"Red Rider" wrote in message
...

I have know the guy for over 36 years. I won't say we are good friends,
but
whenever we saw each other we said hello. His Naval career was just so-so,
not brilliant but not a disaster either. He probably wouldn't have stayed
around the Navy if he hadn't been an ace.

And that was part of the problem, and has always been. He went through
all
the training learning to fly, learning his profession as a fighter pilot,
with everybody telling him how good he was. Telling how special he was to
succeed when so many failed to make the grade. Then he reached the panicle
of success and became an ace, which proved it to him. Somewhere along the
line he began to believe his own legend. Then he is elected to congress,
everything just fell into place for him with little failure. (I guess his
only real setback was the failure of his first marriage). How can you
blame
him for believing the BS that everybody fed him. It would take a special
person to maintain a balance with a life like this.

I rejoiced in his success, and I am saddened by his failure. He just
proved
that like many of us he has feet of clay.

Good post! Duke was a solid pilot, the most PREPARED pilot in theater, and
he was presented with opportunities which he capitalized on. Officerlike
qualities? Well, he wasn't the dullest tool in the shed.

The power corrupts comments earlier hit it right on. We throw 535 human
beings into the candy store, tell 'em the owner is blind, and watch. His
corruption is on the grandest scale yet discovered, but how many of them
have been influenced by lesser things? The whole K-street Congress axis is
a detriment to our well-being, and we've got the budget to prove it. The
SOB's have discovered they can bribe us with our own money.

R / John