If you are looking for a fight...

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Subject: If you are looking for a fight...
snip
I never denigrated them. That was your word. But I also refuse to raise
them
to the level and importance of an in your face combat soldier with life
and
death as a daily experience.
snip
In fact that cook is a "piece of crap" compared to any one of my gunners.
Don't tell me they are equal.

Arthur, your statements above (in the same paragraph) seem to contradict
each other?

In message , ArtKramr
writes
Subject: If you are looking for a fight...
From: "Paul J. Adam"
Where do weapon designers fit?

They don't get shot at (unless the enemy targets them or their place of
work), but they do provide the tools for pilots to use in turning
important targets into smoking craters.

No weapons - and no support to those you have, when they find problems
in combat - and the bombers might as well drop spitballs.

But then back when I was learning to be a soldier, the armourer who gave
me my rifle, magazines and ammunition was a Very Important Guy. He
wouldn't get shot at, while we would... but we depended on his skill to
ensure that our weapons would fire when we needed them.

'High essential skill' ends up meaning 'the mission is hosed if that
person fails', and that's a wide net.



Let us never forget the guy, a true hero, who makes shoe laces. If a shoelace
breaks you are hosed. Let's have a shoelace memorial.And a new medal. The DSC
The Distinguished Shoelace Cross. Let's hear it for shoelaces men.
And anyone who disagrees is a traitor !

Okay - now _you_ go into battle with no bootlaces.

Is the guy who makes sure you have serviceable laces (and a spare pair
too, depending on your CO) a frontline war hero? No. But try fighting
the war without him.

He could stay home, get a civilian job and strike for
double-time-for-overtime, he could play the black market... instead, he
volunteers to serve, and gets told that he's needed to keep the
combatants in bootlaces. Should he say "it's the frontline or nothing"?

_Somebody_ has to make the damn laces. He doesn't deserve a medal unless
he does something dramatic, but he _does_ deserve quiet thanks from all
those fighting men who were able to tie their boots securely to their
feet. (Trying to run in unlaced boots is no fun at all. Try it and find
out.)


How many missions get launched when nobody can find a usable bootlace?

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam

In message , ArtKramr
writes
Subject: If you are looking for a fight...
From: "Paul J. Adam"
Date: 7/10/03 1:36 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

The lowest' may not contribute 'as much'... but they still contribute,
and without them operations fail or slow to a crawl. If they weren't
needed, why are they there? If they _are_ needed, why denigrate them?

I never denigrated them. That was your word.

No, yours.

But I also refuse to raise them
to the level and importance of an in your face combat soldier with life and
death as a daily experience.

War doesn't respect boundaries, Art, and anyone who believes "rear areas
are safe" is asking for trouble. Entire branches of service seem to have
leapt up around the notion of wreaking havoc on "safe" sectors.

Would you?If you would then it is you who are
denigrating the combat soldier. Try telling the veteran of the101st Airborne
who went through D-Day to the Bulge to the Elbe that he is better than a cook
who spent the war in Paris cooking and every night in Place Pigalle.

When did you serve in the 101st, Art?

A cook in a cushy billet, fine. How about a mechanic in a battlefield
recovery squadron? He doesn't _fight_ the enemy... he just rescues
knocked-out tanks and fixes them ASAP so they can get back into battle.
Trouble is, the enemy think that recovery troops are _excellent_
targets...

.In fact
that cook is a piece of crap compared to any one of my gunners. Don't tell me
they are equal.

How well did your gunners shoot without ammunition, Art? And who loaded
the belts and services the guns?

For that matter, how well do your gunners shoot when they haven't eaten
for a day or two? Seems someone needs to keep the crews fed, and a lack
of food might hurt effectiveness. Where did that food come from? Did you
call your cooks cowards to their faces for serving food instead of
flying missions? Or were you just glad to get fed?


Sure, there are REMFs in every war. But there are a hell of a lot of
servicemen who only ever get noticed if they _don't_ do their jobs, and
being able to fight a war depends on those guys doing their jobs well.
If they succeed, nobody notices.

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam

Subject: If you are looking for a fight...
From: "Paul J. Adam"
Date: 7/10/03 4:03 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

War doesn't respect boundaries, Art, and anyone who believes "rear areas
are safe" is asking for trouble. Entire branches of service seem to have
leapt up around the notion of wreaking havoc on "safe" sectors.

I have been in the rear and I have been at the tip of the spear. And the rear
is safer.

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

(ArtKramr) wrote in message ...
Subject: If you are looking for a fight...
From: "Paul J. Adam"
Date: 7/10/03 4:03 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

War doesn't respect boundaries, Art, and anyone who believes "rear areas
are safe" is asking for trouble. Entire branches of service seem to have
leapt up around the notion of wreaking havoc on "safe" sectors.

I have been in the rear and I have been at the tip of the spear. And the rear
is safer.

A lot of families in PA would disagree with you, having suffered the
loss of their loved ones back in that "safer" rear area during ODS.
But hey, they were "merely" water purification pukes, right? And you
never needed any clean drinking water in the theater of operations,
now did you?

Brooks


Arthur Kramer

(ArtKramr) wrote:

Subject: If you are looking for a fight...
From: Mike18XX

Art? Bombardiers were every bit as replaceable as cooks, chaplains,
truckers, and office orderlies who licked stamps all day, so quite
pretending you weren't. Peer

You seem to have no idea of what the air war was all about Allow me to
clarify it all for you. Do you know why we built B-17's, B-24's, B--26's,
B-25's and A-20's? Do you know why we trained pilots navigators and gunners?
Do you know why we built bombs and Norden bombsights? We did all that for just
one reason and one reason alone. It was to put a bombardier over a target for
at least 30 seconds, hopefully more. The pilots were there to drive him there,
the gunners were to protect him, the fighters were to escort him, But
delivering the bombardier to the target was what the air war was about in
bombers. BTW, the washout rate in my bombardier class at Big Spring was 90 % I
doubt if you could have qualified. You probably never had enough spherical
trig. That is if you could pass the physical and mental tests to begin with
which relatively few could.. No, you were better off as a mess orderly.

Yeah and now thank God the GPS-chip does it all. And all those dweeby
egoflated maths professors and Actuaries can **** OFF and SHUT THE
**** UP!!
lol
Byte me, Kramer.

Grantland

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

In article ,
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

In message , ArtKramr
writes
You have read more into my post than is there. Note that I never mentioned
those with high essental skills.

Where do weapon designers fit?


No kidding.

Art? Bombardiers were every bit as replaceable as cooks, chaplains,
truckers, and office orderlies who licked stamps all day, so quite
pretending you weren't. Peering through a Norton is a videogame skill I
have no doubt that twenty million contemporary teenagers could qualify
for with minimal training, if that. *Dive*-bombing accurately? Now
*that* took some "high essential skill".

But the guys who made the blueprints? Lose one of them, and you have no
plane to fly, no Norton to peer into, and no bombs to drop.

--

Reply to sans two @@, or your reply won't reach me.

"An election is nothing more than an advance auction of stolen goods."
-- Ambrose Bierce

Subject: If you are looking for a fight...
From: Mike18XX
Date: 7/11/03 10:28 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

In article ,
(ArtKramr) wrote:

Let us never forget the guy, a true hero, who makes shoe laces. If a
shoelace
breaks you are hosed. Let's have a shoelace memorial.And a new medal. The
DSC
The Distinguished Shoelace Cross. Let's hear it for shoelaces men.


You're being sarcastic, of course, but there are some of us who feel
that way about ALL medals:

"No truly worthy man is comfortable accepting an award, let alone
bragging about it. Who, other than he himself, would he view as fit to
judge his abilities, in order to bestow the seal of approval? Awards are
invariably given away by second-handers, as is candy to babies."

--

Oh I don't know. I think an Air Medal for every 5 mission over Germany is kinda
well deserved. But I guess you wouldn't have any way of knowing about that.
This is especially true for those who never came back.


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

Subject: If you are looking for a fight...
From: Mike18XX

Art? Bombardiers were every bit as replaceable as cooks, chaplains,
truckers, and office orderlies who licked stamps all day, so quite
pretending you weren't. Peer

You seem to have no idea of what the air war was all about Allow me to
clarify it all for you. Do you know why we built B-17's, B-24's, B--26's,
B-25's and A-20's? Do you know why we trained pilots navigators and gunners?
Do you know why we built bombs and Norden bombsights? We did all that for just
one reason and one reason alone. It was to put a bombardier over a target for
at least 30 seconds, hopefully more. The pilots were there to drive him there,
the gunners were to protect him, the fighters were to escort him, But
delivering the bombardier to the target was what the air war was about in
bombers. BTW, the washout rate in my bombardier class at Big Spring was 90 % I
doubt if you could have qualified. You probably never had enough spherical
trig. That is if you could pass the physical and mental tests to begin with
which relatively few could.. No, you were better off as a mess orderly.

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

In message , ArtKramr
writes
Subject: If you are looking for a fight...
From: Mike18XX

Art? Bombardiers were every bit as replaceable as cooks, chaplains,
truckers, and office orderlies who licked stamps all day, so quite
pretending you weren't. Peer

You seem to have no idea of what the air war was all about Allow me to
clarify it all for you. Do you know why we built B-17's, B-24's, B--26's,
B-25's and A-20's?

To drop bombs on important enemy targets.

Someone had to design those planes. Then they had to be produced in
useful numbers. Then they needed to be fed with bombs, fuel, spare parts
and crew.

Do you know why we trained pilots navigators and gunners?

To drop bombs on the enemy.

Someone had to make the bombs.

Do you know why we built bombs and Norden bombsights? We did all that for just
one reason and one reason alone. It was to put a bombardier over a target for
at least 30 seconds, hopefully more. The pilots were there to drive him there,
the gunners were to protect him, the fighters were to escort him, But
delivering the bombardier to the target was what the air war was about in
bombers.

And that bombardier stood on many shoulders, and depended on a lot of
people, to put ordance on target.

BTW, the washout rate in my bombardier class at Big Spring was 90 % I
doubt if you could have qualified. You probably never had enough spherical
trig.

I'd have passed the mathematics, but they'd have failed me for poor
eyesight. What does a short-sighted weapons engineer do in 1944?

That is if you could pass the physical and mental tests to begin with
which relatively few could.. No, you were better off as a mess orderly.

Careful, Art. It seems that you're saying that only a chosen few with
perfect sight, excellent maths and freedom from motion sickness were
actually useful in 1944.

I fit two of three... trouble is, I'm massively myopic. (With modern
contacts I hide it superbly, but in 1944 I wear glasses or I'm blind as
a bat).

The British Army accepted me as a soldier (I was fit to fight, and
problems with my short sight were mostly mine to deal with), but it
seems the USAAF would have rejected me.

Where do I stand for volunteering and being rejected?


--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam