Question on ...
 

"F.O.A.D." wrote:
On 1/17/14, 12:03 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 17 Jan 2014 10:14:24 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:


I never experienced the "delights" of a pre-induction physical, but a
few of my contemporaries told me about their experiences in the mid to
late 1960s. They weren't as exciting as Arlo Guthrie's saga in "Alice's
Restaurant," but I do recall them telling me the pre-induction screening
was minimalist in nature.

My induction physical was less inclusive than the one I had to take to
play high school football in DC.


I would have enjoyed spending the afternoon sitting on the "Group W
Bench," if such existed, messing around with all the other litterers,
playing with the pencils and, of course, being in the selective company
of the mother-rapers and father-rapers that Arlo encountered, and jumping
up and down yelling "Kill, kill, kill." Alas, the draft board never
bothered to send me a notice.

My draft physical had me in the group with criminal records. If you paid
over, I think $25 in traffic tickets, you had to check a box. That Bo's
was the criminal box. We had all got called in to a room, and those with
other than traffic convictions were told to stand over in a separate area.
Those of us with traffic fines, were asked how much we paid. I was about
10x the next highest person. I still love speed.

Question on ...
 

On 1/18/2014 2:08 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 17 Jan 2014 12:02:19 -0500, KC wrote:

On 1/17/2014 11:56 AM, wrote:


I always wonder about this radiation thing. I spent the best part of a
year being radioactive enough to set off a radiation detector at an
airport and that was supposed to be curing cancer.


What? I don't get it... "supposed to be curing cancer" at an
"Airport"... confused....

They shot over a hundred Iodine 125 seeds into my prostate for a
cancer problem. Several months later I was in an airport talking to
some nervous TSA guys about it.

I'll bet that was the scariest pat down he ever performed.

Question on ...
 

On Fri, 17 Jan 2014 22:48:05 -0600, Califbill wrote:

Poco Loco wrote:
On Fri, 17 Jan 2014 11:07:55 -0500, "Mr. Luddite" wrote:


The following health conditions are presumptively recognized for service
connection. Vietnam
veterans with one or more of these conditions do not have to show that
their illness(es) is (are)
related to their military service to get disability compensation. VA
presumes that their condition
is service-connected.
Conditions Recognized in Veterans
1.
Chloracne (must occur within 1 year of exposure to Agent Orange)
2.
Non-Hodgkin?s lymphoma
3.
Soft tissue sarcoma (other than osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, Kaposi?s
sarcoma, ormesothelioma)
4.
Hodgkin?s disease
5.
Porphyria cutanea tarda (must occur within 1 year of exposure)
6.
Multiple myeloma
7.
Respiratory cancers, including cancers of the lung, larynx, trachea, and bronchus
8.
Prostate cancer
9.
Acute and subacute transient peripheral neuropathy (must appear within 1
year of exposure and
resolve within 2 years of date of onset)
10.
Type 2 diabetes
11.
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia

As one who was exposed to quite a bit of that crap, I've always been very
interested. Luckily, none
of those medical conditions have surfaced. It's a damn shame 'Hearing
Loss' isn't one of the
conditions listed!

My brother is covered by VA medical as an Agent Orange victim. He does
have health problems. But he said as a SeaBee he was in lots of Agent
Orange contaminated streams, building bridges.

I've lucked out, so far. My doctor has the list above, and gives those items extra attention during
physicals, but as yet only a mild COPD which I attribute to almost 40 years of smoking.

Question on ...
 

On Sat, 18 Jan 2014 02:08:12 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 17 Jan 2014 12:02:19 -0500, KC wrote:

On 1/17/2014 11:56 AM, wrote:


I always wonder about this radiation thing. I spent the best part of a
year being radioactive enough to set off a radiation detector at an
airport and that was supposed to be curing cancer.


What? I don't get it... "supposed to be curing cancer" at an
"Airport"... confused....

They shot over a hundred Iodine 125 seeds into my prostate for a
cancer problem. Several months later I was in an airport talking to
some nervous TSA guys about it.

Did it work? Did you undergo a prostate biopsy? Isn't that a pain in the ass? :)

Question on ...
 

On Sat, 18 Jan 2014 02:13:33 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 17 Jan 2014 12:45:04 -0500, Poco Loco
wrote:


The only 'landmines' I know that we used were used as a defensivnit moved on. I've not heard of the
indiscriminate emplacement of mines by our military since I've been associated therewith. e measure around camps or positions.
The most used was the claymore, which was picked up when the u

But, there may have been some of which I'm not aware. Usually, Engineers lay minefields. We had very
strict rules about recording the emplacement of each and every mine, so they could be recovered when
no longer needed.

But, you may know a lot more about US mine laying then I do.

I don't usually even think of a Claymore as being a land mine.

