esrosedotblog

KHAKI

Kerry vs. the Chicken Hawks this morning in Salon. I wondered when the matured and pissed off Vietnam war veteran (as well as the real veterans from all the wars in fifty or more years) would begin to see how they have been used. And used by the chicken-shit army at that; the guys who did the spotty weekends if any time at all in the champagne units. I notice the article does not use the field terminology for the near draft dodgers.

I know whereof I speak. I did not do my reserve service. I am pre Vietnam; but I can tell you that, even then, it was a snap to evade. I would be one of Michael Moore's 'deserters'. I was ROTC and when I got out of my obligatory 6 months active, I adopted a friend; and not one that was either high in the echelon or too close to me either. He was just the regular Army coordinator for the area. He happened to have a summer place near where I grew up. I remember him saying: "You really don't want to go to weekly meetings do you?" He fixed me up with a correspondence course that I never really worked on much. I did go to summer camps for two weeks for six years and found guys like me who could wangle a soft berth or none at all. One year, another reservist and I spent a whole week in a motel around the swimming pool as we 'observed' an airborne exercise.

The unit that I would have been assigned to ended up getting shipped overseas to Germany during the Berlin 'crisis'. They had to stay there with nothing to do for two years. I failed to qualify for Captain at the end of my 'time' and was flushed out.

I have never been particularly proud of this; nor have I had much guilt and remorse. But then, I have not tried to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear; used my experience dressing up as a soldier to make a PR airdrop on a carrier.

I think that the military experience issue is a hot one in this election. The veterans who have gotten sold out over and over might help undo the phony patriotism and puerile posturing of this poor-ass president.