Apparently I drew some criticism from some conservatives

I appear to have been the topic of discussion at a certain conservative message board regarding a post I mad quite a while ago here in which I referenced an encounter I had with someone that did not like my bumper stickers. These individuals questoned my military service, my courage, and my integrity in their postings.

Here was my response:


I have registered to this message board for one reason, and one reason only. I am the "olafvikingr" being attacked in this thread. I would like to ask the moderators for a little leeway while I take the opportunity to defend myself. I am not here to talk about my politics or yours. I am certain we are very unlikely to sway each other either way. I do believe I am entitled to offer up some truths however. I will do my best to be civil. Please, before you ban me, at least let people read the truth.

First and foremost, everything I stated in my post that has been discussed here is true, with one minor modification. I can not be certain as to whether or not when we were off the coast of Somailia specifically if we were in the Red Sea, or if we were in the larger body of water, the Indian Ocean.

Several individuals in this thread have outright called me a liar, questioned my patriotism, and even in one instance, strongly insinuated that I was a coward. It is my intent to address all of these issues.

I did get spit at. As I addressed in my post, I was in a vehicle, so I was not directly spit upon, but it was aimed clearly and with intent, directly at me. I also readily acknowledge that the individual that disagreed with my bumper sticker had no way of knowing that I was a veteran, of not one, but two branches of the service; but I'll cover that more next. I obviously can not verify whether or not Vietnam Veterans were spit on, I was simply making the association that I understood how it would have felt.

A typical Army National Guard contract is in fact longer than 1 year. In fact, it is 6 years. I was released from my Guard service in order to serve active duty. I went to Basic Combat Training in Ft. Dix, NJ. When I enlisted my MOS was a 63T10. For the non-military folks, that is a tank mechanic. I never went to the AIT for that, becasue I was doing my 2nd basic training for the Navy at that time. In th ARNG I served with Co. C 1/108th Mechanized Infantry. In the Navy I attended basic training in Great Lakes, Illinois, and chose my duty staton of Pear Harbor as part of the commissioning crew for the USS Lake Erie (CG-70), and AEGIS class cruiser. I am a plankowner and shellback, other squids will know what that means.

txradioguy, I was there too. I never touched land, but I was there. I never made any claim to have been part of the "Black Hawk Down". engagements. I never tried to glorify my service beyond what it was. I was off the Coast of Somalia early in 1995 (probably March or April). To the best of my knowledge our activites were to provide NGFS (that's Naval Gunfire Support) for the Marines. We never had to shoot. I know, I spent several days in my gun mount. I did not go into full detal of my activities and such in my post, because it was not the focus of discussion and it was originally written as a letter to the editor, so extra detail was not necesarry. I was on deployment to enforce sanctions on Iraq at the time in the Gulf and perform VBSS (Visit, Board, Search and Seizure) activies. Somalia was a detour for us on the way back.

Speed_Addiction, sorry you got shot in the face, but you may want to think twice before questioning another man's service. That is about the nicest way I can say what I want to say.


Adam Wood, I made no attempt to describe action I saw or didn't see, because it was not the purpose of the letter. I had no intent to make someone think I was some kind of war hero. I made clear that I was on ship. How much glory could I have been seeking to garner for myself on a mesage board full of people I do not know? No bullshit.

As to those that would insinuate that I joined the Navy to avoid any real service. That above all makes my blood boil. In essence, you call me a coward without having any idea what you ar talking about. Does it matter to you that I joined the Navy to be an EOD Diver (that's Explosive Ordinance Disposal)? Clearly a job for cowards. Does the fact that I was unable to attain that goal make me a coward? I think not. Does the fact that I then served out the remainder of my serivce on board a combatant ship as a Gunners Mate (aft gun mount 5" 54 Mk 45 Mod 2 Light Weight Gun System) make me a coward, or that I deployed to what was essentialy a war zone where I received hazardous duty pay because we were in an area of high risk? Does that make me a coward? I readily admit that I saw no combat action. But do not question my integrity, courage or honor. I served. I served honorably. Our politics may differ. While I diagree with many of the things conservatives may stand for, I would, and did, defend the right for you to have those opinions.


Here are the service awards I received while in the Navy and on deployment:

National Defense Serivce Medal
Sea Service Deployment (2 awards)
Southwest Asia Service Medal with Bronze Star
Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal
Good Conduct Medal
Expert Rifle
Expert Pistol


Thank you for your patience and time. I wish all of you a safe and Merry Christmas.

