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

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.

In all honesty, I hadn't even thought of that. However, do we know that those
restrictions applied in his case or are we just supposing that they might have.
I do have some sort of recollection that there have been elected officials who
have resigned their offices and entered the military during times of war.
Unfortunately, no name comes to mind at the moment.


.....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?

Both....it's the reason or explanation for the change that interests me.

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 guess if you were his boss, you'd have courts-martialed him. His boss chose
not to. So what purpose is there in your second guessing him? You're hardly
qualified to do that since you were neither a Naval officer nor a competent or
qualified swift boat commander. Do you really think that being a fighter jock
gives you all those skills and aptitudes?

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.

You're absolutely correct. It's been said many times that we won every one of
the goddam battles in which we engaged the enemy, but couldn't win the war
because we weren't allowed to.

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.

Well, that's where you're wrong. Every one of those dirty, bearded,
fatigue-jacketed, drug-addled Vietnam vets left this country as clean-cut
American kids. Many of them may well have been volunteers as well. We as a
society are responsible for failing to adequately equip them to cope with the
conditions we were going to throw them into. If they were weak-willed to start
with, they should have been weeded out and not sent there to be destroyed by the
experiences they were exposed to. You can't blame the victims for having become
victims. Who in his right mind would consciously choose to come back so badly
damaged if they could have handled it or otherwise avoided it?

The incredible majority of warriors are successful
people who have served their country and lived normal productive
lives.

Yes, indeed. I think I am one of them and can identify with that definition.

......Failure to identify the liars and poseurs is abrogation of my
responsibility to tell the truth and stand up for what I believe in.

You may wish to deny it, but you still have to accept responsibility for turning
those young Americans into the liars and poseurs you obviously despise. They
didn't arrive in Nam that way for the most part. All I do when I look at them
and what happened to most of them is to count my blessings that something like
that didn't happen to me. A little bit of that kind of humility might stand you
is some good, if you'd allow it to.

George Z.