If you are looking for a fight...

There has been some talk of men who wanted combat but due to "timing" or "luck"
they missed out. Well if you are in a unit that won't get into the fight, just
try this. Go to your CO and say," Sir, I hear the 344th is moving out to the
ETO. I want to go with them. Here is my transfer request. Please sign it". He
will immediately. After he signs it walk it through and you will go into battle
with the 344th. Or of course you can just keep a low profille , keep your mouth
shut, do nothing, then for the rest of your life you can always say " I wanted
combat but timing and luck kept me out" and see if you can live with that.

Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Subject: If you are looking for a fight...
From: Ed Rasimus
Date: 7/7/03 8:20 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

(ArtKramr) wrote:

There has been some talk of men who wanted combat but due to "timing" or
"luck"
they missed out. Well if you are in a unit that won't get into the fight,
just
try this. Go to your CO and say," Sir, I hear the 344th is moving out to the
ETO. I want to go with them. Here is my transfer request. Please sign it".
He
will immediately. After he signs it walk it through and you will go into
battle
with the 344th. Or of course you can just keep a low profille , keep your
mouth
shut, do nothing, then for the rest of your life you can always say " I
wanted
combat but timing and luck kept me out" and see if you can live with that.

Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Sorry, Art, but you're talking about a time and process that has been
long gone. There's lots of procedure to get a transfer and it hasn't
been approved at the local commander level since WW II.

Even if one could simply get a hand-carried, personal choice
assignment approved by a local commander to switch to a deploying
unit, it would take considerable time and money to get the individual
operationally qualified to perform effectively with the organization.
Time that a unit doesn't have when they are enroute to battle.

I sympathize with your point of view that if someone really wants to
get into the battle they can take the initiative, but it doesn't
happen the way you describe and hasn't since 1964 when I entered
active duty.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (ret)
***"When Thunder Rolled:
*** An F-105 Pilot Over N. Vietnam"
*** from Smithsonian Books
ISBN: 1588341038


Ed.,

Thanks for the update.
When the war ended my pilot(Paul Shorts) got out of Marauders and into C-47's
by just the procedure I decribed. I guess they just don't make wars the way
they used to. I think I liked the old way better..(sigh)


Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

After an exhausting session with Victoria's Secret Police, Art Kramer
blurted out:

There has been some talk of men who wanted combat but due to "timing" or "luck"
they missed out. Well if you are in a unit that won't get into the fight, just
try this. Go to your CO and say," Sir, I hear the 344th is moving out to the
ETO. I want to go with them. Here is my transfer request. Please sign it". He
will immediately. After he signs it walk it through and you will go into battle
with the 344th. Or of course you can just keep a low profille , keep your mouth
shut, do nothing, then for the rest of your life you can always say " I wanted
combat but timing and luck kept me out" and see if you can live with that.

Imagine your surprise in August of 1990, Iraq invades Kuwait. You call
ARPC and volunteer to go back on active duty.

"No Thanks, we don't need any F-16 pilots...but if you're in Security
Police, we'd love to have you back."

So you join the local ANG unit as a non-flying staff puke. January
1991 rolls around, shooting starts, and you call ARPC again.

"Yes we'd love to have you back on active duty as an F-16 pilot,
what's your status? ANG huh? Sorry but you have to go with your ANG
unit, if you weren't in a unit we could take you back. No sir no
exceptions!"

Yep, I can live with that. I volunteer and my wife winds up in the
sandbox and flies combat air-evac (she was a flight nurse).

Juvat

Subject: If you are looking for a fight...
From: (BUFDRVR)
Date: 7/7/03 9:19 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

There has been some talk of men who wanted combat but due to "timing" or
"luck"
they missed out. Well if you are in a unit that won't get into the fight,
just
try this. Go to your CO and say," Sir, I hear the 344th is moving out to the
ETO. I want to go with them. Here is my transfer request. Please sign it".
He
will immediately. After he signs it walk it through and you will go into
battle
with the 344th. Or of course you can just keep a low profille , keep your
mouth
shut, do nothing, then for the rest of your life you can always say " I
wanted
combat but timing and luck kept me out" and see if you can live with that.


Art, you really need to step out of the 1940's and into the 1960's (at
least).
Every guy I know that has missed out on operations has done everything in
their
power to get into the fight. Combat operations today is not World War Two,
1943. Not every B-52 crew was deployed for operations in Iraq, in fact some
were deployed to keep an eye on North Korea (no combat ensued there so their
service is not noteworthy or honorable by your standard). Not ever F-16CG
unit
was deployed and the list goes on. Its all timing, luck and some skill to get
deployed for real world ops now a days. If it only took a request, you
couldn't
meet a B-52 crewmember today with out combat time.


BUFDRVR


Seems to be something wrong when you want to fight and they won't let you Wars
were more fun back then. Besides, I can't get out of the 40's. That was,
without apology, for better or worse, my war.(sigh)

Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...

Besides, I can't get out of the 40's.


Seek a therapist.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:


"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...

Besides, I can't get out of the 40's.


Seek a therapist.

Didn't take long to lower the level of discourse.

Are eee esss pee eee cee tee--just a little bit....


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (ret)
***"When Thunder Rolled:
*** An F-105 Pilot Over N. Vietnam"
*** from Smithsonian Books
ISBN: 1588341038

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in
"ArtKramr" wrote in message

Besides, I can't get out of the 40's.


Seek a therapist.



Better yet- "Get a bloody life!"

"Kilroy" wrote in message
...

Better yet- "Get a bloody life!"


Ya got that right. One doesn't need too much time in this forum to conclude
this guy couldn't have accomplished much before or after his brief military
service in WWII.

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
Didn't take long to lower the level of discourse.

Are eee esss pee eee cee tee--just a little bit....

It is a two way street, buddy.
He needs a Valium.

On Mon, 07 Jul 2003 15:20:30 GMT, Ed Rasimus wrote:

I sympathize with your point of view that if someone really wants to
get into the battle they can take the initiative, but it doesn't
happen the way you describe and hasn't since 1964 when I entered
active duty.

I was in the Philippines when Desert Shield started. We'd been under a
severe terrorist threat for a couple of years before that, and when the
Desert Shield deployees started getting Imminent Danger pay the same thing
was quickly approved for us (at the PACOM admirals insistence).

Soon after that there was an urgent call from my command (Electronic
Security Command) for people in my AFSC to volunteer for the deployment.
Many people in my unit (including myself) immediately sought out further
information to see how this could be done. Turns out it couldn't for us.

The Air Force wouldn't allow us to go from one "combat zone" theater to
another (and I believe that's military-wide). Our command wouldn't even
attempt to process volunteer request coming out of the PI.

Oh, and it took less than 24 hours for the command to call for volunteers
before amending the message to say that those of us in the PI wouldn't be
considered.

-Jeff B.
yeff at erols dot com