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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (111898)	3/3/2008 7:49:47 PM
From: bruiser98	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

You and I may know some of the same people. I was in ASA units at Bearcat and Nha Trang. The Nha Trang unit was an aviation unit. When you described your run-in with a gung ho pilot, I thought of a pilot in our unit. Battle was his last name.

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (111898)	3/4/2008 12:33:18 AM
From: Bill/WA	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Michael, as a postscript to my Vietnam duty… The Navy had just instituted a new policy. If you served 12 months in VN and had a year or less left when returning from VN you could request separation (re: freedom!). This meant that naval reservist, who only served 2 years on active duty & spent there 1sr year in VN got out with one year of active duty, plus, if you were a 4 year enlistee as I was, and lucky enough to serve your 3rd year in VN, when you arrived CONUS you where OUT!! Well, with my luck I had 16 months left to serve after returning from 18 months in VN. I was sent to Amphibious Construction Battalion 2 (ACB-2) in Little Creek, VA. As an E-5, they put me in charge of interviewing incoming SeaBee VN Vets about their schooling and capabilities. Most were in my situation…sent to VN early in their enlistment, some deployed 2 times however, like me, still not eligible for the year early release. ACB-2 had a quota of 528 SeaBees, however, we were topping 2,800…and these guys couldn’t be sent back to VN. Sooo, I had a form letter made up to give these guys about this “injustice”, and, being close to DC, we planned to make a “pilgrimage” to see our individual Senators and plead our case for the year early out. Command got wind of what I was up to and ordered me down to Gulfport, Miss to the 20th Naval Construction Regiment. I continued my “quest”…wrote my Senator (Paul Rogers, FL). Got a phone call from him with a few questions. Said he’d get back to me. Two weeks later hurricane Camille hit Gulfport. After a couple of days I found a phone that worked, called home to say I was OK. Sen. Paul Rogers was unable to contact me so he called my parents telling them that as soon as I was able to get to the personnel office I would get my separation papers. That really lit a fire under my ass! Duck taped some visquin on my blown-out rear car window & hauled ass out of there! End result, over 6,200 SeaBees in my position got there early release. For once I was proud of the ability of a person to make a change in government policy (although I was not particularly adored by the military)!<G>