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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 54 responses total. |
klg
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response 13 of 54:
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Jan 20 11:56 UTC 2006 |
(Is curl saying he finds upper arms funny? Do cold weather shirts make
him depressed?))
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nharmon
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response 14 of 54:
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Jan 20 13:10 UTC 2006 |
Re 12: Bruce, how sucessfull are people who write to senators trying to
get into the military?
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jep
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response 15 of 54:
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Jan 20 13:55 UTC 2006 |
I found resp:12 to be very interesting. Thanks for posting it.
I wonder how e-mails are valued versus written letters? Also, how were
phone calls on issues viewed? Were points of some kind assigned to
different type of communications?
I expect you must have received letters from chronic complainers, and
some people who sent the same letter every day. If letters are blindly
fed into a system, and anyone becomes savvy to that situation, some
people would send 100 letters per day to warp the statistics. How does
a senator or congressman's staff deal with that sort of thing?
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bhoward
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response 16 of 54:
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Jan 20 15:52 UTC 2006 |
Re#14 Nathan, most people writing to a Senator to get into the
military are looking for sponsorship into West Point, Annapolis or
the Air Force Academy. Most are not successful -- not necessarily
because they are not qualified, the positions available are few and
the competition is intense and not surprisingly, the selection
process can become political.
Keep in mind that my position as an intern never brought me anywhere
vaguely close to this process other than possibly forwarding such
letters. What I do know mainly comes from other sources including
my father who went to West Point (Go Army! Beat Navy!)
Re#15 John, email was not a factor at the time. Our only computers
were terminals on Lexis/Nexis which we used to reference passed and
proposed legislation. (may be blanking from the trauma -- it was
horribly primitive compared to what I was used to even from just
my first year at UM :-)
Telegrams and faxes might or might not have been considered important
depending on the source, volume and context in which they were
received -- they were certainly were not a significant factor while
I was there. That said, I was there as an intern and for a short
time.
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jadecat
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response 17 of 54:
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Jan 20 16:38 UTC 2006 |
These days I've been told that unless you include title (Mr, Mrs, Dr,
etc) your letters and e-mails aren't even going to be read.
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klg
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response 18 of 54:
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Jan 20 17:11 UTC 2006 |
Main Entry: 3in tern
Variant(s): also in terne /'in-"t&rn/
Function: noun
Etymology: French interne, from interne, adjective
: an advanced student or graduate usually in a professional field (as
medicine or teaching) gaining supervised practical experience (as in a
hospital or classroom)
What was your advanced supervised practical experience?
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tod
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response 19 of 54:
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Jan 20 17:35 UTC 2006 |
re #14
There are also subcommittee chairs one can communicate with to address
military concerns. While I was in, Sam Nunn's office was very responsive to
my collegues concerns.
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nharmon
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response 20 of 54:
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Jan 20 17:42 UTC 2006 |
When I was getting out of high school and looking for a job with the
military (I was denied for because of a previous knee injury) someone
suggested that I write to my congressman. At the time, I thought doing
so would be futile.
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tod
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response 21 of 54:
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Jan 20 17:44 UTC 2006 |
You could always apply to an agency to be a case officer...i mean..a
contractor, yea, a contractor
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nharmon
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response 22 of 54:
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Jan 20 18:15 UTC 2006 |
I did look into jobs with the NSA for when I graduate from college.
However, that would require living around the Washington DC area. I
don't think that is really for me.
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tod
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response 23 of 54:
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Jan 20 18:36 UTC 2006 |
The military wouldn't be any better.
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happyboy
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response 24 of 54:
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Jan 20 19:14 UTC 2006 |
re20: i thought you were denied because of vision problems.
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nharmon
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response 25 of 54:
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Jan 20 19:38 UTC 2006 |
No, you can still join the military being color-blind. But there are a
lot of jobs you can not perform. I was disqualified because I underwent
ACL reconstructive surgery during my junior year of high school. The
recruiters told me this could be waived, and the USMC recruiter seemed
to be the only one interested in pushing the paperwork to find out. In
the end I did not get a waiver. The Navy recuiter told me that if I
didn't tell anyone, there was no reason for anyone to know.
