"* * Chas" wrote in message
om...


I served in the Marines from 1961 to 1966. I volunteered for
Vietnam in 1964 while stationed in Japan with the 1st Marine
Airwing. We had 3 chopper squadrons down in Danang, RSV
before there were any "ground troops" on the ground. I also
served in the Dominican Republic Crisis in 1965.

I was at one time a card carrying member of the John Birch
Society so I have some well established conservative
credentials!

I was a staunch HAWK up through 1968 when I started to
question how the Vietnam War was being handled. We were
destoying the country to save it while we were destroying
our freedoms at home just to support Nixon and Kissinger's
egos!

Your timeline suffers a bit when exposed against harsh reality. So, you were
a "staunch HAWK up through 68", when you then questioned the nefarious
intentions of Nixon and Kissenger as to how the war was being handled. The
problem with that is that Nixon did not win his first election until
November of 1968, and did not enter office until January 1969. So either
your concerns as to how the war was being managed were incorrectly targeted
(it would have been LBJ who controlled the war throughout 1968, and it would
generally take a few months after inauguration for the new administration to
have any effect on something as vast as a war effort), or your recollection
as to when you actually became convinced the war was being mismanaged and by
who were other than what you stated. be reminded it was Nixon who
immediately began the "Vietnamization" policy and was soon reducing the US
troop committment to the war.


We were doing a holding action instead of fighting to win
and it was costing us billions while destroying our youths.
I became opposed to the war because it was getting nowhere
and eventually became active in the Vietnam Veterans Against
the War.

Sorry to hear that. Having a military background, you should have been one
of those who realized (despite what the media was balthering at the time)
that the 68 Tet Offensive actually broke the back of the VC, for all intents
and purposes leaving the fight solely in the hands of the NVA. As to VVAW, I
hold little respect for an organization that conducted the likes of "Winter
Soldier", where folks like John Kerry in his ribbon bedecked fatigues and
long hair claimed US troops were apparently solely concerned with committing
war atrocities.


Absence Without Leave during a time of war was a Courts
Martial offense that could have led to the death penalty!

Bush was not guilty of being AWOL. In the Guard there are provisions for
individuals to perform "split training" and "equivalent training"
assemblies, before or after the scheduled drills, when they can't reasonably
attend the scheduled events. Based upon the NYT investiagtion results, that
is what GWB did--he was not the first, and he will not be the last, to
perform a portion of his duty in such a fashion.


I knew of quite a few Reservists and National Guardsmen who
were sent on Active Duty - usually directly to Vietnam for
failing to attend meetings. They usually had to serve their
remaining enlistments on Active Duty.

Some may have been. But *most* Guardsmen/Reservists who went to Vietnam did
so because they either (a) were in units mobilized and sent there (yes,
there were quite a few units that did that), or (b) they volunteered for
active duty (just as Bush had volunteered for Palace Alert duty, which could
have found him serving in SEA had he been accepted).

There were also a
number of officers who were busted to the Enlisted Ranks and
then sent to Vietnam.

Are you sure about that? Please provide some evidence. IIRC, the only way an
officer can revert to enlisted rank in that manner is if he had prior
enlisted service.


We the taxpayers spent a million dollars to send a not so
bright draft dodging poor little rich kid to flight school
to learn to fly an early 50's vintage interceptor designed
to shoot down Russian prop job bombers. This was at a time
when the Marines were so hard pressed for pilots that they
had to send men to Army and Air Force Flight Schools.

Hmmm...one wonders why those same archaic fighters were sent to Thailand and
Vietnam throughout the major part of the war, and as we have already seen in
another thread, why a couple of them were lost in combat operations.

Brooks

snip further rant