A Real Sea Story...........

ZRX61 · **Joined:** Tue Jun 14, 2005 10:16 am **Posts:** 2309

Obergrafeter wrote:

Met a similar fellow at an airshow at CCNAS several years ago who claimed to be a Viet Nam war hero. He conned several people into beleiving his retoric, and almost took me in. He did know enough to be somewhat convincing even knowing some of the Special Forces types I knew, but something was just not right.

Guy that goes to a bar I frequent was telling me all about his time in Spec Forces in Vietnam one Sunday afternoon. Another of the guys who go there is a former Huey pilot but wasn't there that day.. about 2 weeks later they were both there & I mentioned to the Huey guy about the other *vet*...
So he starts talking to him about Vietnam & suddenly it's "Oh yeah, my partner at work was over there in the Spec Forces"

One thig I have noticed at airshows etc is that the most dangerous occupation during time of war must have been cook or clerk, none of them seem to have survived but there are thousands of former fighter pilots.. :wink:

Dan Jones · **Posted:** Sat Aug 09, 2008 11:43 am

I stopped at a quiet little rural airfield for fuel one evening in the Stearman and there was an old guy there with some members of his family. He ran his hand over the fabric of the lower wing and said how much he enjoyed flying the "old Tiger Moth". I gently informed him that this wasn't a Tiger Moth and he became most insistent that it was indeed, just like the ones he used to fly in the Service. I figured either that the guy had trained in Stearmans and Tiger Moths in the RCAF and had just mixed them up, or that maybe his memory wasn't quite what it used to be. After all, up here if it's yellow and a biplane, it's a Tiger Moth. I've met a few guys who became very successful, competent airman during the war - pilot's, nav's, f/e's - and then as soon as it was over walked away from aviation entirely and never looked back. Anyway, I sort of dodged the issue by telling them that this particular airplane had never seen Canadian service but had instead enlisted in the US Army for the duration, but was very, very similiar to what he had flown. I invited him to climb in and sit in the cockpit while I gassed and oiled her, and then took him for a fifteen minute ride around the patch before I left. It was dang near dark by the time I got home but I figured the guy was legit, just probably not the man he used to be.

Obergrafeter · **Posted:** Sat Aug 09, 2008 1:26 pm

ZRX61 have you ever wondered how B-17s ever dropped bpmbs. Seems every person I ever met at an airshow was a pilot; no navagators or gunners just pilots?

mustangdriver · **Posted:** Sat Aug 09, 2008 1:35 pm

My great uncle was a B-17 ball turret gunner, and waist gunner. Him and the waist gunner would take turns flying in the ball.

RyanShort1 · **Posted:** Sat Aug 09, 2008 1:53 pm

LOL. At the Doolittle Raiders Reunion in SA last year there was a guy who was VERY mixed up about liaison aircraft and T-41s, etc... Thought he knew more about the L-2 and other aircraft than I did and wanted to argue about how it must have come after the T-41 that he trained in that was very similar but had a different wheel configuration. Then, he didn't recognize a few of the T-41's civilian sisters nearby. Major issues with aircraft recognition...
Lady02Pilot might remember him as he came over and asked her questions as well. Frankly, if he was a pilot, which I doubt, then he must've done a lot of something he shouldn't have that messes with your mind. Very sad.

Ryan

Jack Cook · **Posted:** Sat Aug 09, 2008 2:11 pm

That's nothing Ryan. Bet you didn't know that B-25s had diesel powered rotary engines :shock:

muddyboots · **Posted:** Sat Aug 09, 2008 2:25 pm

It alwasy bugs me when people complain about these guys. I mean, really, who gives sh1t? You want to be a killer? Fine. Here's my bronze star from Panama. I killed the guy who killed two of my friends and put me in the hospital. You can also have the purple heart and the nightmares and the bad right hand.

You want to be a hero? Fine. You can have my awards from Somalia. You can also have all the nightmares. I sure dont want them.

You think you want war stories? Okay fine. Here's mine from Yugoslavia. Try and remember to put the good stuff about children and tank treads in there, then the chicks will REALLY dig you. They LIKE taht stuff, especially when you wake up crying in the middle of the night and won't let them touch you.

You want men to admire you for how tough you were? fine. You can have all my years of jumping out of airplanes, rapelling out of helicopters, and all the broken bones, and the arthritis, and the diseases. And please, let me trade you my broken marrige and the fact that I can't have children.
Yeah. I really want all that. Please somebody, trade me all that sugar for your nine to fiver. I'd give you twenty years of my life to go with it. I'd REALLY like someone to put me through college, since I was to messed up in the head to use my GI bill before it ran out. Only I'm honestly too screwed up to finish school even if somneone did help me out. Hell, I've moved back into my family home now that my marrige has failed and my sanity has fled, so if those poor pastards think it's such a swell deal then they're welcome to my misery if they want it.

I don't feel one bit of anger or resentment at this sort of guy. They aren't costing me a thing that I value. Pride? I have no pride in what I did. I have remorse. And if they want to share in it, to take some of the responsibility for what I did, then they're welcome to the burden. if they want to put on a Medal of Honor or a silver star or whatever, what do I care? THos awards don't mean Jack sugar to me. They're just bad memories and only a damned fool would want to wear them. In my opinion.

And for those of you who laugh at men who seem confused. I can't remember the names of men I served with twenty years ago. I can't remember the regiments I served in and I can't remember 99% of the crap I was expected to know to function as a soldier anymore. I can still break an M16 down blidnfolded, and I'm sure I can still hit sstuff with it. But can I tell you the names of all the parts in the bolt carrier group? Hell no. Don't care to. Years pass, and as the memories fade, the pain and the clarity does too. Don't be so sure those old guys haven't done the same damned thing I did: erased it all because it hurts more than you can imgine. If the price of sleeping some nights is to foprget all the sugar I need to prove to you that I was there, well, hell, go ahead and make fun of me. At least I can sleep some of the time without the dreams.

if I get confused about what year I was in Yugoslavia, sue me. I did three tours. Can't remember the names of all the towns I dug bodies u in? Sue me. Would YOU want to remember it?

And I'm certainly noty sharp as a tack--I think Bill and prolly Dan Newcomb and mayeb acouple of others who've met me would admit I'm not firing on all cylinders. Mor ethan anything else THAT botehrs me. But when you describe guys who arne't all there...that's me.

All I'm saying is that these guys--they don't cost me a thing. And they don't cost YOU a thing. I don't see them as a bit different han those guys taht dress up in old WWII costumes and walk around talking like a soldier from the era. If that's what it takes to make you feel like you were there, fine by me. I certainly won't begrudge you for living a fantasy. I wish to do you kiss your mother with that mouth? I could.

airnutz · **Posted:** Sat Aug 09, 2008 3:02 pm

muddyboots wrote:

It alwasy bugs me when people complain about these guys. I mean, really, who gives sh1t?

I GIVE A SH1T! Don't get me started..'Boots! :evil:

Some of these worthless pukes suck up the resources
and time of the folks who are trying to help "Veterans down on their luck". These SOB's give deserving
Vets a bad name and taint the "real deals" with their selfish deeds.

I just spent a year and half hauling a 6'4", 300# POS on my back because a former employer insisted "We" help him out.
The Rat Bastid was a boat anchor! This guy F'd up more sh1t than I could keep up with. When I finally found enough ID on him to determine he had NEVER been a Cambodian POW, the boss still kept him around. I quit the outfit and walked away from 1 1/2 years of investment in 'sweat equity' in a shop!

A buddy from 101st Airborne and I are lined up with a Marine gunny who delights in dealing with idiots like this..we're very close... :evil:

Oh sooooo close...

muddyboots · **Posted:** Sat Aug 09, 2008 4:09 pm

I suppose I can see your issue. Myself, I've never accepted nor given vet charity. I'm sure that's messed up but in my head I can't accept help, and if I can't accept help I sure as hell can't GIVE it. I guess I don't see my vet status as being of any worth whatsoever. Certainly not reason for you to give me something, nor for me to be jealous of someone else over.

airnutz · **Posted:** Sat Aug 09, 2008 5:15 pm

muddyboots wrote:

I suppose I can see your issue. Myself, I've never accepted nor given vet charity.

I don't believe in charity or open checkbook welfare. Give a man fish and he'll eat all your fish. Teach him
how to fish and he'll feed himself.

