Re; Finding The Fakes Among The Heroes

[Notorious Kelly]

I was a phone tech in the Air Force '78-84.

No combat.

We lived in 'dorms' with carpeting, refrigerators and some even had beads for door curtains.

Worked 7:30-4:30 five days a week except when there was an exercise.

No claim to hero status - we were just part of the Total Force from which the Bell of Liberty is suspended.

I remember this dude in Alaska saying he was a sniper, so I asked him about Carlos Hathcock. he'd never heard of him.

OOPS!

[Cavtrooper088]

Pretty good question Notorious Kelly. Isn't it great when ya catch one of these wannabe's in a lie. I swear I've met a gagillion "snipers" over the years. Why do all the wannabes' claim to be snipers?

By the way--thanks for your service to our country brother. I always thought the Air Force knew how to live right. Plus their dining halls were outta sight.

Cav

[sgmdae]

Thanks for your service to everyone that got support from your unit.

That one call I made my Grandmother from RVN was probably because of you

[Victor_C3]

Thank God for the NCO corp.

I can't agree with that one more myself. I'm a younger generation vet and I served in Iraq from FEB04 - MAR05 as an Infantry Platoon Leader. My NCOs made me who I am today and totally are the reason I was half the Platoon Leader I was. I never once worked with a Combat Arms E-7 that I didn't like and I found very few E-6s that I thought were incompetant. With very few exceptions, the NCO corps I worked with when I was in the Army between 2002 - 2007 was top-notch and has my complete admiration and respect.

My unit moved very few leaders around once we were deployed to Iraq. I had my Platoon for the entire time I was in Iraq as did most Platoon Leaders. The same was generally true with all of our leadership positions.

On an aside, we had this one LT in another platoon who was on a patrol with 4 HMMWVs. His platoon was hit with an IED and a small arms ambush and the Platoon Leader and his HMMWV just fled the scene and left his other three vehicles to fight for themselves. I don't remember all that happened to this guy afterwards, but I do remember that they quickly pulled him from the line and moved him to a job in the brigade staff. I always marvelled how they "punished" the guy by moving him from a dangerous job to a job where he works 9-5 in an airconditioned TOC. F-up, move up. I always knew there was a reason some of those guys were on staffs or on read-D. If they were any good, they'd be out on the line!

[Paul55]

I am not sure to what he was referring, but to be Special Forces you have to be airborne qualified (which is what paratroopers are), but just being airborne qualified is not enough to get you the green beret. Another interesting tidbit that is sort of related. A soldier can be Ranger qualified and not airborne qualified. They will have a differant designator in their MOS than an airborne ranger qualified person. No, I will not post the designators on this post or their order for future wannabee's sorry.

I had a guy tell me that being an Army paratrooper was a part of SF, is this true?

BoonDoc

[Paul55]

The Y designator would refer to a Pathfinder qualified soldier.

11B1 mean light infantry E-4 and below, the y I can recall

it has to be a identifier, I can't remember the y and what it signifys, did you have any specialty trianing ie TOE, a special weapon of some type???????????????????