In article ,
Ed Rasimus wrote:

One interesting thing I've noted is that Vietnam vets who fought
hand-to-hand combat seem to overwhelmingly be far less retroactively
gung-ho on the war than those who flew fixed wing far above. Why do you
suppose that is?


There could be a number of reasons. First, the number who today claim
"hand-to-hand combat" seems unfortunately to be drastically inflated
by thousands of poseurs claiming to be something they were not. See
Burkitt's "Stolen Valor" for some astonishing tales.

I doubt any of us who are or have been on active duty have much trouble
spotting a poseur. I'm speaking based on conversations I had with people
who most definitely fought hand-to-hand, like the people I served with
who flew CSAR, some of the people I worked with at the VA, and more than
a handful of disabled vets who I assisted in getting their benefits.

Burkitt reserves a lot of space in his book to discuss the VA.


Meaning what? Does he claim combat vets and/or disabled vets working for
the VA are less than honest?


During Rolling Thunder, I got up each day and went to a briefing with
25 other guys. On average, each and every day for six months, one of
those 25 would be lost. Some days, none. Some days three or four.
Average, one a day. Keep going to the briefing and one day you will be
the one.

Well my hat goes off to you and to all those who paid in blood or risked
that blood doing what their country told them to do. I find it next to
impossible to understand how any vet (especially a combat vet) would
make statements about not "****ing on somebody if they were one fire"
when that somebody also risked their all and shed blood for their
country.

Partisanship should never trump honor and respect. It's sad that
uber-partisans of both major political parties in the U.S. have lost
sight of that (if they ever had it in the first place).



As for those who flew "far above", you might want to consider the
sustained loss rates of the Rolling Thunder participants in comparison
to those "hand-to-hand" combats. Or, maybe check the proportion of
POWs between the ground and air combatants.


Nobody questions the dangers faced by aircrews who flew missions in
Vietnam. However, in a fast-mover your odds of getting back to base
outside the country for a cold beer and a hot meal are much better than
the grunt in the jungles with an M-16 even surviving. I don't see how
that can be denied. It's one of the reasons I wasn't a grunt...even
though I knew the chances of surviving any more than a handful of
potential CSAR missions was not good.

The odds of completing a 100 mission NVN tour were poor. In '66 an
F-105 was lost every 65 missions over NVN. For every five that started
a tour, three of the five would be lost. 40% survival rate.

There are definitely ground units from the war that suffered similar
rates, but that is the exception.


I don't doubt what you're saying for a minute. Never having been in
combat, I can't speak from experience, but numbers on paper be
damned...I'll take fighting from above over eyeball to eyeball at close
quarters any day.


--Mike