Subject: Fly Boy ?????
From: Stephen Harding
Date: 10/22/03 7:49 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

Cub Driver wrote:

Yes, after all these years, I flushed Art down the toilet as a result
of this thread. He took 64 messages with him! And I clean out my
message software every day.

r.a.m. will certainly be easier to read from now on.

To each his own, but I think you'll be missing some good stuff by not
reading Art.

Always need to read him in context and in character, which should be
well known to all here by now.

Although he can be awfully harsh at times (e.g. this thread), I see it
as a time portal on attitudes that seem to have been largely replaced in
modern American society.

With Art, you flew what you had, even if it wasn't the best, or someone
somewhere was screwing up, or you weren't feeling good, or you were
experiencing mental weakness. Just do the job and stop complaining.
"Collateral damage"? Tough luck! Life is cruel!

Not that the military is limp kneed now days, but there seems to be a
lack of endurance for the task. Always someone at fault for something
not being perfect. Perhaps it was always so, but is now done more openly.

I saw some soldiers in Iraq complaining about being stuck there too
long. One claimed during an ABC interview that the Army "had lied to
him". He wasn't going to reup as a result.

For me, Art is a relict of a time when a people were united to do a
tough and dirty job, and just simply went to it. No excuses, no belly
aching, no one else's fault, and extremely unforgiving to anyone who
wasn't towing the line.

Overall, I think it is fortunate for the nation that we have had people
with such attitudes. Just seems so anachronistic now days, and certainly
very harsh at times.

I think r.a.m would lose a lot if Art flew off somewhere else and never
posted here again.


SMH


Thanks for the kind words. It is nice to be appreciated which doesn't happen
often. But you are right, those were days of hard discipline, hard tasks to be
done and no excuses were accepted. Don't ask for sympathy or pity because
there was none available. Wheb it was announced that you were going back to the
Rhur Valley for the 3rd straight time after heavy l.osses previously you just
girtted your teeth and kept your mouth shut .If you tried to complain to
another guy chances are he would turn his back on you and walk away. It's bad
luck to talk about stuff like that before a mission. But I am fully aware that
very frew on ntyhis NG havce any iodea of the relaities then. And I make
allowances. What I will never do is hold back what I see to be the truth
regardless of how politically correct this NG gets..There is always the
killfile for anyone who doesn't like it.
Thanks again for the kind words. I appreciate it. One further comment. When a
crew has to hit the silk, the pilot is not the first to go, he is always the
last to go. Thus the questions.

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