JMR32/FarmerBob

Love it! Never did the cattle (family were dairy primarily, had a few steers but always sent them to the local butcher)but did get to watch a couple of hogs. Too young to participate in that, although they let me help with the annual castration of same! And got to wield the hatchet on quite a few chickens.

You're right about much of the younger generation around the world, if things went poof a lot of them would have no clue.

Do I have to bring my own silverware?

'Til next time, Bob.

Well, now that my work is done for the day, murdering an innocent bovine, I can get back to important matters.

Din't mean to get snotty in the above post. I was thinking of the green faces at watching an old school slaughter, skinning, gutting, and butchering taking place. Not to imply incompetence on anyone's part. It is not for the squeamish. Especially since we are wet-aging the meat. That means no .22 in the ear. We tie her up, hold her down, and slit the throat. For those who may be reading this and find that barbaric, it's the only way to remove the blood from the animal efficiently. It has to remain alive long enough to bleed out. Sorry, but that's just real life.

Robert. I must confess to scoping your country on GR and I have a question. By your choice of name for your capital, would you by any chance live next door to a major supply depot? Another naval one nearby? And an Army institution of higher education not

The pub was Coakley's, the theater was the West Shore. BTW, the theater still sells tickets for 4 dollars, if you don't mind second run. They usually lag 3-4 months behind on the movies. And bingo, you've nailed me again. The logistics depot used to be the Chinook repair depot for the US, but they transferred it out and brought a section of the naval depot over to replace the Chinooks.

The traffic situation was probably a result of change of shift at the Army depot. My Dad was based out of there, and although we live 5 minutes away it would take him over an hour to get home. They did finally get smart and install a series of traffic signals at strategic locations which has alleviated a portion, but not all of the difficulties.

It's not improving much, as our county has one of the fastest growing pops in the state. Many people from the "Beltway" are moving in because relative housing costs are substantially lower. W

Okay. I'm really chuckling over the turn the conversation took in the last couple posts.
I'm envisioning a member who also belongs to PETA having a breakdown right about now!

Another probable cause of the jam you ran into was because at the time there was only one access road onto post, and that was during the period when you actually had to stop at the guard shack and verify your identity. They have since added an access road at the back section of the post also.

Progress. When my folks first had the house built after coming from Japan, I could take my Brittany spaniel out the back door and walk for an entire hour before running into humanity.

There were meadows, a pond, even a walnut grove whose caretaker had long ago gone. There were pheasant, rabbit, deer, even red fox to be seen. The first couple years I did some small game and pheasant hunting.

Now if I spit real hard I can hit the property of one of th

Wonderful to hear of your continuing professional progress. Should be a fun trip. I would recommend taking I76 out to I70 to I55 to I44 to US60 to US70 to I25 to I10, but that's just me. LOL I'm sure you can mapquest or whatever, but I'll let you ponder on your trip how I know the way to go off the top of my head.
Hint: It has something to do with my post-post retirement profession.

I liked your home area from what I recall. Carlisle was a neat old town, surrounded with farms. Lots of corn in that region still?

You needn't tell me about developement. The old farm road that winds out our valley is actually congested in the mornings with all the yuppies who've settled out here. And we are RURAL. They have to drive at least an hour to get anywhere they work, I'm sure. Half the people out here must call off in the Winter. We get a bit more snow up here than you Pennsyltuckians.

Lots of whitetail are aro

Sorry. Minor interruption.

Last week, I got my 11 year old grandson off of the computer for long enough to take a walk with me and the dogs. My Basset scared up a copperhead in some rocks and I got to show him how to catch and kill it. Though we weren't going to actually cook it up, I gutted and skinned it so he could see how it's done. The dogs were happy enough to get the meat. He thought the whole thing was pretty neat. The copperheads are the only creatures here that I will destroy when I find them. Just too dangerous to have around. Kids and dogs don't have the sense to let them be.

Let the PETA folks chew on that.LOL

Don't sweat the game stuff. As long as you're under war protection, you can let things run for a couple of weeks untended.

So what exactly is it that you're reporting on Tuscon?
I seem to recall some billboards advertising some historical sites in the area. Also recall seei

Good to hear from you so quick.

I'll have to ponder in a Sherlockian manner your knowledge of the most efficient route to Tucson. If it were part of your military experience I would say Ft. Huachuca (spelling doesn't seem right). Spent a couple weeks as a youngster there while Dad did whatever he did.

Either way, we won't drive out. Air is the way to go, that way we won't be toast when we arrive. Heck, the 2 hour drive to Philly and back once a month to see my buddy and also Julie's sister about does me in any more! And to think that when I was at Knox I thought nothing of jumping in the car on the Friday of midmonth and eom pay and cruising 10 hours back home to spend Friday night, Sat, and back in the car after church Sunday morning! Age.

