On 9/10/13 9:57 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:


"skin a cat" wrote in message ...


harry only says what he feels will get a response out of you. You could
stop it in one post if you wanted...

---------------------------

Why? It's a civil discussion or debate, representing different points
of view. It's not like either of us are exchanging vile, vulgar
comments about wives or family members in an attempt to score "points".


Must be because I misspent a lot of my teen youth chasing down those
Amity chicks...

On 9/10/2013 9:57 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:


"skin a cat" wrote in message ...


harry only says what he feels will get a response out of you. You could
stop it in one post if you wanted...

---------------------------

Why? It's a civil discussion or debate, representing different points
of view. It's not like either of us are exchanging vile, vulgar
comments about wives or family members in an attempt to score "points".

I guess you get to set your bars where you like... The way harry, kevin,
and don talk about military service and veterans is as vulgar to me as
anything I have ever said.. Quite frankly, I find your repeated response
to such nonsense, repulsive...But like I said, you get to set your own
bars...

On 9/10/2013 8:49 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:


"Hank©" wrote in message
eb.com...

On 9/10/2013 6:58 AM, F.O.A.D. wrote:
On 9/10/13 4:53 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:


"Tim" wrote in message
...

On Monday, September 9, 2013 7:19:40 AM UTC-5, F.O.A.D. wrote:


Sorry, Tim, but I was never drafted and signing up just encourages
militarism.

Hmm, I wasn't either.
Really? I thought it was enlisting to defend your country.


Beside, I thought getting an education and starting a career
were more important than killing SE Asians who posed no threat to
the United States.

Not everyone who served during the 'Vietnam Era' went to Vietnam, Harry.
The Soviet Union was a real threat, though.

-------------------------------------------

Harry sometimes strikes me as a charter member of the "me, me, me"
generation, even though he was born and grew up before it really became
a prevalent philosophy. It is evidenced by his comment, "Besides, I
thought getting an education and starting a career were more important
....".

Many of us grew up in roughly the same time period but were influenced
by a broader range of values and mores. In those days devoting a
couple of years of your life to military service or finding other ways
to serve your country for a short period of time was an honorable thing
to do. It certainly wasn't for the pay or to receive a direct, personal
benefit ... the goals that influenced Harry. The concept of Patriotism
and service was more pure in those days.

When JFK introduced the concept of the Peace Corps in 1960, he described
it as an alternative way to "serve your country", an example of the
values of the time. The Peace Corps was officially incorporated the
following year and offered young people a means of fulfilling whatever
obligations they felt they had without military service. Most who have
served in the Peace Corps consider it as one of the most meaningful
experiences of their lives.

None of this is meant to say that everyone should feel a need to serve
their country or serve in the military. It's a personal thing, based on
how you were raised and influenced. However, the need for a military
exists in every generation and those who choose to serve (or those who
were called upon to serve and did) ... should not be vilified in the
manner that Harry engages in. This is the thing about Harry's attitude
that ****es me off sometimes.

Ironically, those who serve in the military, be it for only 2 years, 4
years, (9 years active duty and two reserve for me), or made it a
career, almost all realize later in life that the experience broadened
their lives and they likely received more personal benefit from the
experience than they gave.


And once again, you simply missed the point. As previously stated, of
all the young men I knew in my high school graduating class, and I knew
a lot of them, only one went directly from high school into the
military. Not everyone went to college, but most of the guys I know did.
This was in the early 1960s, and there simply wasn't much going on
militarily for us anywhere, at least not much that was talked about on
the Nightly News. But by 1963, after Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire
to protest the Diem dictatorship in South Vietnam, many of us knew that
doing anything to support that government was just prolonging its reign
of corruption, and we also knew by then that the corruption had a lot
more to do with and was a lot deeper than the simple prevention of the
spread of communism. We basically were screwing the people of Vietnam,
just as the French did. I saw no reason to participate in that fraud. It
wasn't as if the North Vietnamese had their eyes on Mississippi or
anything other than the long-promised reunification of *their* country.
Why would someone voluntarily drop out of college to participate in that
military and political fraud? Our military apparatus, the officer corps,
was part and parcel of corruption in Vietnam.