You know those little aches and pains you suffer now(or those yet to come)? They become big pains in
your 50's and 60's..and it comes on fast. Some people need help finding what's available to them and time
to get that machine in motion. In this case the guy had had a massive heart attack..got out of the hospital..lost the roof over his head..sleeping in his truck. Problem is..everthing takes a year or better for the paperwork to go through..by the time you find out you've been had...well..you've been had! :shock:

Look outside of yourself...there are deserving Vets out there! When you're able to help those who've
earned and deserve respect, you feel better because you've made the world a bit better...it's certainly more tangible when you see your positve effect on a daily basis. :wink:

Whether you know it or not, they sacrificed for us..it's not charity to return the gesture. :wink:

Correction...charity is for children and the infirm.

muddyboots · **Posted:** Mon Aug 11, 2008 12:18 am

Been thinking about this, Nutz. I DO get irritated when I see some old guy sitting on the street with a sign says "Homeless Vet" and I ask him who he was with and he doesn't know what I mean. Like, who'd you SERVE with man? "Oh I was in the Army." Really? What was your MOS? And he has no idea what an MOS is. THOSE guys piss me off cause I know they're trying to get some sympathy so people will give them a dollar or something. I mean, all I've been through and it took me ten YEARS to finally cave in and go sign up at the VA.

I can at least understand that. It's the ones ya'll are describing who don't really have anything to gain by it--the old guy who says he was a bomber pilot and couldn't tll you which Air FOrce was in Europe and Which was in the Pacific...What the hell does he have to gain by it?

It just seems so ODD anybody would do it, you know? I know there are plenty of people who do it and don't ask for handouts, they seem to need to feel like a hreo or something. And I'm just not someone who thinks soldiers are heroes. My heros are paramedics and firemen and smokejumpers. And the Coast Guard. THOSE guys put it on the line for people they don't know. Hell, I got to shoot back. They just stand and take it. Dunno if that makes any sense, but there it is.

Sorry about my outburst, I just hate that people act like what I did was somehow "heroic" To me it was just stupid and senseless and pretty much an unhappy time I'd rather forget if I could, while at the same time its so stuck in me that if I could excise it I dunno if there'd be much ME left.

RyanShort1 · **Posted:** Mon Aug 11, 2008 7:30 am

Muddy,

I really can see your point of view, but WWII especially was a bit of a different era in many regards. I believe that some of the veterans I know, and have known WERE heroic... Especially some of the Doolittle Raiders who really went above and beyond IMHO. What bugs me so much is when we have VERY CLEAR records about who was on the Raid, and VERY CLEAR records about who trained with them and didn't get to fly the Raid (but wanted to) and then you have this other group who for whatever reason, tell lies, stories, and complete fabrications fooling their children and other family members, sometimes even getting their names put up on local monuments, etc... when they did NOTHING of what they claimed. Some of them may have been veterans for sure, but when you start claiming things that are easily verifiable, and it seems that you are seeking to be made out to be a "hero", well, that's when you've majorly lost my respect. The guys that I think are heros don't go around asking for people to think so. We can make up our own minds, and I have NO problem with them being gracious in accepting whatever praise I CHOOSE to give them. I am actually grateful that some of the guys don't try as hard to push their efforts aside, because we need men who are willing to stand up for what is right, take the high ground, and do their utmost for our country. That is commendable, and some of us chose to applaud it, and show our appreciation.
BTW. Thanks for your service muddy - maybe you didn't always do it for the right reason, or have the right motivation when you signed up, but we still appreciate your efforts in the forces that uphold and defend our freedoms.

Ryan

sgt hawk · **Posted:** Mon Aug 11, 2008 9:13 am

well thought out Muddy! Bumped in to too many Navy Seals and SOF guys in my early years as a "Bar Fly". Could never understand why they all wanted to be "Speacial Op's" guys. Most of the folks I worked with never knew I was a Vet. Could have cared less! To many bad memories I guess. Value my sleep at night and bringing up old memories disturbes my sack time. Went to our Battalion Reunion in 2006, enjoyed it, but it cost me a month of sack time and a girlfriend. Saw to many guys we had "Dusted Off" and never knew what had happened to them! When you sit down with a man in a wheelchair, missing both legs, and you see him after 38 years, I cried like a baby. Why do these people want any part of this?

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