It is a mine, but it's not buried, so it doesn't fit the bill that Harry is talking about. It was
what I saw used most often in Vietnam - by us, that is. The bad guys could make mines and booby
traps out of anything, and we left a lot of unexploded ordnance laying around.

Question on ...
 

On Sat, 18 Jan 2014 02:25:38 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 17 Jan 2014 12:47:03 -0500, Poco Loco
wrote:

My induction physical was less inclusive than the one I had to take to
play high school football in DC.

With good reason. DC high school football players would make most of us Army folk look like a bunch
of pansies!

Yup we were a team of skinny white boys. A heart murmur got me
benched ... but the military did not have a problem with it at all.
Nobody ever mentioned it again.

I did get into a study at Georgetown on adolescent heart murmurs tho.
Lost my fear of needles. I can draw my own blood and give myself shots
if I had to.
I got to the point that I could have set up and run an EKG machine by
the time I was in 10th grade.
I got blood drawn and an EKG about twice a month for a couple years,
then it just went away. I never heard what they were studying or what
they found. I suppose it was just NIH grant money they were spending
until it ran out.

As a 2LT, I tried to get into flight school. Had to take a flight physical, with EKG. They found
premature ventricular contractions (PVCs), which usually aren't that big of a deal, but they do
prevent one from getting into flight school. They gave me pills - sedatives mostly, but they didn't
help. If they'd told me to stop drinking coffee, I might have gone to flight school.

Haven't had any PVCs for at least 40 years now.

Question on ...
 

On Sat, 18 Jan 2014 02:37:38 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 17 Jan 2014 14:53:14 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

The USA has been a big-time
marketer of land mines. Some 155 countries have signed onto a treaty not
to use land mines. The United States is not a signatory.

From what I understand the US use of land mines is almost exclusively
in the DMZ between N and S Korea. It is the only way they think 50,000
troops would have a chance of slowing an invasion of foot soldiers.
I doubt it would buy them an hour. By then the NK bodies would be
piled up high enough to blunt the force of the mines and they would
come on down the peninsula

I've been to the DMZ, where our division is located. Don't recall anything about minefields. Also
developed a study simulating an NK attack. I had a very extensive listing of all the offensive and
defensive forces and weapons - no minefields were included.

Question on ...
 

On 1/18/14, 10:17 AM, Poco Loco wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jan 2014 02:37:38 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 17 Jan 2014 14:53:14 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

The USA has been a big-time
marketer of land mines. Some 155 countries have signed onto a treaty not
to use land mines. The United States is not a signatory.

From what I understand the US use of land mines is almost exclusively
in the DMZ between N and S Korea. It is the only way they think 50,000
troops would have a chance of slowing an invasion of foot soldiers.
I doubt it would buy them an hour. By then the NK bodies would be
piled up high enough to blunt the force of the mines and they would
come on down the peninsula

I've been to the DMZ, where our division is located. Don't recall anything about minefields. Also
developed a study simulating an NK attack. I had a very extensive listing of all the offensive and
defensive forces and weapons - no minefields were included.


Infantry: Minding The World's Largest Minefield


January 31, 2009: While landmines are technically "banned" weapons,
there are still plenty in use, and one of the most mined areas is Korea.
The Mine Ban Treaty came into force in 1999, but 42 countries did not
agree to the ban on the production, stockpiling, and use of
antipersonnel mines. Countries who opted out include China, India,
Pakistan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. This includes the
major producers of landmines, as well as many of those still using
landmines.

South Korea has about a million landmines emplaced along the DMZ
(DeMilitarized Zone) between north and south Korea. The U.S. and South
Korea have another two million or so mines in storage, in case North
Korea tries to invade again (as it last did in 1950.) North Korea won't
say how many mines it has planted, but it's probably at least several
hundred thousand.

South Korea has to replace mines as they get too old to still work, and
they are starting to do this with a new generation of command (by wire
or wireless) detonated mines. Many of the more recent mines South Korea
has stockpiled are of the self-destruct (a certain amount of time after
planted) variety. South Korea has been making plans for clearing all the
mines it has planted over the years, largely because it appears that the
communist government of North Korea will collapse soon, eliminating the
need for the DMZ, and all those

http://tinyurl.com/kll4beh


Must be those pesky stealth mines, since our military doesn’t know about
them. Or maybe we just don't know about them because they are South
Korea's mines. What?

Question on ...
 

On Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:28:11 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

On 1/18/14, 10:17 AM, Poco Loco wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jan 2014 02:37:38 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 17 Jan 2014 14:53:14 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

The USA has been a big-time
marketer of land mines. Some 155 countries have signed onto a treaty not
to use land mines. The United States is not a signatory.

