Didn't Rumsfeld say that the draftees didn't contribute much

[Jackpine Radical]

in Vietnam? "Nothing, really."

My infantry unit in the 1st Cav was 73% draftees, according to somebody's calculation. We took quite a few casualties while contributing nothing to the war. A quarter of us killed or wounded in one two-week period at Khe Sanh, for example.

Now, personally, I didn't mind contributing nothing to the war, but I kinda wish they would have left me home to do it. It would have been healthier for me not to have gotten these bullet holes, and they could have saved a bundle on not having to patch up the injuries I got while contributing nothing.

[Rick Myers]

1. Thank you for your service, my friend.

To this day I have a book on the seige at Khe Sanh that I've owned since I was 14, and when someone slights anyone's participation in war, I drop that book in their lap!!! Years later, in the Air Force, I still called C-130's 'mortar bait!'

[silverweb]

2. Yup.

"Speaking of the 11 million Americans who, during the Vietnam years, answered their country's draft call and the 2 million who served in Vietnam, Rumsfeld alleged that these draftees "added no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time, because the churning that took place, it took enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone."

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/column.shields.opinion.rumsfeld/index.html

[valerief]

3. Well, it's Kerry's fault, after all. You don't expect Rummy the Rummy

to apologize.
:sarcasm: