Subject: Instructors: is no combat better?
From: Howard Berkowitz
Date: 3/9/04 5:15 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

In article ,
(ArtKramr) wrote:

Subject: Instructors: is no combat better?
From: Howard Berkowitz
Date: 3/9/04 3:54 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


e.

As far as saying anything negative, I really don't want to go back into
the archives, but I'm fairly certain you sounded at least dubious about
how someone could rise to O-6 without combat, and suggested that he
should have sought it out.


I would have sought it out. wouldn't you have as well?


Let's say I had been in service.. My answer is probably not, and
thoughtfully, for the good of my country. My strongest skills are in
C3I -- I'm trained as both a network architect and as a strategic
intelligence analyst. Being able to combine the two helped, for example,
when I consulted on design of command posts at the joint command level.

As I've said before, some of my work involved personnel sensors for Viet
Nam. If some of the devices I worked on variously could tell a strike
pilot where troops were located under jungle canopy, I might save quite
a few pilots from flak traps. We worked on a system that was just in
prototype, but potentially could let you line up "peaceful" villagers
and find out which ones had recently handled Soviet-bloc weapons -- and
perhaps get them out of circulation before they ambushed you.

So am I going to do more good for my country in a cockpit or in a
laboratory? Quite probably the latter.


Guess you are right. But I was an 18 year old kid and there was a war on and
there way no way in hell I was going to miss it no matter what my
qualifications were, You are obviously far more thoughtful and analytical than
I was. I wanted to go to war and nothing in hell was going to stop me. But I
guess that is theway we all were when we were 18. (sigh)


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer