Posted on 08/26/2009 9:11:49 AM PDT by AUH2O Repub
Just heard on noon news that Kennedy will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. What an insult to our troops!
My period was the early 1970s.
I knew a slick arm 1st Class and a 1 hash mark Chief during my time (56-64)...the CPO was a Radioman (SS)and the 1st Class was an ET...hard but possible, the key is coming out of boot camp/school as E3, E4 6 mos later, E5 12 mos later, E6 24 mos later....usually took 5 or 6 to make 1st, and about 10 for Chief, but you had to be in a wide open rate and really be on the ball....
I was E3 with hash mark, put my nose to the grindstone and 14 months later E5, passed E6 and ‘made’ it but got out instead so never sewed it on....
Can someone post the tv schedule for the swimmer’s service and burial? I want to make sure my TIVO doesn’t accidentially tape it.
He enlisted in Army, realized to his horror that he was committed unintentionally to a four-year contract, but Daddy’s influence got it reduced to two years, during which this highly motivated intellectual rose to grade of Private.
I guess this “qualifies” him for Arlington burial, a powerful senator that voted against every military defense appropriation bill that came his way during his 46 years of whatever it was that he was doing.
TLM -
Read again what I posted.
Tap him for fuel for the eternal flame.
Huh. Coming out of boot as an E3 wasn’t even an option for us, or if it was, nobody told us.
Damn recruiters...:)
Learn something every day!
We were ‘guaranteed’ SA upon graduation.
If you had prior service or something related to military,
or possibly a squad leader or even meritorious you could get SN upon graduation-if I remember, the Recruit PO’s also got SN. I had ‘service’ as a plane spotter when I was 15 or so, lived near Stewart AFB New York and we would sit in a shack in the middle of a field logging planes etc...I neglected to tell them (Navy) until it was too late but that CAP duty qualified for SN out of boot camp...
Liked your post. I try not to be grammar/spelling police.
Here is my post, and explains my albeit personal animus to TK. My post has received quite a few private thank you’s from others in the military who had family who gave their lives for freedom and are buried at Arlington. It is like having the properly awarded medal— a BIG deal among warriors. Aside from that, we can expect more pablum and manufactured sensitivity of the great (man?) himself. What I would like to see, in a constructive fashion is a deconstruction of all the supposed “great” legislation he pushed and got. Call it for what it is and what it has cost and caused. He will be remembered as he should, a footnote to an overrated political patronage dynasty and wealthy human debris, just like his old man.
My first post is here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2324885/posts?page=251#267
Virginia was well rid of him. My family has considerable knowledge of this family of useless meddlers. It would have been much preferred if they just counted their cash and shut up. The blood that is on their hands is substantial.
Appreciate your posts. If fact is insisted upon, particularly in this instance, even the MSM can be made to yield. Wouldnt worry about MSNBC- a joke network.
Those drunken French ambassadors can really be trouble.
Well, you're the one making light of "missing some drills and doing makeups is not a great sin," so I not only consider you dishonorable but a disgrace to our country and its Reserve Components if, in fact, you really ever were a member of such. As far as "twisting facts" I don't know how you came to that conclusion as the link I provided fairly well spells out what the Army plans for members who persist on missing drills!
Actually I spent a lot of time on active duty, not only not missing drills but filling in the slots for overseas duty with foreign Special Operations units, being such a high speed unit made it difficult to keep our training exercises fully manned since it involved so much time to off work to maintain the foreign assignments, it was a unit that saw much sacrifice from it's members in income and family life. For those of us that were spending months a year on various overseas foreign training it meant living in poverty and working low paid, short lived jobs in between missions and high levels of fitness training in our own time.
Really? well I don't believe you! The first mark of a liar I have always found is one who claims to be a member "Special Operations" unit (what was it Green Berets, Delta Force.), I expect that you'll next claim Ranger tabs or the many medals of valor that you won.
Don't bother trying to contact me again...I won't respond...continue worshiping your failed president!
Considering the fact that "Black Jack" the horse that paraded in JFK's funeral is also buried in the Arlington cemetary (at the border of Ft. Myer--home of the Old Guard), it shouldn't bother anyone.
LOL, you do get your panties wadded up, There are a lot of Special Operations units in the Guard and Reserves and there was in the 1980s when I was in. If you think that it is easy for part timers to keep up with their full time counter parts overseas then you don’t know squat, it takes a lot of personal sacrifice, from staying fit to giving up income if one is going to do anything more than the basic annual training that regular Guard units do.
