Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Which Campfire Members are Veterans??

Ruger,

You certainly are a veteran, and can be proud of your service.

Not everybody has the opportunity to do great things.

All gave something, some gave all.

Paul

Ruger, No doubt about it, you are a veteran. Just because you were fortunate enough to stay out of a fracass, doesn't make you any less a Veteran. You were there if needed and willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. No one could ask more of you. Military people buy the farm even in peacetime. If that doesn't make you a veteran I don't know what does.
Semper Fi, Doggie!

Slasher- I was there being TDY from 2nd Recon Tech SQDrn at Barksdale AFB, LA. I was attached to Det 10 of 544th Recon at Saigon. Being from a Recon unit and trained as a Forward Area Observer I was temporarily attached to the Berets. The outpost was attacked and nearly overrun by Battalion of NVA regulars the early morning (4AM)of 15 Mar 1966.

12 yrs, 76-88

Army National Guard- active with Army early VietNam 1963-1973
Armored Cavalry Scouts-Capt. Communications

I got up the steam shipmates did the shooting.

All of you who flew or supported those that did...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QNRMcbSvH4

God Bless

That makes you a Veteran, you were there in case of need, 'nuff said.

Been on a hunting trip since Sunday, just saw the thread, so I will join in.

AH, another pistol packer!

He also said that if you always tell the truth, you don't have to keep track of so much.

USN 1969-1973
VA-85
USS Forrestal
PR2

USN 68-72
PH-3
Four years in the Philippines

Thought I'd posted in this thread.

This is timely. Just getting back from deer camp where there were five of us, all Navy vets, including one who is still in the Reserves and just pinned on Chief.

One CDR (ret) (me)
One BT2 (my brother)
One PH3 (Cousin)
One AE1 (ret) Cousin
One ABHC (Still serving) Cousin

I was a Naval Flight Officer, or more specifically, an Electronics Countermeasures Officer - 86 to 08. 12 years active / 10 years Reserve. Saw more green ink time as a Reservist than I did active duty. Active Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Reserves, Bosnia, Kosovo, three dets to Northern Watch, one trip to Southern Watch. 2500 hours, 500 traps.

Lifting your right hand and taking an oath and serving honorably makes you a vet regardless of where or when you served.

Off to vacuum pack deer.

USAF.............1952-1957 Jet Engine mech. F-86D and
T-33. 95th Fighter Sqd.

Ruger 4570,


You could read U S Senator Max Cleland's book "Strong at the Broken Places." He was in the army stateside and repeatedly requested assignment to Vietnam. He was thwarted for years. His superiors told him to leave it alone. Finally, his request was granted. So, he goes to Vietnam. However, they keep him in the rear. He protests and finally gets to go on a heli flight to set up a radio net. He is getting off the helicopter and boom, his legs and an arm are blown off. The hell he went through for years is described in his book. Years later, another troop admits a grenade from his harness came off, and it turns out his own USA compadre is responsible for his horrific injuries.

I have a friend who was a USMC machine gunner, Da Nang 1969. He never could get assigned to the bush to fight, despite Marine's heavy losses and dire need for gunners and his persistent requests to fight, including a complaint to his Georgia U S Senator. He has a hero complex and is ticked off about it to this day. I tell him he should feel fortunate he did not have to kill or maim or be maimed himself, but to feel compassion for those who did or who suffered horrible permanent injuries and PTSD. He still mentions so and so who was a hero in Nam and has this medal or that for valor.

I had another friend who did a year in Nam with USMC with heavy contact, just one tough dude; saw him step on a burning hot charcoal brisquette, and take part of the bottom of his foot out and never murmur or seek treatment. Anyway, they send him back for a second tour and he complains to his senator. To punish him, they put him on morgue duty there. He couldn't handle everything and even told me once had he to do it all again, he would have gone to Canada. He killed himself in the 80's.

The point is ya'll showed up to be and do should you be called.

Even recently deceased Paul Newman, the supposedly flaming liberal, serious anti-war protester about Vietnam, pro gay, who abhorred violence, applied for a naval carrier aviator post but was turned down for color blindness. He went on to be a rear gunner, radio operator in TBY and had 3 service medals. The details are sketchy on him but anyway it takes what, 10 guys to support one guy in direct combat. Plus, in a huge bureacracy like the military, by it's very nature, assignments cannot always be logical, they can be random, and fairness seems to be rare at times.

US Army 1985-1995. 101st Airborne when not assigned to the 2nd ID. AH-1 crewchief, line chief and Tech Inspector. Air Cavalryman for life. Desert Shield/Desert Storm vet. First in, last out.

USAF 67-71
SSGT
Aeromedical Tech
90170
RVN 69-70

US Army July 1967 to March 1970.

US Army 62-65...82nd, 101st, 5th SFG.

My dad was a WWII vet, he was on a destroyer that DID sink. Had two uncles killed at Normandy & two made it through unscathed. One in the pacific theater in the army & the other as a tail gunner on bombers over Europe. All have since passed on.