Subject: If you are looking for a fight...
From: (BUFDRVR)
Date: 7/7/03 9:19 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

There has been some talk of men who wanted combat but due to "timing" or
"luck"
they missed out. Well if you are in a unit that won't get into the fight,
just
try this. Go to your CO and say," Sir, I hear the 344th is moving out to the
ETO. I want to go with them. Here is my transfer request. Please sign it".
He
will immediately. After he signs it walk it through and you will go into
battle
with the 344th. Or of course you can just keep a low profille , keep your
mouth
shut, do nothing, then for the rest of your life you can always say " I
wanted
combat but timing and luck kept me out" and see if you can live with that.


Art, you really need to step out of the 1940's and into the 1960's (at
least).
Every guy I know that has missed out on operations has done everything in
their
power to get into the fight. Combat operations today is not World War Two,
1943. Not every B-52 crew was deployed for operations in Iraq, in fact some
were deployed to keep an eye on North Korea (no combat ensued there so their
service is not noteworthy or honorable by your standard). Not ever F-16CG
unit
was deployed and the list goes on. Its all timing, luck and some skill to get
deployed for real world ops now a days. If it only took a request, you
couldn't
meet a B-52 crewmember today with out combat time.


BUFDRVR


Seems to be something wrong when you want to fight and they won't let you Wars
were more fun back then. Besides, I can't get out of the 40's. That was,
without apology, for better or worse, my war.(sigh)

Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer