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

To: hdl who wrote (123262)	6/25/2010 3:35:56 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

National Guard?! Those ladies must be proud of themselves. <G> I played poker, hearts and blackjack in the Army. I lost at poker, because I have too many tells. I lost at hearts because I love the game, but don't play it well. I won ten times more at blackjack than I lost in the other games because other guys always wanted to double up to get even. Sometimes they got even. Sometimes they paid me a lot of money. The chain of command would rather hide anything than admit they made a mistake. People who never admitted a mistake always got promoted. Those who admitted a mistake never got promoted. Even getting caught making a mistake you wouldn't admit was better than admitting it. There would always be some idiot above you who bought your story, no matter how ridiculous. The promotions were very easy in those days. Today, when I tell a soldier that I made Staff Sergeant twice in four years, they don't believe it. But, when I tell them I made Spec 4 from Staff Sergeant because I had a girl's phone number in my field jacket, they find that hard to believe, too. Until I mention the phone number was written on a classified form. An empty classified form, but a classified form, nevertheless. <G> They also found it hard to believe that you could go from command rank to specialist rank and vice versa. I never understood that, either, so I couldn't help them. Promotions in the 60s were like the brevet promotions during The Civil War. Custer was promoted to Major General, then returned to Lt. Col after the war. It turned out he was a better general than he was a Light Colonel. <G>