Still a decent bit of agriculture around the area, although like most places in the country the family farm is rapidly disappearing. The young are not interested in

Sorry to interrupt you guys' little conversation here, but:

JMR:

"Will make an effort on the other thread, I also enjoy reading thoughts of people who have a clue, whether I agree with them or not. There are some pretty impressive people in this community. In an online game? Who woulda thunk it?"

I'm flattered! *blushes* lol

MM, feel free to jump in if you are so inclined. As Farmer says in an earlier part of this thread, we're just a couple of "old farts" discussing this and that.

Watch your head doesn't get so big you can't get through the door! lol

Robert, Have a productive and enjoyable trip. I will attempt to get something posted while you are away next week. It should be available for your critique upon your return.

Don't forget your sunscreen and spanish dictionary. LOL

Regards,
Bob

Si, senor, gracias. No habla anglais. Vaya con dios, Roberto.

lol it's already too late for that I think JMR

Ok Robert. Here we go. I will try to do this in manageable installments.

Upon completion of BCT, 11B AIT, and Jump School, I was assigned to a line company in one of the Airborne Divisions that wasn't deployed to Nam. A gift from heaven and that noble E7 recruiter who was looking out for me, right?
A rational man would have seen the truth of the situation, but the ignorant boy I was saw things differently.

I found permanent party stateside to be incredibly boring. I was disappointed by how easy my training had been. I was arrogant and cocky.
Stories abounded about how bad "Charlie" was and how dangerous Nam was. If one believed the hype, one would think that no one could possibly survive a years tour, even though the proof was standing right there, telling the war stories. I smelled a lot of Bravo Sierra and was intrigued rather than scared.
Therefore, after a few months, I put my name in for rotation to Vietnam

Part II.

I won't go into detail about to which unit I was assigned or LRRPs in general. There are quite a few memoirs published by former Rangers, SF troopers, and veterans of the other recon units. The tactics were all much the same as were the missions. I doubt my experiences were very different from anyone else's. We were small teams that went into Charlie's backyard to hunt. Our job was to remain invisible until we chose not to be and the Vietnam LRRPs were very good at their jobs. Specifically, due to my size, I was the natural choice to "hump the pig." Our team primarily conducted ambushes on small groups of VC or occasionally NVA in our AO. In military terms, we were tasked with the interdiction of lines of supply and communication in remote areas beyond the operational range of conventional forces.

I will share, however, my impressions and life lessons gained from this time as well a few anectdotes of personal

On to the big picture lessons.

First and foremost, I learned this important fact

War sucks.

There is nothing glorious or heroic about it. Even a lifetime and several more combat experiences later, I cannot find anything good to say about what happens when human beings decide to kill each other en masse.

There are no innocents.

Only victims of the same madness.

And in the world we live in, it still remains an essential part of the human condition.

But for those who then and now would paint the American military with the same brush as our adversaries, I have the unfortunate memories of reality to expose the great lie of their views.

I saw death in all its forms. That which was brought to civilians through carelessness, incompetence, or simple indifference on our part.
Women and children who wanted nothing more than to live their lives died for being in the wrong place at the wrong t

To momentarily switch topics, we have 4 dogs at the moment. Three are adopted and one was a present for Gina when she got back from Italy a few years back. We have a Basset named Molly that turned up down the valley last year. Around 5 years old according to the vet. Not long after, we adopted a medium Golden Retriever named Sarah from a local family that was moving. She is 3. Another Shepard mutt was found last fall hanging around a local farm and we took him in. That is Sam and he somewhere around 10. And completing the managerie is a 3lb miniature Maltese I bought for Gina. She is 3 and named Maya. Care to guess who the alpha of the pack is?
LOL

I will get into my second tour shortly, as that year had the most impact on my career. I'm still not comfortable with what I've written. I don't want to go into a lecture on small unit tactics of the war or get into gruesome details of the nature of that sort of combat; but, I feel like

Bob, I feel it is important that people who have been through all of that, and experienced, and seen what you have experienced and saw, to recount their stories to others who have been so lucky and privileged, such as myself, to have never had to do what you did.

You may not have to come out and say anything publicly, if you do not feel so inclined, but maybe write a journal and write down some of your experiences. As hard as it may be for you to reveal your inner-most feelings, of everything you have done or saw in war, it is important that you get these things out eventually. Mostly for future generations. The next generation coming, such as my little neice and nephew, who are currently 5 years old, should be taught the horrors of war, so that they would not have as likelyhood of a chance for actually seeing it themselves. Noone deserves that, period!

