Scott I said back off,

Strange that now you change the subject to military people. You say that you know some people in the military.

I have been in the military in war and in battle in Vietnam fall of 1966, to fall of 1967,in the Marines.

I will tell you one thing that I learned about men in the military, unlike the myth people believe. They are not much different from any other men. You have some that are dedicated, some are skilled, some are brave, but most are the ordinary mix of ordinary, good, bad, and in-between. They are fat, thing strong and weak, goof offs, caring, bullies and victims. They are smart and dumb hardworking and lazy as well.

The longer the war goes on, the more trained and skilled people you lose in time, either by death and injury, or just those that don't rejoin once their time is up. So year by year, the quality of the men you have to choose from decreases, and then the military standards have to be lowered, just to still have enough warm bodies to keep the war going. Eventually even with lowered standards you can't even have enough warm bodies for your war.

Military is big on public image, they inventd public relations, they are very good at sweeping bad stuff under the rug, and anyone acting as a wistel blower blows any hope of a good career, in fact he might die.

I was Marine, that often impresses people,but it does not impess me. I was a very ordnary person just doing a tempory job for two years. Never got in any trouble, never lost rank, but only gained only gained a little rank. I was a horizonal chart operator, fire directon control, in an 105MM howitzer battery. All the guns and ammo were World War II vintage. The only recent stuff was cute little mini jeeps that that were nearly useless off the road.

One our trip to Okinawa for resupply in December of 1966, and just before going back to Vietnam, our truckers and mechanics had to steal parts from other group's trucks just to have operating vehicles when we returned to Vietnam. When we were resuppled, often it was worse things than we had come in with, even sometimes worse M14 rifles, which at least worked, not the newer M16s that seemed to jam ever third bullet.

Near the end of my tour five of our six howitzers broke down, so for another three weeks we were a one gun battery, and this on the DMZ.

Not a bit like we wish to think about our military in the beginning of our war Vietnam. Even more fun, we had an Army war, a Navy war, an Army war, and a Marine Corps war, each separate and none of them working together. I think it was not until Desert Storm that they learned to work together.