On Fri, 1 Sep 2017 07:09:52 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Thursday, August 31, 2017 at 6:59:42 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 31 Aug 2017 06:26:36 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 7:32:43 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 08:04:32 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Tuesday, August 29, 2017 at 6:52:08 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 29 Aug 2017 08:45:25 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Monday, August 28, 2017 at 5:35:31 PM UTC-7, Tim McNamara wrote:
On 8/28/2017 11:43 AM, wrote:

Every war since WW I was gone into from a Democrat President while
the Democrat party has been accusing Republicans of being war
mongers.

Hmm. Many of the wars the US was involved in were the reuslts of
treaty obligations and critical US interests, the roots of whihc
typically predated the president in office at the time (whether
Republican or Democrat) the shooting started.

Just to pick a few that started shooting under Republican presidents
post WW 1: The Lebanon Crisis (Eisenhower), Lebanese Civil War (Reagan),
invasion of Grenada (Reagan), bombing of Libya (Operation El Dorado
Canyon- Reagan), Operations Earnest Will/Prime Chance in the Persian
Gulf (Reagan), invasion of Panama (GHW Bush), the Gulf War (GHW Bush),
inervention in the Somali civil war (GHW Bush), the war in Afghanistan
(GW Bush), the Iraq War (GW Bush), the war in North-west Pakistan (GW
Bush). That list is not fully comprehensive of all the operations as
some are (Desert Storm, Desert Shield, etc.) are under the larger
umbrella conflicts mentioned above.

There were also conflicts that started under Democratic presidents, but
Tom didn't declare that those didn't happen so I don't need to enumerate
them.

Eisenhower under treaty with France supplied military advisers to French Indochina as Vietnam was called then. Kennedy decided that America would be much better off with a war instead of looking on.

You got it wrong again. In about 1950 the U.S. formed a so called
Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) which managed the supply of
some 10 million dollars in military equipment to support the French
efforts in Vietnam.

MAAG, by the way is simply a term used to denote a group which liaises
with another government's military, that may or may not include
advisers.

As part of this "assistance" the U.S. loaned, lend leased, whatever
you call it, some B-26 aircraft and supplied maintenance crews and
parts for the airplanes, which were stationed at Saigon's airport.
these aircraft were flown by French flight crews.

In addition I believe there were a number of transport aircraft
airplanes.

As far as I know, from friends who were assigned to the B-26 group and
went to Vietnam there were no so called military advisors. U.S.A.F.
people maintained the airplanes and the French flew them.

Since I got that directly from the New York Times you'll have to explain it to them.

If you post a site for the article I would be happy to critique it :-)

I did a bit more reading and the only mention I can find of U.S.
participation prior to 1954 was the use of U.S. aircraft and supply of
military supplies. The U.S. Navy assisted to the extent of delivering
aircraft to the French and in 1954 they assisted the French Navy in
Operation Passage to Freedom, the transportation of N. Vietnamese who
wished to leave the Communist North to go to the South.

But maintenance crews can hardly be called combat troops would it? I never felt I was in the war until I was being shot at. What do you suppose that service cross was for?

What "service cross"? the USAF Distinguished Flying Cross is awarded
for:
Who distinguishes himself or herself in support of operations by
"heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial
flight, subsequent to November 11, 1918"

I don't remember a damn thing about it but I'm told that all those who served in a combat zone received a service cross. I was even shown a ribbon that would normally go on your uniform.

Nope. If you served in a combat area you received a "service medal" to
indicate that you had served in the theater, but that wasn't
considered a "decoration", i.e., something that you got for actually
doing something.

It was more of "I was there, and here's the tee shirt" sort of thing.

You'll have to explain that to the Air Force since I wasn't qualified for it until I went on an actual combat mission. The maintenance people that sat on Guam didn't. It ****ed off the two sargeants that volunteered to go there in order to gain points for being promoted. Not that it made any difference to me since I wasn't going to be promoted anyway.

I think that you are going to be a great deal more specific here.

Being stationed on Guam is not being stationed in Vietnam, thus no
Vietnam Service Medal. If, on the other hand you participated in
"combat" in Vietnam air space then you did qualify.

I'm a bit curious about the two Sergeants who thought that by going to
Guam they somehow earned promotion "points" for just being there as
that certainly wasn't known to the people from Barksdale when "we"
went to Guam for Arc Light.

(I say "we" as my shop chief was having "wife problems" and
volunteered to go and I stayed home to mind the store.)

--
Cheers,

John B.