation platoon. That was no fun!
I reffer to myself as an inactive Marine", long time inactive LOL.
Dan Rather: the news is fake, the soaked and reeking mattress is all too real.
Gag.
Hey Marines: What happened to the rack-pisser's mattress? Did they throw it out, or did some poor unsuspecting SOB have to sleep on it?
I was living in Round Rock, just outside of Austin, when the fake document incident occurred. Not long before the incident, Dan Rather was the featured guest at a Travis County Democrat Party fundraiser. The chair”person” of the Travis County Democrat Party was none other than Rather’s homely, hairy-legged, “comfortable-shoe-wearing daughter” Robin. So much for Dan Rather’s self-proclaimed objectivity.
This is close to the value of BUCKHEAD..!
After a year in Vietnam, I was assigned to Hickam AFB, HI. I did a lot of traveling in my job, and became pretty good friends with a woman who ran the passenger terminal. She had many stories to tell, but one that sticks in my memory was about two GI’s on a contract flight transiting Hickam who were removed after they were caught, one performing oral sex on the other. Apparently this happened more often than one would expect because these guys—draftees—didn’t want to go to Vietnam.
Me too, my son gave it to me for my last birthday. I now wear it proudly for the same reason you do.
Way to go, timydnuc. Never let them forget!
I spent a weekend with a guy I met at the VA in PTSD treatment. He is in a bad way, worse than usual. He was the last face many a wounded troop saw. Lost a few medics to booby trapped VC. It was painful to see him so lost in his nightmares of 1964.
Anyway, welcome home, and thank you for your service.
Huh?
DJ Taylor signed up Sept. 19, 2004. This is 2007. He's been here 3 years and a day.
Thank you for the insight.
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