From what I understand the US use of land mines is almost exclusively
in the DMZ between N and S Korea. It is the only way they think 50,000
troops would have a chance of slowing an invasion of foot soldiers.
I doubt it would buy them an hour. By then the NK bodies would be
piled up high enough to blunt the force of the mines and they would
come on down the peninsula

I've been to the DMZ, where our division is located. Don't recall anything about minefields. Also
developed a study simulating an NK attack. I had a very extensive listing of all the offensive and
defensive forces and weapons - no minefields were included.


Infantry: Minding The World's Largest Minefield


January 31, 2009: While landmines are technically "banned" weapons,
there are still plenty in use, and one of the most mined areas is Korea.
The Mine Ban Treaty came into force in 1999, but 42 countries did not
agree to the ban on the production, stockpiling, and use of
antipersonnel mines. Countries who opted out include China, India,
Pakistan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. This includes the
major producers of landmines, as well as many of those still using
landmines.

South Korea has about a million landmines emplaced along the DMZ
(DeMilitarized Zone) between north and south Korea. The U.S. and South
Korea have another two million or so mines in storage, in case North
Korea tries to invade again (as it last did in 1950.) North Korea won't
say how many mines it has planted, but it's probably at least several
hundred thousand.

South Korea has to replace mines as they get too old to still work, and
they are starting to do this with a new generation of command (by wire
or wireless) detonated mines. Many of the more recent mines South Korea
has stockpiled are of the self-destruct (a certain amount of time after
planted) variety. South Korea has been making plans for clearing all the
mines it has planted over the years, largely because it appears that the
communist government of North Korea will collapse soon, eliminating the
need for the DMZ, and all those

http://tinyurl.com/kll4beh


Must be those pesky stealth mines, since our military doesn’t know about
them. Or maybe we just don't know about them because they are South
Korea's mines. What?

Well see, there you go. Apparently those mines are so secret they didn't make the books at Combined
Forces Command. Or, there may be some bull**** going on. As for mines in storage, in case of an
invasion, there won't be enough time to be putting in any minefields.

My comments don't include mines used to defend firing positions, such as claymores. Claymores (or
the equivalent) are undoubtedly used wherever there are firing positions for US or South Korean
forces. To not use them would be stupid.

Question on ...
 

On 1/18/14, 10:50 AM, Poco Loco wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:28:11 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

On 1/18/14, 10:17 AM, Poco Loco wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jan 2014 02:37:38 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 17 Jan 2014 14:53:14 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

The USA has been a big-time
marketer of land mines. Some 155 countries have signed onto a treaty not
to use land mines. The United States is not a signatory.

From what I understand the US use of land mines is almost exclusively
in the DMZ between N and S Korea. It is the only way they think 50,000
troops would have a chance of slowing an invasion of foot soldiers.
I doubt it would buy them an hour. By then the NK bodies would be
piled up high enough to blunt the force of the mines and they would
come on down the peninsula

I've been to the DMZ, where our division is located. Don't recall anything about minefields. Also
developed a study simulating an NK attack. I had a very extensive listing of all the offensive and
defensive forces and weapons - no minefields were included.


Infantry: Minding The World's Largest Minefield


January 31, 2009: While landmines are technically "banned" weapons,
there are still plenty in use, and one of the most mined areas is Korea.
The Mine Ban Treaty came into force in 1999, but 42 countries did not
agree to the ban on the production, stockpiling, and use of
antipersonnel mines. Countries who opted out include China, India,
Pakistan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. This includes the
major producers of landmines, as well as many of those still using
landmines.

South Korea has about a million landmines emplaced along the DMZ
(DeMilitarized Zone) between north and south Korea. The U.S. and South
Korea have another two million or so mines in storage, in case North
Korea tries to invade again (as it last did in 1950.) North Korea won't
say how many mines it has planted, but it's probably at least several
hundred thousand.

South Korea has to replace mines as they get too old to still work, and
they are starting to do this with a new generation of command (by wire
or wireless) detonated mines. Many of the more recent mines South Korea
has stockpiled are of the self-destruct (a certain amount of time after
planted) variety. South Korea has been making plans for clearing all the
mines it has planted over the years, largely because it appears that the
communist government of North Korea will collapse soon, eliminating the
need for the DMZ, and all those

http://tinyurl.com/kll4beh


Must be those pesky stealth mines, since our military doesn’t know about
them. Or maybe we just don't know about them because they are South
Korea's mines. What?

Well see, there you go. Apparently those mines are so secret they didn't make the books at Combined
Forces Command. Or, there may be some bull**** going on. As for mines in storage, in case of an
invasion, there won't be enough time to be putting in any minefields.

My comments don't include mines used to defend firing positions, such as claymores. Claymores (or
the equivalent) are undoubtedly used wherever there are firing positions for US or South Korean
forces. To not use them would be stupid.


I have no idea what "Combined Forces Command" knows or doesn't know,
other than to say that "military intelligence" is one of the leading
oxymorons.