My issues generally aren't with the individuals who were drafted or
enlisted and sent over to Vietnam. I do have issues, though, with
right-wingers who think there was something wonderful and honorable
about going over there to kill SE Asians because they were somehow being
"patriotic." That's a nice rationalization, but Vietnam wasn't Germany,
Japan, or even Italy.

Harry, you are going to great lengths to TRY to convince us that your
cowardice and selfishness weren't the reasons you made the decisions you
did. Sorry little fella. Your rationalizations for your lack of spine
don't fly.

----------------------------

Maybe he has flat feet. Even the military doesn't take *everyone*.


I'm sure he has all sorts of physical imperfections. He doesn't get a
monthly physical for no reason, you know.

On 9/10/2013 8:58 AM, F.O.A.D. wrote:
On 9/10/13 8:48 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:


"F.O.A.D." wrote in message
...


My issues generally aren't with the individuals who were drafted or
enlisted and sent over to Vietnam. I do have issues, though, with
right-wingers who think there was something wonderful and honorable
about going over there to kill SE Asians because they were somehow being
"patriotic." That's a nice rationalization, but Vietnam wasn't Germany,
Japan, or even Italy.

-------------------------------

I don't know a single person .... veteran or non veteran ....
right-winger or left-winger who thinks is was something wonderful and
honorable about killing anyone period. If you served in a war zone, it
was a question of kill or be killed. Your views and claims on the
subject are typical of someone who has little knowledge or experience
with what the military is all about, other than what you read in books.

And again, you demonstrate *my* point that you continue to miss. You
said this:

" This was in the early 1960s, and there simply wasn't much going on
militarily for us anywhere, at least not much that was talked about on
the Nightly News."

Harry, deciding to serve your country has little to do with "what's in
it for me?"




Draftees "served" because they were drafted. Many but not all of those
who enlisted signed up because they had nothing else to do. That was the
case of the one guy I knew from high school who enlisted. He spent his
three years of high school fooling around and I suppose decided he
couldn't make it at college or in a disciplined apprenticeship program
to learn a skilled trade. So he joined the army.

There was a lot of the "my country right or wrong" bull**** in the mid
to late 1960's...I think Vietnam helped most thinking Americans get over
that kind of absurdity.

I volunteered to be a program officer for an agricultural program in
Vietnam and trained for it and when I got there, I found out the program
had been cancelled. So I was given an opportunity to volunteer for other
civilian duty over there and I took it. There are many ways to "serve"
one's country without wearing a uniform and patting yourself on the back
for the rest of your life because you did so. These days, and for
decades, I have been more impressed with the service of teachers,
nurses, social workers, anti-poverty workers, firemen, et cetera, than I
have been by the service of soldiers, because the civilians are working
every day to improve the lives of Americans who need help.




You sure are a slippery one. But no worries. We have a firm grasp on the
knowledge of what's wrong with you. And it ain't pretty.

On Tuesday, 10 September 2013 11:10:03 UTC-3, skin a cat wrote:
On 9/10/2013 9:57 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:





"skin a cat" wrote in message ...





harry only says what he feels will get a response out of you. You could

stop it in one post if you wanted...



---------------------------



Why? It's a civil discussion or debate, representing different points

of view. It's not like either of us are exchanging vile, vulgar

comments about wives or family members in an attempt to score "points".



I guess you get to set your bars where you like... The way harry, kevin,

and don talk about military service and veterans is as vulgar to me as

anything I have ever said.. Quite frankly, I find your repeated response

to such nonsense, repulsive...But like I said, you get to set your own

bars...


What are you blathering about MiniMan?
The only veterans I might ridicule are a certain handful in here and it has little to do with whatever military service they may or may not have provided.

In article ,
says...

On 9/10/2013 9:57 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:


"skin a cat" wrote in message ...


harry only says what he feels will get a response out of you. You could
stop it in one post if you wanted...

---------------------------

Why? It's a civil discussion or debate, representing different points
of view. It's not like either of us are exchanging vile, vulgar
comments about wives or family members in an attempt to score "points".

