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2011-12-01 -Short Attention Span Theater-

Longest Serving Airman Retires, From Age 17-60

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Posted by Anonymoose 2011-12-01 13:12|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top

#1 As a former SAC weenie ("To err is human, to forgive is not SAC policy."), kudos and thanks to General Flowers. Obviously entered as an enlisted man and "bootstrapped" himself into the Officer Corps (How do you pronounce that again?)....

Posted by Uncle Phester 2011-12-01 14:31|| 2011-12-01 14:31|| Front Page Top

#2 I saw another story that appeared recently in several locations that awed me:

A wonderful story about a Marine who was one of the last to leave the Embassy in Saigon, and is still serving as an E-6 Psyops soldier in Afghanistan. A Doctor in the civilian world no less, and still runs his 2 mile in just over 12 minutes!

Staff Sgt. Don Nicholas disproves the old refrain: Old soldiers do not, in fact, fade away. They re-enlist.

At 59, Sgt. Nicholas is the oldest of the 6,000 soldiers in the 25th Infantry Division in eastern Afghanistan, the Army says. And he is probably one of the very few Vietnam vets now back for more in Afghanistan. He's certainly the only one who saw first-hand the ugly end of that war from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon.

"It's really not a fascination with war itself," Sgt. Nicholas explains. "It's more trying to keep people from getting killed. I'm taking the spot of some 19-year-old."

Raised in Magnolia, Ohio, Sgt. Nicholas dropped out of high school and joined the Marines in 1971, expectingalmost hopingto go to Vietnam. At the time he was a believer in the domino theory. He remembers telling a local TV reporter at the recruiting station that he didn't want his children "living under communism."

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Posted by JohnQC 2011-12-01 16:03|| 2011-12-01 16:03|| Front Page Top

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