If there was a Vietnam war draft today...

[Dowding]

I'm epileptic, AKIron. There really is something wrong with my brain. I failed the medical for RAF Officer training because of it - they sent me to the selection centre after the initial interviews and I passed the aptitude tests. But their oversight did come apparent until half way through selection. Doh!

[StSanta]

Thanks for the honest answers.

I think that most that have an understanding for the dreads of jungle warfare and poorly executed wars in general would be reluctant to go. The older you get, the more you start realizing how fragile life is and how easily it could end.

I mean, I was a real Macho Man(tm)in my late teens and early twenties. I'd wreck dive without proper security, free climb and whatnot. Had a few minor incidents, but nothing to scare me.

Continued with this macho attitude - I'd go to war in a millisecond, no questions asked. Then I started skydiving. Was all macho in the plane. Was all macho when I jumped out.

Had a very violent opening due to poor positioning in the air and when I hung there in the chute I sorta realized 'dude. This can kill you'. Then had a malfunction some jumps later and after that, the testosterone poisoning I had suffered from seemed to have evaporated. Realized that maybe I wasn't so big and incredibly cool/brave.

Now if I just see footage of WWII, I cannot HELP but to think that the fear those soldiers experience is many times worse what I felt when I looked up and saw a the long lines of my chute and the bag where the chute is in refusing to open. And me hurling at 50m/s towards the ground, around 15 seconds below me. Imagined the SMACK into the ground and how my bones and internal organs would be. And then the flesh slowly rotting off my broken bones, halted only through the cremation of what used to be me. Al the deeds, thoughts no more. Love and hatred, the strongest emotions, forever nullified. Odd how much you think about when it's brown trousers time.

I mean, if I thought that was bad, I can imagine what being constantly scared for months at a time must be like. That's why I wouldn't volunteer to fight in such a war. Am now over my testosterone poisoning and all too aware of my mortality and the mortality of others. No longer is there to me any glory in war.

[BUG_EAF322]

When i was 20 years i would be that crazy.
I would shave my hair imidiatly.

Now i know better

If my country is attacked that would be another story.

[cars]

I faced that decision many years ago, my father was in the AAF in WW2 and my mother was a navy nurse when they met. There was never any question or hesitation about what was the right thing to do. I enlisted and volunteered to go. spent 30 months in country before riding home strapped to a stretcher in a c-141 medevac bird. Would I go again? In a heartbeat. Heh, you'd have to retrain me in one of those new m1's tho, the old m48a3's we used are a bit primitave by todays standard.

cars

[Maverick]

Originally posted by cars
I faced that decision many years ago, my father was in the AAF in WW2 and my mother was a navy nurse when they met. There was never any question or hesitation about what was the right thing to do. I enlisted and volunteered to go. spent 30 months in country before riding home strapped to a stretcher in a c-141 medevac bird. Would I go again? In a heartbeat. Heh, you'd have to retrain me in one of those new m1's tho, the old m48a3's we used are a bit primitave by todays standard.

cars

Cars,

Trust me, it wouldn't be hard to transition to the M1. I did it from the M60 and that wasn't THAT different from the M48a3.

PS. I spent a very brief time in a M48a3 too.  

to you for your service. Maybe we'll meet in Fidlers Green some day.