[MistyCA]

LOL! The 2x4 would knock you out, Jen! How do you expect to get any work done that way????? See you WHEN YOU ARE FINISHED with your homework!!

[AFCATMRet]

Thanks for the link, Misty. Lots of interesting, though disturbing, info there. Perhaps the problems were always part of the service (as it is everywhere else...those with the power do tend to misuse said power), but I have to say that during the 80's and 90's it seemed to have become 'commonplace'. Careerism became rampant, and the backlash from such attitudes gave rise to the class LtCol. Hackworth so accurately tags as the 'perfumed princes'.

The saving thought though is that, for the most part, the folks I served with, regardless of what branch they were in, were the finest, most dedicated folks I have ever seen. We may have been a far cry from being 'PC' (there was a tendency to...hmmm..let's see...drink, curse, misuse tobacco products (I think it's in the manual that one must have a dip before touching a mortar tube)...and, well, pursue other...uh....oh heck, to be interested in those of the opposite sex), but when it came to the mission there was a commitment to not letting your camrades down that is virtually without equal in the civilian world. Being miserable wasn't exactly fun, but there was the camaraderie of being part of something so much larger than self.

It's hard to explain, I guess. But my youngest summed it up pretty well after he completed Air Assualt school last month, "It rained almost every day. We were always tired, aching, and worried about measuring up...but I wouldn't have missed it for the world."