I remember one exercise where 21 of us went to spend time with a German Special Operations unit for I think three weeks, only one of us out of that group had a full time job, personally I lived on beans and rice in a studio apt. and worked part time for an old WWII vet that loved the Airborne soldiers because they had saved him in the battle of the Bulge when his tank was burnt out and he was alone in the mud with a 45 and three bullets. That man tolerated me going away on these trips and both of us were doing our patriotic duty to serve the nation. Something tells me that you made more money than me, but I bet I was having more fun.
You are so busy attacking President Bush and his excellent military service and evidently attacking other vets and GI’s that it demonstrates a lack of confidence from you in your own Reserve service.
Don’t try to sell these guys lies about either George W’s honorable service or that joining the Guard or Reserves is to sell their soul and totally tie up their civilian lives until discharge, it just isn’t true. The Guard and Reserves will work with people to maintain the integrity of their families, their jobs and accommodate changes in both.
People if you join a Guard unit and your wife or you want to move to New York City, then trust me, you can.
People if your annual two week training falls at a time when you just cannot get away, then as long as you have a good reason, you can make up the training.
A buddy of mine drilled at our local NG armory back in the 70s and told me his weekends mostly consisted of sitting around drinking beer. Is this true? I believe he was exaggerating. Incidentally, I was in the Navy (active, and two years of reserves)
Contrary to what others have said, he was in the Army for two years. Which is two years more that many. There are many ways to point out that he was a scum bag, but attacking his miltary service is not one of them.
Of course if you miss too many you are in trouble but that isn’t what the discussion is, is it?
Bush did not miss “too many” especially for that winding down of the Vietnam War period when the military was saturated with people and officers and nothing to do except force out career people (especially officers) by the tens of thousands. I remember that period, I was regular army then and it was extraordinary, officers were being forced out by the droves and battlefield promoted officers were being demoted to NCO or discharged.
Look at Bush’s first four years, does it shock you that he had some pretty good credentials built up for rescheduling some none important duty dates as the war was finished?
“The records indicate that, despite his move to Alabama, Bush met his obligation to the Guard in the 1972-73 year. At that time, Guardsmen were awarded points based on the days they reported for duty each year. They were given 15 points just for being in the Guard, and were then required to accumulate a total of 50 points to satisfy the annual requirement. In his first four years of service, Bush piled up lots of points; he earned 253 points in his first year, 340 in his second, 137 in his third, and 112 in his fourth. For the year from May 1972 to May 1973, records show Bush earned 56 points, a much smaller total, but more than the minimum requirement (his service was measured on a May-to-May basis because he first joined the Guard in that month in 1968).
Bush then racked up another 56 points in June and July of 1973, which met the minimum requirement for the 1973-74 year, which was Bush’s last year of service. Together, the record “clearly shows that First Lieutenant George W. Bush has satisfactory years for both ‘72-’73 and ‘73-’74, which proves that he completed his military obligation in a satisfactory manner,” says retired Lt. Col. Albert Lloyd, a Guard personnel officer who reviewed the records at the request of the White House.
All in all, the documents show that Bush served intensively for four years and then let up in his fifth and sixth years, although he still did enough to meet Guard requirements”
Thanks.
That’s some good info.
I'm not trying to claim that Bush didn't perform F-102 his flying duties for the Texas Guard his first four years in service; but, for the life of me, I do not know how someone transfers from an operational Guard command with a vital mission to go drill in a non-flying status because he wanted to politic for a GOP hopeful in Alabama his last two years--I am assuming here that, as a Guard pilot, he was an IMA. I spent most of my Navy Reserve time as an IMA working "wet weekends" at Charleston and Norfolk on Aggressive class MSOs and would have had to have a might good reason to transfer out of my unit to one that was at a USN/USMC Reserve Center sitting at a desk doing nothing (as Bush apparently did at Maxwell AFB where it's hard to find anyone who ever remembers him showing up for drills U.S. News and World Report ('course, you have to believe USN&WR is not a liberal rag). As I stated in an earlier post, I was required by my civilian employer to do almost a year's training in the Midwest and had to fly back to drill meets at my own expense if I was to remain a Reservist...incidentally, there were two weekends I had to miss because of this civilian training and, as you probably know, the Navy only allowed you to miss and make up five drills as an IMA click here so I got a bad year...consequently I had to serve an extra year for retirement purpose. I was proud of my service; MSO minesweepers were used in Operations Desert Storm/Shield if you'll remember...a lot of them were actually towed to the Gulf so their aluminum engines weren't stressed.
Incidentally i also remember F-102s would occasionally fly in to the DaNang Air Base in Vietnam and perhaps some were Guard owned instead of USAF (they were camouflaged). I don't, however, remember any coming in under a "Mission Accomplished" banner because they were doing a serious job and our mission was never accomplished in Vietnam.
I read it. Why bother to tell me to read it again?
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