Re #23: Its a lot easier to pick up and move when you're single and
living with your parents. But in four years when I complete college I
will have a house I am paying for, a wife, and maybe a kid.
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nharmon
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response 26 of 54:
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Jan 20 19:39 UTC 2006 |
Oh yeah, does anyone know what the worse that would have happened if I
had lied about my injury to the Navy and they found out later?
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mcnally
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response 27 of 54:
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Jan 20 19:42 UTC 2006 |
re #25: I wonder if, under the current recruiting shortages, your
application would be handled differently today.
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nharmon
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response 28 of 54:
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Jan 20 19:51 UTC 2006 |
I think the current recruiting shortages are only being experienced in
the Army, with the other three branches meeting recruiting quotas with
no problems. Though, that may change.
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mcnally
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response 29 of 54:
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Jan 20 20:38 UTC 2006 |
re #26: the answer to that would have depended a great deal on the
amount of time between your omission and their discovery and the
quality of your service during that time.
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nharmon
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response 30 of 54:
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Jan 20 20:46 UTC 2006 |
This is just a guess, but I imagine the punishment would range from an
other than honorable discharge to jail time.
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tod
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response 31 of 54:
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Jan 20 21:18 UTC 2006 |
We had a guy who was prior Army and he had his lead sleds(jump wings).
He also brought with him a bad knee that he didn't bother to tell anyone
about. He got a general discharge after a year and a half of physical therapy
and light duty...but he still performed his main duties of sitting at a stool
at a workbench fixing electronics. If he had been deployed to the Middle East
with us, one of us would have killed him in his sleep.
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jep
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response 32 of 54:
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Jan 20 21:54 UTC 2006 |
re resp:31: Yeah, you tough guy, you, you'd have just done him in for
his disability. I'm sure it's a scenario that you went through from
time to time.
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jep
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response 33 of 54:
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Jan 20 21:55 UTC 2006 |
(Todd's tougher than me, no doubt about it. But he's not *that* tough.)
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cross
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response 34 of 54:
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Jan 20 22:24 UTC 2006 |
This response has been erased.
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tod
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response 35 of 54:
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Jan 20 22:27 UTC 2006 |
re #32
If you take "kill" literally, I understand your disbelief. I can attest
to several guys that went home on medivac for being cowboy assholes, though.
You think there isn't friendly fire in Iraq? Think again.
Guys who go off to war all gung-ho scare those around them and nobody wants
some jackass dooming them to a firefight at inopportune moments.
Here's a real life example:
We had this guy who went to NROTC at Penn State and flunked out his 4th year
so they shoved him into our platoon as a corporal. He wouldn't shut up. He
thought he was all that cuz he'd been in NROTC. All he did was bitch that he'd
spent 6 years enlisted(2 active then 4 NROTC) and how he felt he should be
at least a sergeant. He also had these fantasies he couldn't keep to himself
about "winning a purple heart" as if getting wounded is something to brag
about. Well, this guy had vision problems and rather than reporting them he'd
snuck and lied his way around it cuz he didn't want to have to wear the
BC's(birth control glasses ala buddy holly style.)
Well, genius boy got me and him lost one night in our Hummer and we wound up
in Iraq. I had to lead the hummer back walking in front of it through a
fuckin minefield no doubt and up to a US Army command post bunker where I
almost got my head blown off.
I cracked this dude in the head the next night with the front sight post of
my rifle and punched him out. He had a nice big fat shiny black eye for a
few weeks after that and he kept his mouth shut. They sent him to the rear
with the gear cuz others piped up they didn't want the same kind of adventures
he brought down on me.
If you don't think I'm that kind of a bastard when my life depends on it then
think again numbnuts.
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tod
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response 36 of 54:
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Jan 20 22:29 UTC 2006 |
re #34
Yes, the guy was a shitbird. If he'd got corrective lenses, made it known
to everyone, and then wasn't assigned anything where his disability was a
liability then it probably would have been a non-issue. The fact that he was
Rambo in his head didn't help him any.
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nharmon
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response 37 of 54:
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Jan 20 23:00 UTC 2006 |
I had never gone to MEPS. The Marine Corps recruiter had me sign some
paper work releasing my medical files. The decision on a waiver was made
only by looking at the files.
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