Question for veterans.

[Masherbrum]

Originally posted by Toad
If you think serving in the Guard is dodging the draft, you have your head buried deeply up your posterior. I'll wager there's lots of Guardsmen from WW2 onward that would cheerfully help you keep it there.

I agree.  

Btw, missing a "weekend drill" happens all of the time in the Guard.  That is what Bush was being accused of.  

But since I own a handgun, Kerry isn't getting my vote.

Karaya

[Gixer]

Originally posted by Toad
If you think serving in the Guard is dodging the draft, you have your head buried deeply up your posterior. I'll wager there's lots of Guardsmen from WW2 onward that would cheerfully help you keep it there.

Guard isn't dodging the draft but it's certinly the easy ticket out. You can't argue that.



...-Gixer

[Eagler]

Originally posted by Gixer
Guard isn't dodging the draft but it's certinly the easy ticket out. You can't argue that.



...-Gixer

heard a larger percentage of would-be pilots were killed learning to fly jets than the percentage of swift boat ppl in country were killed during the same time period ....

if true, which took bigger gondolas?

[Toad]

Originally posted by Gixer
Guard isn't dodging the draft but it's certinly the easy ticket out. You can't argue that.



...-Gixer

I wasn't the one arguing that joining the Guard was dodging the draft. That was RPM that was floating that foolishness.

Easy ticket? I've a dead UPT classmate that didn't make it to graduation. He was a good student too. I'm not sure his wife or the now 30 year old daughter he left behind would view it as an "easy ticket".

[Gixer]

Originally posted by Toad
I wasn't the one arguing that joining the Guard was dodging the draft. That was RPM that was floating that foolishness.

Easy ticket? I've a dead UPT classmate that didn't make it to graduation. He was a good student too. I'm not sure his wife or the now 30 year old daughter he left behind would view it as an "easy ticket".

Sorry to hear about your classmate but one particular instance is as you pointed out is a great  loss only  to his immediate family, it dosn't make guard duty well actually training seen to be dangerous. The argument as a whole and much wider perspective of course was whether guard duty was dodging the draft, it comes close but not quite.

Would guard duty be scene as a easy ticket out compared to the risk of being shot at. Yes it certinly is.

If you think it is, I guess you could always compare the death ratio of those killed in vietnam to those killed back home in guard duty and see which is seen as the more hazardous.

I'm sure most guys that were depoloyed in Vietnam would rather of done 5 years of guard duty compared to 5 nights in the Jungle.





...-Gixer

[Ripsnort]

Gixer, you're either really young, or really dumb, or possibly both?

Read up son....
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/blarguardhistory.htm

[AWMac]

Originally posted by Silat
I was drafted in 69.

I have absolutely no issue with his going home when he had the opportunity. Many were given purple hearts for the same kind of wounds and less. Its a non issue.
I also have no issue with Bush for taking the easier way out.

Yep Silat was the 2nd Mountie in the Canoe (Canadian Naval Royal Fleet)  As 2nd Mountie his reponsibilities were to arm and deploy the Beavers. Flea bites and tail slaps got him 3 Bullwinkles and an easy out. Rich then he decides to run South across the border and seek safe asylum  in Portland, OR.




MacMAW

[Airhead]

It's odd how the Left has historically celebrated those who avoided Viet Nam service from 1967 up until Clinton's campaigns as being smarter than the dipsticks who had to serve, yet now the Left is lauding Viet Nam service as the proper thing to have done for young men of that generation- to the point of questioning the courage of those who didn't serve. Just sayin- I still bleat my mantra of "Four legs good, two legs bad" and wear my Birkenstocks while dancing to CSN&Y doing our theme song of "Four Dead In O- Hi- O,"  but sometimes I get confused as I get older.

I need to go shoot guns with Lazs. He explains things to me in language I understand.

[AWMac]

Yep CSN&Y OHIO.....about Kent State, Natl Guards and shooting all around...shame.

[101ABN]

back to the question at hand... im my humble opinion if you are a leader of troops you should be the first one in and the last one out.  then again its hard to imagine what situation was facing him at the time. ive seen brass making calls on if a soldier should go home or not.  example.. young Specialist was sent home after getting wounded 4 times in Mosul, Iraq.  the soldier had no knowledge of the plan to send him home.  they didnt want the soldier to get killed over there, would look bad on the home front.  he was awarded 3 purple hearts.

[Toad]

It isn't a matter of "seen to be dangerous"; it was dangerous.
If you screwed up. Done right, like most things, it was safe enough. Done wrong, or worse..... done without a bag full of luck...... it would kill you quick.

I wish all of the nay-sayers and denigraters had a chance to be the only person hanging on to supersonic jet when they were going too fast to stop and too slow to fly while the engine fire lights were brightly illuminating the cockpit on a dark and stormy night.

whether guard duty was dodging the draft, it comes close but not quite

With this statement you come close but not quite to assuming RPM's position with his cranium firmly lodged in his posterior.

Again, you need to review the previous posts; my statements have all been directed at the idea that "guard duty was draft dodging". I've made no value judgement on which was "more dangerous".

I've merely pointed out the idiocy of saying joining the Guard was draft dodging.

[Gixer]

Originally posted by Ripsnort
Gixer, you're either really young, or really dumb, or possibly both?

Read up son....
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/blarguardhistory.htm

Sorry, which of my comments makes me young,dumb or both? Or the fact that I don't blindly support Bush or what ever he says immediately drops me into that group? LOL


...-Gixer

[Gixer]

By the way I fail to see how that little history lesson on the Guard supports any argument that being in the Guard and the Air Force at that isn't a easier way out then going to Vietnam.

Your trying to justify Bush's Guard duty as being equal or something to those that went to Vietnam? Whats your argument, point?

By the way personal insults just reflect on your intelligence rather then anyone elses.




...-Gixer

[Toad]

Originally posted by Toad
I've merely pointed out the idiocy of saying joining the Guard was draft dodging.

I don't think it could be any more clear than that.