:patriot:

They're trying to Swiftboat you and decency, logic and facts will be ignored by them. Have they accused you of being a "homo," yet?

the responses were?

on edit: very good of you to try and set the record straight.
and thanks for your service.

of individuals over there, which I appreciated. One guy in particular is still not letting it go and has simply resorted to calling me names and telling me to get lost. I think I will. I said what I wanted to say.

Here is my reply after seeing some responses:

First of all, I would like to acknowledge my appreciation to those who offered their apologies. Believe it or not, that DOES mean something. It doesn't take an agreement on politics to acknowledge what someone has spent part of their life doing.

As for TRG, I don't know what to do to convince you. I am sorry I misspelled Somalia. I don't always proofread thoroughly enough and I am not an English teacher, though overall, I consider myself fairly literate. Clearly a good reason to disbelieve me. I also left off the "L" in Pearl Harbor when I wrote it too. In fact, there are several typos in my post. None bear any relevance on the truth of what I said.

As was pointed out by Wasp69, during normal steaming, we did not man the gun mounts non-stop. In fact, we typically only had one guy standing watch in one of the mounts outside of regualr duty hours. Wasp69 used some underway conditions terminolgy that I had forgotten until seeing it written in front of me again.The primary function of a Gunner's Mate that works on those systems is to be a mechanic. We perform all of the maintennance and the test operation of the mount as well as clearing any misfires should they occur when firing. We make sure the gun goes boom instead of click. The "regular" operation of the mount is carried out by the Fire Control personnel when the mount is tracking targets through its radar system. We simply turn over control of the mount from the EP2 panel (I was the EP2 panel operator for the gun mount at that time). When in a war time condition, 2 people are in the mount itself, with a magazine crew working to keep the gun system loaded below us.

One person "necesarry" doesn't mean that is the normal operation. Yeah, you technically only need one person to operate the panel and be on coms with the folks in combat control, it just isn't how it is normally done.

Don't know how much more I can say to convince you, or even how much more I should bother trying.

As far as the confusion about the body of water, well, I was an enlisted sailor, mid-level, and well, the Captain didn't come down and personally inform little ole me about every detail of our mission. They said load the damn gun and get in the gun mount, so I did. Additionally, keep in mind, I have been out of the service now almost 3 times longer than I was in (if only counting the 4 years I spent active duty).

BTW, as I understand it, they are just Gunners Mates now instead of differentiating between missile guys and gun guys. Additionally, they didn't have any women on combatants, or any women gunners mates, I believe that has changed as well. The typical projectile weighed about 70 pounds, plus another 30 or so for the powder casing. Lots of repetitive lifting if you were in the magazine or doing a load out.

It's funny, this whole issue made me pull out my cruise (sort of a deployment yearbook)book and look through all the pictures and faces. Thinking about people and experiences I hadn't thought about in a long time. It's funny, our unofficial motto used to be "Have gun, will travel". I wish my scanner was set up because I've got a great picture in the cruise book with 4 of us dressed up with our small arms and ready to go do a VBSS. They canceled it and I never actually got to do it, but if I wanted, I could have lied, because I've got a picture showing us getting ready to go do it.

Again, thanks to those that offered their apologies. If you still aren't buying it, well, I guess that is just the way it will have to be.

Be well, be safe. Don't be afraid to have critical thought and be skeptical, but when the evidence is there...

The biggest thing I regret about my time in Pearl Harbor, is that I never went over to see the Arizona Memorial in the 2 years I was there. I was young, and usually more concerned about when I was going to get drunk or try to meet some ladies down in Waikiki Beach. I've got a little more perspective now, and if I ever make it back to Oahu, I'll see that Memorial.

Olafr

no, they won't change.

but recognizing the validity of you is something.

there are parallels here of course as well as greater metaphors.

it's worth talking about ''willfull ignorance'' in your context or the context you've presented.

but of course -- ''metaphor'' presents a problem as these are people for whom an understanding of metaphor is utterly missing.

good for you -- and even better that responded and had some sort of conversation -- it's been one of the more interesting on-line things i've seen. -- i mean past the outrageous, hysterical and other various sundry things out there on the ''internets''.

