On Sat, 6 Mar 2004 18:32:43 -0500, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .

So, S2F pilots are a critical resource and a Navy reservist who is
serving in Congress should resign his seat, request activation and go
drone around the boat. That simply doesn't make sense.

He resigned his Congressional seat in 1969, so amend my time span to read from
1969 through 1975. Did you mean to say "drone around the boat" or was that just
a figure of speech or slip of the tongue? Are you suggesting that our Senator
from Arizona ended up in the Hanoi Hilton, along with numerous other Navy
pilots, because they got lost shooting touch and go's off their carriers?
Characterizing their contributions as "droning around the boat" is a put down,
and I hope you didn't really intend it that way.

Can you make the distinction between an S2F and tactical aircraft?
Stoofs drone around for hours on end. They don't go to tactical
targets. No S2F aviator spent time in the Hilton. Six S2s were lost in
the war (2 in '66, 3 in '67 and 1 in '68), 16 fatalties, no POWs. From
'69 through '75 there were no losses.

John McCain is highly respected by the Nam-POWs for his service.


If you can serve in Congress and still meet Reserve qualifications you
are both contributing to the nation and helping the defense
establishment. Can't see how that's any sort of strike against the
man.

I concede that, so let's limit the discussion to when he was no longer a
Congressman.

I'm not saying it comes into play, but have you ever heard of "duty
and travel restsrictions"? Limitations on duty postings for folks who
have recent experience with certain levels of classified information
(the sort of thing a congressperson might have.

But, we can certainly find a lot of SecDefs on both sides of the
political spectrum without ANY spit-shined brogans in their
closet--dare I mention Les Aspin, Robert Strange McNamara, Robert
Cohen, etc?

Talk about red herrings. I see you're not reluctant to toss a few around
when
it suits your purpose. By way of comparison, how many of those you just
mentioned were Reserve or ANG fliers on flying status during whatever wars
they
were involved in supervising? That would be a valid comparison.....what you
just did was toss our a bunch of apples and dared us to compare them with an
orange. Not the same thing, and you know it.

My point was that if we are setting criteria for SecDefs, we should
acknowledge that a lot of folks held the job with absolutely no
military experience at all. None of those I just mentioned were
Reserve or ANG fliers, which was precisely my point.

We are not setting criteria for SecDefs....we are talking about one in
particular who's quite hawkish these days but apparently was far from that in
those days. AAMOF, if you look into what others have reported of comments made
by Nixon and members of his staff about Rumsfeld, they apparently considered him
far too dovish in those days to suit their tastes.

So, are you having a problem with Rumsfeld because he is too hawkish
or too dovish?

It returns to the issue about whether there is a relationship between
active and reserve component service, between officer and enlisted
service, between peacetime and wartime service, between combat and
combat support service, between home base and deployed service, etc.
etc.

Well, maybe that's what you want to use as a basis for arguing, but I'm not in
the mood for fish tonight, so I guess I'll pass.

You need to read more slowly. Those are criteria that have been
popping up in the thread, they aren't mine.

Some people got to see the elephant and some didn't. I was there
involuntarily the first time and got to see more of it than many, but
not as much as some. I was voluntarily there the second time, but will
quite honestly tell you that it wasn't about patriotism.

I've got no problem with people who served but didn't get to go
downtown.

Am I out of line asking, then, how you feel about the criticism of Kerry over
his service in the theater, very often from people who weren't anywhere near
Viet Nam when the shooting was going on? Any defense for his contributions,
whatever they were? Or doesn't that count as downtown?

No defense for his contributions at all. Four months in theater of a
one year tour? Three PHs with no missed duty? Beaching his boat under
attack, thereby removing his mobility? Going ashore to dispatch a
wounded peasant already shot with a .50 cal? Then rushing home to tell
tales about the atrocities being committed wholesale by American
service men?

.....I do have a problem with people who aggressively avoided any
kind of service,

I could provide a list of people who fit that bill who come from both sides of
the aisle and, I, like you, have a problem with them. BTW, as a sub-category, I
gather that you don't have a problem with military people who one way or the
other avoided the possibility of serving in a combat theater? Mr. Rumsfeld
might find his name on my list there, not because he never got there, but rather
because he didn't try when he could have as opposed to how hawkish and war-like
he became subsequently when he was quite safely entrenched behind a desk in
Washington, D. C. or a Naval Reserve outfit in the Washington suburbs.

Let me suggest that in the period from the autumn of 2001 until the
present it is decidedly appropriate to be hawkish and war-like.
Turning the other cheek is not an option. We've seen the outcome of
dovish policies.

.....with people who undermined their brothers-in-arms,

I think we can admit to a difference of opinion there. I don't consider people
who attempted to shut down a war that apparently could not be won as undermining
their brothers-in-arm when, in fact, they were only attempting to save the lives
of those of their brethren still engaged in a losing war. I wasn't one of them
at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight, I can see where I was wrong and
they were right.

A war that "could not be won" not because of lack of military
capability, but because of lack of political will--primarily as a
result of a confederation of draft dodging students, moralistic
professors, attention seeking movie stars and pandering politicians.

We could have won the war in '66 when we started to get serious and we
demonstrably DID end the war in eleven days at the end of '72.

.......and with people who claim to be something that they are not. (Those
aren't all the same person in any of my statements.)

And there's another category of people whose names would fill our list and who
come from both sides of the aisle. Is there any point in pursuing that?

Yes, there is a point in pursuing it. I am demeaned by every dirty,
bearded, fatigue-jacketed, drug-addled wannabe who claims to be a
Vietnam vet and has become the stereotype of what happens to men who
experience war. The incredible majority of warriors are successful
people who have served their country and lived normal productive
lives. Failure to identify the liars and poseurs is abrogation of my
responsibility to tell the truth and stand up for what I believe in.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8