I guess you get to set your bars where you like... The way harry, kevin,
and don talk about military service and veterans is as vulgar to me as
anything I have ever said.. Quite frankly, I find your repeated response
to such nonsense, repulsive...But like I said, you get to set your own
bars...

I take it by "kevin" you mean me, so therefore, what have *I* said bad
about the military and those who've served?

On 9/10/13 12:15 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 10 Sep 2013 06:58:04 -0400, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

And once again, you simply missed the point. As previously stated, of
all the young men I knew in my high school graduating class, and I knew
a lot of them, only one went directly from high school into the
military. Not everyone went to college, but most of the guys I know did.
This was in the early 1960s, and there simply wasn't much going on
militarily for us anywhere, at least not much that was talked about on
the Nightly News. But by 1963, after Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire
to protest the Diem dictatorship in South Vietnam, many of us knew that
doing anything to support that government was just prolonging its reign
of corruption, and we also knew by then that the corruption had a lot
more to do with and was a lot deeper than the simple prevention of the
spread of communism. We basically were screwing the people of Vietnam,
just as the French did. I saw no reason to participate in that fraud. It
wasn't as if the North Vietnamese had their eyes on Mississippi or
anything other than the long-promised reunification of *their* country.
Why would someone voluntarily drop out of college to participate in that
military and political fraud? Our military apparatus, the officer corps,
was part and parcel of corruption in Vietnam.

My issues generally aren't with the individuals who were drafted or
enlisted and sent over to Vietnam. I do have issues, though, with
right-wingers who think there was something wonderful and honorable
about going over there to kill SE Asians because they were somehow being
"patriotic." That's a nice rationalization, but Vietnam wasn't Germany,
Japan, or even Italy.


You ducked the question, why didn't you join the peace corps, if war
was so horrible an idea for you.

Of course you could have joined the CG, Navy or Air Force and never
got close to Vietnam. (although you might have been supporting that
war remotely)


Because I was busy. I was in college for much of the 1960's, full-time,
pursuing a B.A. and an M.A., and for three of those same years, working
full-time at a newspaper. After I got my M.A. and returned to the paper,
I got an assignment to go to Vietnam to write a few feature stories
about civilian agricultural projects underway there with the assistance
of a U.S. agency and a handful of farmers and feedlot operators in the
midwest. After I returned, I was recruited by the U.S. agency to go back
to Vietnam and serve as a civilian program officer. I got some training
in the states and went to Vietnam again, supposedly for a year, but when
I got there, the program for which I had been recruited had been
terminated. Another assignment there for a totally different agency was
offered to me, and I took it.

It would have been difficult for me to accept a Peace Corps job or to
hide out in the Coast Guard or Texas Air National Guard while I was in
Vietnam, eh?

P.S. It wasn't that war, per se, was such a horrible idea to me at that
time...it was that the war in Vietnam was a horrible war we had no
business waging. Vietnam posed absolutely no threat to the United States.

In article ,
says...

On 9/10/13 12:15 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 10 Sep 2013 06:58:04 -0400, "F.O.A.D." wrote:


Because I was busy. I was in college for much of the 1960's, full-time,
pursuing a B.A. and an M.A., and for three of those same years, working
full-time at a newspaper.

"I had other priorities in the '60s than military service."

-- Dick Cheney

On 9/10/13 2:24 PM, Boating All Out wrote:
In article ,
says...

On 9/10/13 12:15 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 10 Sep 2013 06:58:04 -0400, "F.O.A.D." wrote:


Because I was busy. I was in college for much of the 1960's, full-time,
pursuing a B.A. and an M.A., and for three of those same years, working
full-time at a newspaper.

"I had other priorities in the '60s than military service."

-- Dick Cheney



I was so hoping someone would make that connection. I was going to use
Cheney's quote, but I thought it would be too obvious. Thanks!

On 9/10/13 2:27 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 10 Sep 2013 12:36:06 -0400, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

Because I was busy.

That is why we need a draft.


We had a draft back then. I wasn't drafted. I went to college and was
classified 2-S. After college, I was "available," but I never got a
letter from the draft board.

Why do we need a draft now?