I'm a mother of a combat veteran, and while I abhor war, I've always respected her service. And I respect yours as well.

I'm sorry you had to put up with that, and your response was perfect.

Did you receive any response? Thanks for what you have done for this country - even Georgie-Boy can't stand up to your level of Patriotism.

they really need to get a life over there.

they pulled one of my posts with the suggestion that I give up my internet to show Christmas charity

screw them (and BTW, I did get some donations in the neighborhood for the little girl who needed charity)

and I never would have noticed if you hadn't posted this, I hate going over there so that should take care of my visits to slimeland for another few years

Is censorship and copyright infringement.

They're not going to know what hit them after the first of the year when I start in on them. In the meanwhile, thank you for setting the record straight.

Immaterial. Better they keep guessing.

It is the first time I ever went to that site.

I had a dispute over some of my writings showing up over there. They're cowards and hide behind a Domain Proxy service so no one can contact them. Their chief apparently heard about all this and contacted me. I offered to settle with them and he refused.

Even after all that, he refused to remove my work from that site. In fact, more of it has shown up since the dispute started. The next step is to subpoena his Domain Proxy company, since by participating in and in fact encouraging copyright infringement, he's in violation of their terms of service. After that, once his information is known to me, I subpoena him for the names and addresses of all people who have copied my material there, so I may serve them and get this ball rolling.

He knows what he needs to do to stop all this, and he's not going to. Oh, well. It's time the conservatives start to learn what happens when we fight back.

That right there proves you are a real salt.
They only think that the Navy is soft duty. Would like to see them in the middle of the ocean, sea sick, knowing that they would not get off this ship for a long time. And knowing that if that ship goes down you are probably going down with it.
But let them have It they are just blowhards.

Theh look for a few Pearl Harbor vets.

Worth listening to if you can find them.

were just a bunch of wusses. Swimming with the sharks for five days, no big deal. So what, their Ship was torpedoed out from under them and took a third of the crew to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Did they really do anything daring? I truly marvel at conservative logic.

'Shellback' has me scratching my head (I've forgotten), but I do understand the term 'plank owner' and I'm not anywhere near military in nature, training, or location.
And how did that come about?

two words-
Richard. Marcinko.

something I did twice while serving. It is used to distinguish a "salty" sailor. Being well traveled and experienced. Until you're a shellback, your just a "wog", as in tadpole. :) It's a Navy right of passage if you will.

Plankowner is a reference to being a member of a commissioning crew on a new ship. I was with the ship in the shipyard in Bath, Maine. Went through all the test runs, qualifications, and other work associated with getting a ship seaworthy and ready for service.

Olafr

and his sidekick Dick 'Five Deferments" Cheney.

They don't have any use for real patriots, or real people who did time in the real armed service.

They love to trash real vets, and do so in full-scale campaigns.

Is that their idea of patritotism? Sneer.

They love their Commander AWOL and his chickenhawk sidekicks.

What's that all about? Anal Cysts of the brain?

Freepers = Pharisees

I can honestly say I have never heard anything like that in my life!

To the OP: Thank you for your service.

Salute

...why even bother engaging them?

coward and say nothing. It may not have accomplished anything other than allowing me to have my say on the matter. It is like catching people talking behind your back and confronting them on it.

Olafr

...what they say about wrestling with pigs. :D

For those interested, this is my first post that they commented on.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4797639

Olafr

God Bless you, fair winds and following seas. Enjoy a little Peace now!

but Merry Christmas anyway.
Nice job responding to that post. You showed amazing restraint.

Because the only combat, in fact the only service, O'Reilly ever saw was at the movies.

His verbatim statement is bluster. He never served, like most republicon blowhards, including Rush L.

O'Reilly's just another republicon chickenhawk who never served his country, who likes to put down real VETS who do not Bend Over and Assume the Radical Republicon positions, and who wants to send other people's sons and daughters off to fight an Oil Profits War in Iraq to enrich the corrupt republicon cronies.

I fart not in his general direction, but in his blowhard chickenhawk face.

Tell that to my Uncle.He was a beach master on a beach on a fine June morning in 1944.He watched boat load after boat load of the Big Red One get slaughtered before they even reached shore and still tried to do his job.(Hard to direct traffic on a beach when the people He was to direct were dieing all around Him).
There are NO wimps in the Navy!

If you're opinions are different than theirs, they slam your service and call you names.