Bush Flew Fighter Jets During Vietnam

Subject: Bush Flew Fighter Jets During Vietnam
From: ojunk (Steve Mellenthin)
Date: 7/19/2004 5:57 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

How about a Senior Vice President Creative Supervisor with a major American
corporation with operations worldwide? How about you? Ever done anything?.


Arthur Kramer

VP level program manager in AF Aeronautical Systems Division. Worked B-1,
B-2,
KC-135R, F-15, F-16, F-22, amomg others. Executive support for 3 Star
commander. Otherwise nothing at all.

Good work. Now stay in there and fight to put a SR in front of that VP. I know
you can do it.


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

Ed Rasimus wrote;

In '83 we got the entire AT-38 fleet painted in a standard
blue-blue-gray gloss camo.

Affectionately known as "Smurf Jets".

Spins in a T-38 are
unrecoverable as well, but also virtually unattainable.

Not sure if they did this while you were at UPT Ed, but early on in the T-38
syllabus they take you out and demo how resistant the T-38 is to spin. The
instructor flys because if they let a student try, you know they'de get it into
a spin


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

Ed Rasimus wrote in message . ..
On 18 Jul 2004 23:06:39 -0700, (Fred the Red
Shirt) wrote:



You need to read some good history of the war and stop reading Terry
McAullife dispatches.

I am not familiar with Mr McAullife.


Kerry was testifying before the Senate in 1971. Nixon had been elected
in 1968 and initiated his "Vietnamization" policy to draw down US
troop strength and turn over the war to the ARVN. By April of '71, the
US force had been reduced by half, bombing of NVN had been in hiatus
since 1968.


Yes, that is as I recall.

Arguably the testimony of Kerry encouraged the aggressiveness of the
NVA and led to the increased infiltration that led to the commencement
of Linebacker in May of '72, the siege of An Loch, the intensification
of the siege of Khe Sanh and the final destruction of Hue. The
encouragement of the NV probably increased the destruction rather than
reducing it.

I find it very hard to beleive that you blame all that on Kerry's
testimony.


The current government of Vietnam has estimated that we killed 1.4
million of their soldiers. That does not include wounded soldiers
or civilians killed or wounded. The United Staes won every militarily
significant battle of the Vietnam war. And still the communists
did not give up. Kerry realized that the war in Vietnam could not
be won by military means. It could only have been prolonged.

Once again the attribution of such a strategic view to a Lt(j.g.)
aboard a boat in MR IV is incredible.

Why? It was the same view that was help by a great many ordinary
Americans at that time.


Of course the "current goverment of Vietnam" would have a high
estimate--they are in Hanoi. They were the enemy. That was who we were
trying to kill!

If we killed that many and they didn't give up, or we killed fewer
and they didn't give up, isn't the essential fact that they
didn't give up?


We do not know the answers to the questions I posed above because
men like Kerry did speak out. We did pull out in 1973 and the
surviving POWs did come home. It has been argued that live POWS
were held back by the Vietnamese and others as hostages or slaves
but really, would fewer have been withheld had we remained in the
war longer?

GMAFB! We started our pullout in '68. Despite Kerry's best efforts to
encourage capitulation which wouldn't have resulted in a return of the
POWs we continued negotiation, brought military pressure to bear in
Linebacker I/II and succeeded in getting an incredibly rapid return of
the POWs. It wasn't BECAUSE of Kerry, it was IN SPITE OF him.

Do you really think that absent domestic protests the US would
ever have pulled our ground forces out of Vietnam while the war
continued?


What good would Kerry have done by remaining silent, or by echoing
the lies of his government?

He might now be accepted in his newly desired role of American hero.

I find it odd that you think that would be a good thing.

--

FF

Ed Rasimus wrote in message . ..
On 18 Jul 2004 23:34:06 -0700, (Fred the Red
Shirt) wrote:

(ArtKramr) wrote in message ...
Subject: Bush Flew Fighter Jets During Vietnam
From: Ian MacLure
Date: 7/10/2004 11:32 PM Pa


We won the 2000 election.
We are going to win the 2004 election.
So who's bitter?

IBM

Bush was not elected. He was appointed. We'll fix that in November.



Elected by the Congress, like all Presidents in a joint session that
most Americans regard as a formality if they know about it at all.

Sorry, Fred, but unless you are referring to the certification of the
vote of the EC, you are wrong.

Yes I am referring to the certification of the vote of the EC and yes,
I am correct. The USSC has held (in 1877) the the Congress is the
sole judge of the validity of the electoral votes. Thus the Congress
can reject perfectly valid electoral votes cast befor the safe harbot
deadline, as was done in 1877 and can also accept electoral votes submitted
after the safe harbor deadline as was done in 1877 and 1961.

There would be considerable furor, to say the least, if the Congress
were to reverse an election by rejecting perfectly valid elecoral
votes. But that does not mean that they cannot.

So, in a very real sense, it is always the newly elected Congress
that elects the President and Vice President though almost always
they simply applyt their impimatuer to the vote of the Electoral College.



The winner must win by a majority vote, not a plurality. If no
majority, then the Presidential race goes to the house where each
Representative gets a vote

No, each state gets one vote.


and the VP race goes to the Senate where
each State gets one vote.

No, each Senator gets one vote.

--

FF

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 09:36:59 -0600, Ed Rasimus
wrote:

The T-38 has been a great airplane for 42 years of training and with
the upgraded glass cockpit looks like it will be active in SUPT for
another 20 years at least.

I have a friend who went from F-18s and SR-71s to T-38s (Bs, I think)
with conventional cockpits. He sure missed the HUD at first. I don't
think he realized how much difference it made to him. I could have
told him, though, because having a HUD greatly improves my piloting,
so think of what it does for a real pilot.

Does the T-38 glass cockpit have a HUD? NASA did a cockpit upgrade on
the JSC T-38s, but I'm pretty sure it didn't include a HUD.

The USAF has been turning every cockpit into a glass cockpit. They
did the KC-135s that the ANG flies a couple of years ago, even.
That's real dedication to glass cockpits, I'd say.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

"ArtKramr" wrote

How about a Senior Vice President Creative Supervisor with a major American
corporation with operations worldwide? How about you? Ever done anything?.

A Vice President who supervises? Must be a rinky-dink outfit. Did you have to
start the boilers and make the coffee coming on shift, as well?

I've done a lot more then that, I'm a capitalist. I gather capital to expand our
business, so that we can hire more people to increase production. We actually
produce widgets in our company. When I look at the Bush tax cuts, and the
alternatives to fighting recession, I don't really like that we didn't pay down the
debt, but there was no other choice. To fight inflation you need to put money in
the hands of capitalists. The democrats in Washington, just don't get it.

I'm not happy with Bush signing every spending bill he gets, to get the programs
he wants, but I think he's the guy that got us out of the recession in only four
years! That's a hell of an accomplishment. All I see out of the Kerry dreams, is
more money for everyone out of a central planning committee in DC. His wife
is a heir, not a capitalist. His idea of economy, is you send all your money to
Washington, and Congress will distribute it. The Soviets and LBJ already tried that.

"WalterM140" wrote

Congresswoman Brown indicated that 16,000 of her constituents were not allowed
to vote at all, mooting recounts.

Her county has major voting problems. Her county has zero leadership at the local
level to facilitate the vote in any election, and no one there to this day knows who is
eligible to vote. Hers is the only county that still uses typewriters and 3x5 cards to
produce the rolls for each precinct.

On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 10:01:07 -0600, Ed Rasimus
wrote:


Dunno. Never got a -17 flight, but it would be hard to pack more
performance into a little airplane than a T-38. Spins in a T-38 are
unrecoverable as well, but also virtually unattainable. The airplane
will spin, but it is a decidedly unnatural act and AFAIK only been
accomplished in very abusive flight testing at Edwards.

The F-5 model with the long pointy nose (the F, maybe) spun more
easily and was extremely hard to recover. It took jettisoning the
canopy to break the spin, in fact. The T-38 and the other F-5s
weren't nearly so difficult to recover, but they weren't really easy,
either. The gouge about "easy to spin, easy to recover; hard to spin,
hard to recover" has a certain amount of truth to it.

We, Dryden, were spinning (intentionally) a 3/8ths model of the F-15
when that F-5 got into trouble. Ken had given a briefing on spins,
including the vulnerability of long pointy noses, to a group that
included the AFFTC commander about two days before the F-5 spin. The
commander called our director and asked if anyone else had any
predictions he should know about.

Did you ever run into the inverted pitch hang up on the T-38? It's
well-known in the Flying Qualities community but I haven't heard that
many pilots talk about it. I think the F-5s had it, too.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

"ian maclure" ) writes:
On Sun, 18 Jul 2004 23:34:06 -0700, Fred the Red Shirt wrote:

[snip]

Elected by the Congress, like all Presidents in a joint session that
most Americans regard as a formality if they know about it at all.

Not quite.
The size of the electoral college is approximately the same
as Congress ( both houses ).
Congress only gets a direct vote if the Electoral College is
a dead heat.

'Tis the House of Representives, not congress as a whole, which can
select a president. And that duty falls on the HoR when no one
receives a majority of the votes in the electoral college. A dead
heat is not required.

The HoR selected John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson in 1825 even
though Jackson received more electoral votes - Henry Clay finished
3rd but secured enough electoral votes to deny either Jackson or
Adams a majority.

--


"Cave ab homine unius libri"

Ed Rasimus wrote in message . ..
On 19 Jul 2004 00:04:17 -0700, (Fred the Red
Shirt) wrote:



No. You created teh strawman yourself with your implication that he
was speaking literally. Everyone, including yourself, knows that he
was not speaking literally.

One fervently hopes that testimony given under oath to the US Senate
is always literal. Speaking figuratively about issues, particularly
issues as important as allegations of war crimes should NEVER be done
figuratively. I take Kerry's testimony under oath as literal and I
take his statement on Face the Nation regarding his own commission of
war crimes as truth. Why would I doubt his veracity?

I never said he was speaking figuratively, that is your straw man
again.

I do not believe that you take all his statements as literal. No one
does.

Also, just to disabuse you of the concept in advance, I never said
that NONE of his remarks were literal either. I think it is obvious
to both of us and especially to the Senators in attendance, when he
was speaking generally and when he was speaking of specifics.

To claim that what he said was always one way or the other is
simply dishonest.



Abu Ghraib was reprehensible. It was clearly a failure of leadership
on site.

It was a failure of leadership from the top down. When the Secretary
of Defense re[peatedly and boldly decalres that the United States
will not honor the Geneva Conventions, when he publically scoffs
at accusations of abuse, he sends a clear message on down the line.

Once again we see the strawman. While the principle of responsibility
flowing from the top down is correct, the implication that the
President is responsible for every act of the the entire military
establishment down to the lowest enlisted individual in the field is
impossible to support.

Your straw man again.

In the absence of clear written directives to
act in the manner of the Abu Ghraib guards, one must assume that the
problem was localized.

Again, when the secretary of Defense publicly states that the United
States will not observe the Geneva Conventions, and when he publicly
scoffs at accusations of wrongdoing he sends a clear message on
down the line. And one must assume that message encourages the sort
of abuses as ocurred at Abu Graib.

What of the doctrine of command responsibility? What should we
conclude about the resonsibilites of the officer who received the
ICRC complaints? What about the officers above them?

There has been publication of the
legal opinion statement that suggested a level of detachment from
Geneva Convention rules, but the whole story is that the opinion did
NOT result in an acceptance of that policy. a Convention rules,
but the whole story is that the opinion did
NOT result in an acceptance of that policy.

I don't know what you're talking about here but it looks like your
strawman again.


Consider the following letter written On 4 Aug 1863, From William
Tecumseh Sherman wrote, to John Rawlins, which read in part:

"The amount of burning, stealing, and plundering done by
our army makes me ashamed of it. I would quit the service
if I could, because I fear that we are drifting to the
worst sort of vandalism. I have endeavored to repress this
class of crime, but you know how difficult it is to fix
the guilt among the great mass of all army. In this case I
caught the man in the act. He is acquitted because his
superior officer ordered it. The superior officer is acquitted
because, I suppose, he had not set the fire with his own hands
and thus you and I and every commander must go through the war
justly chargeable with crimes at which we blush.

Sherman said "war is hell." Lee, however, said "it is good that war is
so terrible, lest we come to love it too much." Aristotle said that
"war ennobles man." Putting service above self and recognizing that
there are some principles that are worth fighting and dying for is
basic.

I agree with that but disagree that is is apropos this discussion.

Well, duh! If you introduced the Sherman letter, why should the topic
of war and the relationship of warriors be inappropriate. It isn't my
dog in this hunt, it's yours.

War and warriors are topics that broad beyond the bounds of the
current
discussion. You ran off on a tangent. I'll not follow your stray
dog.



Now, after looking up to see what sorts of things Kerry REALLY said,
and the context in which he said them, would you not consider that
context to be much the same as General Sherman's remarks?

No, I would not. Sherman spoke of an incident and a failure of an
officer to perform.

No. I do have an advantage in that I already knew that Sherman wrote
the letter as part of the correspondence he sent with three officers
(not one) he sent back for court martial for (I think) three seperate
crimes. However I also redirect your attention to the first sentence:

"The amount of burning, stealing, and plundering done by
our army makes me ashamed of it. I would quit the service
if I could, because I fear that we are drifting to the
worst sort of vandalism.

So, Sherman had sent the officers back for court-martial, in the same
manner that the Abu Ghraib perps have been brought under
investigation.

I do not recall anyone in the present administartion saying or writing
that they felt any responsibility whatsover for the crimes at Abu
Ghraib.
So no, not at all in the same manner.

Now, back to the discussion at hand, do you not see any parrallels
between what Sherman wrote about the collective guilt of himself,
Rawlins and every commander in the Union Army and what Kerry said
about all American soldiers in Vietnam?

Does that mean that Lincoln condoned war crimes?

Did Lincoln publicly declare that the Union should not abide by the
laws of war? (It wouldn't surprise me, he gave short shrift to
teh habeas protections in the Constitution.)


Sherman was writing about what was happening through out his army,
not an isolated incident. Kerry did what Sherman said he wished
to do. Kerry quit and then renounced the drift into vandalism that
was overtaking the military in Vietnam.

The big difference is that Kerry quit (good choice of words) and then
accused the ENTIRE US military establishment from the top down and
including every warrior in the field of advocating and executing a
policy of war crimes.

Sherman limited his accusation to ALL commanders. I suppose that is
a big difference. But do you see NO similarity?


There were other differences of course. Sherman was fighting for
the survival of the nation, and he was fighting and winning a war
that clearly could be won, and was being won, by military means.

Kerry not only occupied a lower station in the military, but he
also saw that the survival of the US was not at stake and that
the war in Vietnam could not be won by military means. The US
had prevailed almost to the greatest extent possible in every
military endeavor in Vietnam and still the end of the war was
no where in sight.

So, Kerry could occupy a "lower station in the military" but he could
view the global strategic picture and determine that the war could not
be won? How very prescient of him.

Do you not claim to have a view of the global strategic picture in
Vietnam and also in the world today? How prescient are you?



You state correctly that the US prevailed in every military endeavor
(the great Tet victory of the NVA for example was a huge military
defeat for them). And, the end of the war was in sight within two
weeks at any time that the likes of Kerry could be overcome and the
resolve to gain the victory could be mustered by the politicians.

How?

Witness the rapid end to hostilities, the signing of the treaty and
the release of the POWs in less than 90 days following December '72.

Yet the communists did not quit. Do you think that without political
pressure in the US we would have agreed to pull our troops out while
the NVA was still fighting?


Kerry spoke of a generic ignoring of the rules of
war, not only tolerated by leadership but condoned and even directed.
That was a lie.

I do not believe that it was a lie. Cite an example where an
allegattion of war crimes was promptly investigated without an
extensive, even illegal effort to cover-up or obstruct the
investigation.

Calley/Medina.

No. I asked for an example of a promt investigation without an
extensive, even illegal coverup or effort at obstruction.

Or, how about the Turkestan incident since this is an
aviation group?

OK, tell us about it.



My real issue with Kerry is his desire to have it both ways. He sought
public approval for protesting the war vigorously. That was well
within his right to do so. Now, he seeks approval for being a great
warrior. Those are mutually exclusive positions.

No they are not mutually exclusive positions. Moreover they represent
the truth of his experience. Impetuous, even egotistical (and what
politician is not?) he first believed the bull**** and lies about
the glory of war and the righteousness of the cause, and perhaps
there was at one time some truth to that. But once he saw with his
own eyes the reality of Vietnam, and had at his disposal knowledge
gained form his fellow soliders he learned differently, came home,
and tried to fix the problem he had contributed to befor.

You state elsewhere that you turned 18 in 1973. So, you didn't see
with your own eyes the "reality" that Kerry saw.

At 18 I met a man, his nickname ironically was 'Saint'. Saw him
a few times but then I went away to college. Saint said
that when he was in Vietnam he killed 56 people. Some of those
were civilians and some of those, women and children.

I do not doubt what you say about your experience. I do not doubt
what Saint said either. Why should I?

I was there in '66
and I was there again in '72-'73.

How much time did you spend on the ground in combat zones? How much
contact did you have with EPWs? How much contact did you have with
villagers in-country?

I continue to associate with
literally hundreds of warriors from the period--USAF/USA/USN/USMC. Not
one of them agrees with Kerry.

You asked each and every one of them this? I don't believe that you
did. Or is it wrong for me to assume that you must have literally
polled each and every one?

His view of the total corruption of the
military is his alone. Kerry's "fellow soldiers" from the Winter
Soldier testimony--the 150 accusers of war crimes--have been largely
discredited. Many have been found to be outright liars, some did not
serve at all!


I'd like ot see your evidence. Here you can find lists of the
'alleged' veterans, along with other participants:

http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/Units/1st_Marine_roster.html#Robert%20S.%20Craig
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/Units/1st_Air_Cav_roster.html#John%20Mallory
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/Units/3d_Marine_roster.html#Allen%20Akers
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/Units/POW_roster.html#Jon%20Floyd
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/Units/Misc_roster.html#Moderators
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/Units/3d_World_roster.html#Evan%20Haney
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/Units/25th_Infantry_roster.html#Ron%20Podlaski
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/Units/82d_Airborne.html#Charles%20Leffler
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/Units/1st_Infantry_roster.html#Robert%20McConnachie
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Winter_Soldier/Units/Americal_roster.html#William%20Bezanson


Are not all great warriors anti-war in their hearts?

Actually no. I'm fortunate enough to know many warriors. They are
patriots in their hearts and they take great pride in the profession
of arms.


But have they no objection to war?

--

FF