If you are looking for a fight...

In article ,
(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.


So what you're saying is that, after other guys built the airplane and
built the bombs and built the bombsite and made all the navigation
charts and, and, and.... ....you squinted into a contraption and did a
simple task that someone else had devised and had instructed hundreds of
other pimply-faced kids how to do.

And then you came home and bored the hell out of people for sixty
straight years while the whole country went straight downhill from the
days when a freebird could go outside and do whatever he wanted on and
with his own property so long as he harmed no one else.

No, Art; the "one reason and one reason alone" wasn't to hand Hitler his
balls, it was to *advance liberty* -- something we enjoy a lot less of
today, *here*, than the moment your plane took off, a fact to which you
are completely oblivious.

--

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 4:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

(ArtKramr) wrote:


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.


Why not 4? Why not 1? Arbitrary.


But I guess you wouldn't have any way of knowing about that.


But I do, Art. There are more ways to stare Death in the face than you
seem to be aware of, and your way isn't any more frightening than mine.


This is especially true for those who never came back.


So spend your own money minting buckets of the things, and pour 'em on
the cemetaries of Europe. I mean, if you believe in restless spirits and
that sort of thing.

--

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



You sound as though you don't have any and are bitter about it and resent those
who do.

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

(ArtKramr) wrote:


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.


Why not 4? Why not 1? Arbitrary.


But I guess you wouldn't have any way of knowing about that.


But I do, Art. There are more ways to stare Death in the face than you
seem to be aware of, and your way isn't any more frightening than mine.


This is especially true for those who never came back.


So spend your own money minting buckets of the things, and pour 'em on
the cemetaries of Europe. I mean, if you believe in restless spirits and
that sort of thing.

--

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

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...

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.


Wrong, the reason was to put bombs on target.



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.


If 90% of your class washed out it only means you had an exceptionally weak
class. The fact that you made it through the program shows it didn't
require high intelligence.