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Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: chowder who wrote (21268)	8/27/2004 11:49:25 AM
From: jim_p	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

Observations by an Air Force Pilot. Chris Thomas, Air Force Pilot: I would like to add my two cents about my John Kerry experience ........ During my career as an Air Force pilot, I spent two years flying a small twin engine prop plane around the Pacific from my base in Okinawa, Japan. On one trip we had to fly Senator Kerry, his congressional aide, and a Navy Captain (Vietnam, A-4 fighter pilot) who was also in Kerry's party to various locations in Vietnam and Cambodia as part of the MIA/POW talks. When I met him, he was wearing a shirt with a picture of his sailboat onit. I told him I had a 27' sailboat in Okinawa. He remarked, "Oh I never sail on anything less than 135 feet." "Thanks, Senator. "I feel even better about the meager salary I get paid for flying you around the Pacific." When we first flew him into Phnom Penh, he went to the back of the airplane and grabbed the pizza that was put aside for the crew and passed it around to his staff. He was never offered any pizza because they were supposed to have lunch with the Cambodian government when we landed. The pizza was the crew's only meal for that day and he ate it. Then when we picked him up in Cambodia. He was an hour late getting to the airport. Because fuel was an issue, we could not start the engines and therefore the air conditioning until he arrived. Phnom Penh at that time was over 100 degrees with 95% humidity and we were basically sitting in a greenhouse behind the cockpit windows. When he finally did arrive, we were wringing out our clothes from the perspiration. He walks out of the air conditioned car, into the airplane and asks us "Could you guys get the air-conditioning running, I'm a little warm?" The other pilot had to physically restrain me from going back there and picking a fight. Then we took him into Noi Bai airfield in Hanoi. After we picked him up the next day (he stayed the night in Vietnam, we stayed in Bangkok), we taxied out, ran up the engines for take off and noticed that our prop rpm was vibrating all over the place. We taxied off to the side to look at it, but there was a good possibility that there was an engine malfunction and the engine may fail if we took off with it. Well, Mr. Senator sticks his head up in the cockpit and says, "This plane WILL take off, I have a press conference in Bangkok in three hours!" (Maybe this is an indication of how he will run the FAA). American service members lives be damned, we had our Senatorial orders. We ran the engines again, and did not have the problem, so we took off andmade it back. During the flight, he told everyone how he had taken a Cessna (a small General aviation plane) up with a fighter pilot, and the fighter pilot remarked that Kerry was one of the best pilots he had ever seen. I don't know about other pilots out there, but it's hard to imagine a little, single-engine prop plane pilot being able to show the "right stuff." After Kerry left the plane, the Navy Captain came up to us, apologized and said basically that "... he knows Kerry is a jerk ..." and that we should be glad we don't have to deal with him every day. Your choice folks. Elections in November. You want a mega-millionaire ego-maniac it's-all-about-me crew-eating-pizza-ite like Kerry or maybe a Green Party candidate like Ralph Nader? Or, God forbid, maybe even re-elect George Bush, a nice God fearing Christian bent on protecting us from terrorist attacks on US soil? Continued freedom under President Bush or bombs in our backyard under Kerry (who will be sailing on his "minimum 135' yacht"). It's a shame so many Americans are being fooled. As Fox would say, "we report. You decide."

To: chowder who wrote (21268)	8/27/2004 2:54:05 PM
From: chowder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

Men's basketball team lost to Argentina today and their hopes for gold. Yeehaa! dabum

To: chowder who wrote (21268)	8/28/2004 1:00:09 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 23153

Dabum, you write: As it turns out, The "Official" Naval Records are not accurate. Anyone who has served knows what a DD-214 form is. It's your official record! Kerry's DD-214 states he earned a Silver Star with a Combat V. A combat V does not go with a Silver Star. Combat V goes with a Bronze Star. Kerry's "Official" record has him earning two Combat V's of which one doesn't exist. Are you suggesting that since the clerk that typed up his dd-214 made a mistake, then we can assume that all of the other records that support the pro-Kerry side of the Swift Boat controversy, sometimes in duplicate or triplicate with other records, are necessarily erroneous? It seems that you are; unless you have other, unstated, reasons for concluding that; "[a]s it turns out, The "Official" Naval Records are not accurate. The overall picture is that the records compiled at the time are being challenged by the several decades old memories of men who are passionately anti-Kerry. They are contradicted by the memories of the men closest to Kerry and by their own records which were compiled contemporaneously with the events. That would seem to lay the matter to rest for most reasonable people, yet some of this board's knee-jerk conservative posters seem to think its a slam dunk for the anti Kerry position. After all, since Kerry's dd-214 contains a minor error, "[t]he 'official' Naval Records are not accurate." Some people will never be convinced of the accuracy of Kerry's record and of his valor and leadership in Vietnam, but, nonetheless, the subject is one that Kerry can't afford to ignore until he's addressed it in a way that reaches not only those who read the serious print, but also those who simply viewed the ads. It's a dagger into his campaign and he can't "hope" it will be forgotten. It won't be forgotten. For those who despise Kerry and yearn for his defeat, however, I wouldn't celebrate too much. In a deeper sense the "Swift Vets" subject can seriously harm the interests of those who "support" the Iraqi war and the president who made the decision to fight it. I say that because the controversy is a real life reminder that while not all wars are worthwhile, all wars are horrible, especially for those who fight in them and those who lose loved ones in them. Which simply re-raises the question of "why fight the Iraq war?" As in Vietnam, in Iraq WE seem be fighting AGAINST nationalistic Iraqis in order to supposedly give THEM freedom. Ultimately more and more people will wonder if maybe there's isn't more to the issue than the mantra of "they hate freedom" that we're constantly fed by the Bush, and to a lesser extent, the Kerry people? We can go on and on about how most Iraqis support us but the reality seems to be that those who may support us are outweighed in terms of the numbers and/or, more importantly, the resolve of those who support "almost anything but us." I think that most Americans want a clear justification before they send THEIR kids to war. With an all-volunteer army, most Americans might accept a cloudier justification but the justification for the Iraqi war is getting more and more tenuous and the days of "USA, USA" support are wearing thinner. I think that's a good thing. Vietnam taught this nation what it's like to fight in a war that leaves us asking years later; "What made that horrible experience worth killing and dying for?" We should have been able to answer that question with certainty BEFORE we committed in Iraq. Vietnam taught us that. It also taught us that we must keep revisiting that question and when the answer becomes, "we can't say that the goals and probabilities of success of this war justify the killing and dying that are inherent in going forward," then we ought to get the hell out of there and not ask for the senseless sacrifice of more soldiers who bleed out their lives for questionable ends, and not ask for the deaths of those our soldiers are forced to kill. If there's a heaven and a hell, there's a special place in hell for the "rulers" who send others to kill and die when other choices are available, but that's just me. PS, with regard to the Silver Star "V" error, you write, "As far as [you] know, Kerry hasn't claimed the two V's." The reason the military has a "V" designation for some medals is because they can be given for acts of bravery OR simply for meritorious service. The Silver Star medal can ONLY be awarded for acts of outstanding valor. It therefor is automatically a "V" award and there is no necessity of awarding a "V" with it, no "V" that can be awarded with it, and Kerry wouldn't have needed to "[claim] the two "V's."