The more war-vet stories that are published, the more the public may come to hate war

Thank you for the kind words, Michael.

I should elabroate, however, on the seeming contradiction of my views.

I have seen the carnage and suffering we wreak upon each other and have indeed learned to hate war. That said, I know that the only way to avoid war is to prepare vigorously for it. That is a very old aphorism, but it remains so because of its central truth regarding the human condition.

Real evil exists in the world because it exists in the human heart. There will always be those that will act on the negative tendencies in all of us. Or worse, those who will inflict evils in the name of a greater good.

I know why we were in Vietnam. I know what role I played in the conflict. I don't agree with nearly anything in terms of the what, where, when, and how of the manner in which we conducted that conflict.

But I fully comprehend and agree with the WHY.

We drew a line in the sand for the Sino

Oh! I totally agree on the importance of us being prepared for war. There is never any doubt about that. I would much prefer to use anything and everything in our power to defuse such situations, whether through sports, dialogue, or any other alternative means at our disposal.

War should ALWAYS be the very last resort.

Cuba is another nation that I can think of that I can see becoming more liberal, like China is now, in the future. Which is why I am glad we never went to real war against that nation. Fidel's brother has instituted 2 new freedoms, that may seem really minor, but in actuality is quite a big step forward:

The Cuban people are now allowed to stay in hotels and own cell phones. That may seem quite ridiculous to us, especially considering that a good 80% of that population could not even AFFORD such "luxuries." But it IS a step in the right direction. That will be the legacy of the brother of Fidel (can

Yes, societies across the globe are becoming more liberal. However, have we forgotten that relatively modern, "liberal" societies have found reason for conflict in the past?

Wars tend to be about economic consequences of population pressures. Plenty of those pressures are around the world and will likely intensify.

Question for you to ponder.

What were the ideological and societal differences between the belligerents of WWI, Franco-Prussian, Crimean War, etc?

On a personal note, Michael. Feel free to jump in as you like. The two Roberts are just gabbing and he is helping me experiment with my writing, but this is not a closed conversation.

And never apologize even indirectly for not having worn a uniform. Many good men never have and many boys did that shouldn't have.

I guess all those wars had at least one thing in common: Extreme nationalism.

No matter how liberal a country is, there is still going to be rather fervant nationalist feelings towards ones own country, making it almost impossible to there never being a war somewhere on the globe. So I guess I agree with ya there.

No matter how much you say to never apologize for never wearing a uniform, there is still that guilt factor when you see a few of your friends being sent off to war straight from high school.

The summer after I graduated, which was just after 9/11, is when I tried signing up for the air force. They asked if I have ever had any kind of injuries, and I said yes, I busted my ankle twice. They sent me to a hospital to have x-rays taken to see if there is scar tissue. There was. A whole lot of it. I was rejected...lol even though we were at war.

Deep down, I was always glad of that, and that's where some of the

Michael. Your friends volunteered. Drafts been gone for a long time now. If you think you have something for which to atone, donate a few bucks to some of the veteran's charities. Other than that, don't even waste a moment of life thinking about it. We choose our own paths.

My point about the conflicts of past is that simlar societies are perfectly capable of coming to blows. Every nation on Earth could become a representative democracy with a free market economy and we would still have wars.

Well, yeah, there will still be wars between representative democracies. Look at Iran. The people do elect their president (i think? His title IS "President of Iran" after all. But I do not know how Iran's government works, or how it is run)

Countries can hold elections, but does not mean they are fair, or there is no or very little corruption. Happens in Africa all the time.

But the countries in question, such as China and N.Korea, can become perfectly good model democracies decades from now. When that happens to countries like that, the likelihood for them to go against another, similar democratic society, is much reduced.

Sorry, I dunno about donating any money to vet charities, at least for the time being. I have no dispossible income at all. As things stand, I can barely afford to so much as feed myself, and to put gas in my car just to get to my 2 crappy part time jobs, while going to school part time as

Hey guys! The prodigal son has returned. Some interesting conversations here while I was away.

Bob, your approach to your war experiences is so on target. If you will note in those other books you referenced, the true heroes do not glorify what they did. War IS hell, and sane and rational men get no enjoyment from it. I had an E7 friend at Knox who had been in an LRRP unit in Nam, he told me about the methods employed by the NVA "political education units". It's much better not to go into detail.

But as long as there is evil in the world, and good men (and women) willing to risk their lives to combat it, there will be war. And where there is war, there will be innocents, and innocence, lost.

Is there such a thing as a "just" war? I would like to think that war to free an oppressed people or to prevent genocide are justifiable reasons for conflict. But I am contradicted by reality. The Bosnian conflict