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Timbo - I often poke at and read your posts and gather you're a Vietnam vet. While you were in 'Nam, what was the soundtrack playing in your ears? While I missed the U.S. draft by the skin on my teeth, my son and DIL have done two tours of Afghanistan and it changed them both. I can only imagine what 'Nam would've done to me. Warm regards and hope you are mending well.
SamA
Follow Ups:
My sound track was numbness, confusion and sadness. I was very young, really, so were most of us.I do recall humming the farewell quartet from Cosi Fan Tutte, a lot. Possibly because Vietnam abounded with forbidden and hidden subjects.
I was a good - convincing? - infantry NCO. Good enough to be useful at Int. I was NOT a 'believer', though.
Fortunate? Definitely.
Confusion comes and goes, numbness and sadness too. Necessary states I ween.
Just recently I lost my temper in the car on the way to the Easter Sunday family gathering. Trisha has a habit of panicking about hazards on the road when I've already begun to avoid them, often delaying my moves. Our son 2 John was with us.
He very plainly told me that this instant ferocity side of me, had always terrified both of my boys when they were young.
I had never really thought about this.
OTOH I can be very hard on me! ;-)
The last President of the Voluntary Guides at the AWM thinks I'm a great big softy! :-) Classifications, eh?
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
Edits: 05/17/17 05/17/17
"My sound track was numbness, confusion and sadness. I was very young, really, so were most of us.
I do recall humming the farewell quartet from Cosi Fan Tutte, a lot. Possibly because Vietnam abounded with forbidden and hidden subjects.
I was a good - convincing? - infantry NCO. Good enough to be useful at Int. I was NOT a 'believer', though.
Fortunate? Definitely.
Confusion comes and goes, numbness and sadness too. Necessary states I ween.
Just recently I lost my temper in the car on the way to the Easter Sunday family gathering. Trisha has a habit of panicking about hazards on the road when I've already begun to avoid them, often delaying my moves. Our son 2 John was with us.
He very plainly told me that this instant ferocity side of me, had always terrified both of my boys when they were young.
I had never really thought about this."
Feel free to continue.
You're a lucky guy.
My nephew-in-law wasn't so lucky. He died at the age of 28 in Afghanistan in August of last year. 28. His death didn't even make the news - they were consumed with Rodham-Clinton. An exceptional Green Beret Special Forces guy, and a great kid. I'll always miss him.
http://memorialwebsites.legacy.com/thompson/MemorialSite.aspx
:)
I AM a lucky guy, yes!People often comment, when they here some of my life story
that 'I've had a hard life', and in many ways that is true & for all my siblings. But, my response is that I've had the one I've had.I happen to believe that I am very, very lucky. I was asked to train young men when I was also young, to be soldiers. Later I trained as a trainer for systems analysis and used that in getting clinicians to design what they wanted, at a national standards level.
All 5 of us kids watched our dad die-ing from war caused cancer in the 1950s.
Pardy, Dad's father was a gunner on the Western Front, he outlived his son by over a decade. I was driven to visit him (car and driver) in hospital while on a course at our Infantry Centre.
I was in kakhi summer dress when I walked into his room, with my Aunty Enid. Pardy looked at me and said "Not another ........ Sgt Bailey, when will we ever learn!"
I joined our equivalent of your National Guard to avoid going to Vietnam, and could do my Univ. course. That didn't quite work out the way I planned.
I didn't graduate with a university degree until 1994. B. Comm. Management Science, Majored in Systems. I was tutoring students in tutorial groups from Semester 2 onwards. Ended up on salary last 2 yrs.
You could do your National Service obligation via 6 yrs in the Citizen's Military Forces (CMF) part of the Australian Army. Now known as the Ready Reserve.
We were mostly trained by Regulars who were having a break from the funny country. I hated it at first, but was able to switch on just enough to get selected for promotion ie "officer". Then got rejected for that and after a deeper switch on, went down the senior NCO path. ? Warrant Officer / Company Sergeant Major.
Not an easy path, if you are young. Did quite a few Regular Army courses and did well. Led to full-time-duty aka FTD with the RA as part of the RASupplement.
I'm not able to tell you very much about the serious squirrel bits of my FTD service. I was recommended by the Regular officers running some of the courses I completed. It took a while for the reg diggers and NCO's to accept that I was up to snuff. But they did come around.
Which was a relief!
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
Edits: 05/18/17 05/18/17
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