Drop and Stop,

I agree with you.

Cheers

BHR

NLB

Totally agree on Phantom Over Vietnam by John Trotti, USMC. Brilliant flying & combat descriptions and lots of humour as well, for example (from the glossary)

GUARD

An emergency comms channel. Military aircraft religiously monitor Guard except when someone starts talking on the frequency or an emergency locator beacon goes off, destroying ears for miles around. (It's a good idea, but most aviators would eat gopher berries before using Guard. The tale is told about the American pilot returning with a damaged aircraft from a raid over the North who came up on Guard to describe hi predicament. After several minutes of play by play by the stricken aviator an Australian voice cut in to suggest "Shut up, Yank, and die like a man!")

Ah yes normally right blank, 'Los Islas Malvinas' has such a nice poetic ring to it. I reckon we Brits could call them that just to rub a little salt in the wounds... ?

BTW didja know why the residents are called "Stills"?

Do wish you'd not asked that. Can't get the theme tune from b****y Crossroads out of my head now.

Diverting slightly back to the topic, one of Dubya's fellow pilots is a bit irritated by all the fuss, and wrote this letter to the Washington Times.

Jeez wonder how many other blokes got time off Vietnam to join an election circus..........sounds like a great way out of actually doing anything!!!

Hmm, lets think about this........young Dubya, as the son of a Congressman, knows that the ANG, as an air defence (of USA) component of the USAAF, will not be called to Vietnam. He applies for a place and just makes the grade. He then spends all of his flying as a trainee only and, along the way, misses a medical check is therefore grounded systematically. He also knows that he is allowed to miss many weekends to sort out his other career interests. As one of many young pilots on the roll, his boss wouldn't know him from Adam and so far only one other individual has come forward to say he remembers him.

The guy was war dodging in a big way. AWOL? Hmm, difficult to categorise an absent part-timer as AWOL at the best of times. Did he receive pay for weekends that he didn't attend? Doubtful, if pay was on an attendance basis, because attendance records would be used (and he would be silly to get a mate to sign him in when he wasn't there). However if pay was awarded on a contractual basis, ie the assumption is that he will attend the designated weekends and for simplicity he will be paid regular amounts throughout the period of Service, then there is a possibility of some gardening leave. And, due to the glut of full timers getting the few hours available, there would be a lot of young part-timers doing a lot of gardening (not digging trenches, though).