Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for July 08, 2010

We had a really cute little bomb dog; we called him Sergeant Yorkie.

You “didn’t do much of anything”? You learned and survived, Mel. That’s not bad in my book.

According to surveys, most women attribute their failures to themselves and their victories to their environment, while with men, it’s the other way round. Time to change that, girls.

Oh, I don’t know about that. C’mon, Joe, we were in the service around the same time. Back when AFVN had those cheesy patriotic spots about the “American Fighting Man,” you ever think you’d see the day where women soldiers were so ubiquitous there’d be comics with women grunts chewing the fat?

She earned it, and hopefully inside she knows it. She does good work and is proud of that; and that is probably what earned her her promotion. Maybe she’s trying to settle both herself and her friend down some? Trying to keep feeling like a “regular” grunt? No idea. But she EARNEDher promotion!!

I don’t care what anyone says, you have to earn that E-5 in any branch, it is not automatic.

If you don’t take the tests, you don’t make the rank.

Hopefully this increase in rank (accompanied by an increase in responsibility, accountibility, and authority) will give Mel that shot of confidence that she needs. Otherwise, it could just be one stress too many. Her positive attitude thus far is encouraging.

Pbarnrob:

Is your 2B still working? K7WLD Wenatchee, WA

I was sitting at my dest when the Lt walked in and told the SGT he was 1 SP5 short. I just turned around and said I have time in grade as a SP4. I was the biggest screwup in our unit but the three of us were the only ones in the room at that time. I got the promotion. The army didn’t care who it promoted. Turkey, 1965. P.S. The guy that deserved it was in the latrine. Tough sh*t in more ways than one.

NAGUT “According to studies” Oh boy,”they” said. Who, Psychology Today, “Oprah Magazine” Cosmo, or High Times. Sounds awful slanted to me. One sex takes responsibility, the other sex blames everyone else. Did Gloria or Betty do the research? People sure have sexist attitudes. Feminist Now is full of scientific research

You know what’s unfair? Men got drafted, women didn’t “Oh, after my school deferment I can always get pregnant.”

Sure wish I could find some products manufactured in CHINA and Netherlands. That’s what I need.

Good commanders build up the surprise and announce it to all in a promotion ceremony at formation. Really creative CO’s do the ceremony in an unusual venue. Perhaps Mel could have been promoted in an airborne chopper on a “mission”?

My SGT promotion in the Marines was held inside a security bubble in an Embassy. No pics available though.

I made E-5 because the sergeant before me got killed. They were called “blood stripes”. I don’t know about this “time in grade” stuff-I went to RVN as an E-2 and came home eleven months later as an E-5. Guess it depends on when and where you are.

1967 - lance corporal. 1970 - sergeant.

Helecopter mechanics, as valuable as they are, are NOT grunts. That sobriquet is reserved for Marine infantry derived from a little dust-up in the early 50s in Korea. Because of the nature of our culture, other critters have adopted the use but the name belongs where it belongs.

No, I was not a grunt. I went to the bush with the grunts. Teh bush after March, 1968, being the Arizona, Charlie Ridge, Happy Valley, Que Son Valley, Rocket Alley, and on and on.

If you were out there and there were some odd looking people carrying a big (one piece per person) heavy (50 lb) radio that actually took a whole section to carry then you probably were somewhere near me. Especially if you needed some 8-inch gunfire or, in the summer of 69, some flying Volkswagens.

Always wanted to be a grunt until the radio section with Mike, 3/9 at Con Thien. From that date on I was very happy to be the section pack mule, on occasion visiting the bush with the likes of 2/5, 1 and 2/7, Korean Marines, 1 and 3/1, 3/7, 5th Marines, 7th Marines, once with the 505th in April, 1968, and an Air Cav one I can’t remember the number of during May-June, 1968 West of Evans’

My foolishness with runnin’ with the grunts ended with the CAP in two villes and then to the school on China Beach to teach newbies how to not panic using the radio to ask for, ummm, assistance.

Nope, never was a grunt. Wannabe grunt, but never a real one. Scared sh by them more than a few times but never really one. Shared some Ham and Mo* with them a few times too.

Made Sgt because of ability to survive by finding leaves and pebbles to hide under.

legacyshooter,,,,,, Thanks for sharing. I had a friend who became a radioman in the 7th Cav pre-Nam. Running 7 miles each morning carrying that radio made him into quite a man. I almost didn’t recognize him when we met up. He was muscle on muscle. It takes a h**ck of a man to do what you did. You deserved the extra pay and then some. I turned down promotions several times, telling the Captain I was a civilian.

Mel is happy to get what she knows was virtually an automatic promotion. Her satisfaction shows that she has grown up and has come to realize that the army, like everything else, is imperfect but not on that account worthless.

Our civil discourse would gain immeasurably if we adopted GT’s satirical optimism (or can it be called healing cynicism?) when we debate policy. A great virtue of irony is that it reminds your opponents, as well as yourself, that we both have more to lose than to gain by rudely ending the debate.

For instance, the preceding comment [deleted; Doakwinston purported to say what “all of Tucson” thinks of Obama] shuts off debate while slandering, at the same time, the IQ of Tucsonians. Clowns who don’t really want to be answered, like Doakwinston and horce manure, should confine their opinions to bumper stickers.

Doakie: Your postings suggest that If you saw combat in Vietnam forty years ago, then you ought to have yourself checked for senile dementia. The U.S. takes care of its veterans. (See today’s NYT article at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/us/08vets.html?hpw)

(I wouldn’t take this guy seriously until he manages to say something pertinent. He’s obviously trying to rile up the vets who contribute to the forum. Unless he’s really a disabled vet like Toggle, he’s just an inarticulate clown. Who’s going to be the first to flag him?)

doakwinston -

please don’t be disrespectful to veterans, whether they saw combat or not (a lot of those who did didn’t live to tell the tale).

and, pardon the civics lesson, but the census is mandated by the constitution to assure that the US government is more or less representative of the people.

besides, the mountains of paperwork that the census generates was a major factor in the development of the very machines you are abusing now to make your comments - computers :)

I think Doakwinston has spiked his tea with some rot gut whiskey.

Looks like GoComics caught up with DW just as he was running out of printable words.

As Hamlet says, “The rest is silence.”

Good night, sweet doakwinston; may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest—-presumably in Tombstone, AZ.

I spent 4 years in the army and never did 1 days work. I mean nothing except KP during boot and one night just before getting out manning the office. I guess they were training me for a government job.

yeh, just putting in the time– time doing difficult, responsible,important work competently. there may be more to it than that in some cases. i made e-6 primarily just for re-enlisting. but would not have if i had not had decent proficiency/conduct marks as an e-5. i feel some empathy with Mel as i was also in aircraft maintenance although in the Marines.

Between 1943-45 (if family lore is correct), my father made corporal three times and sergeant once.

(And was discharged as a pfc. Something about the orderly room fire extinguisher and the first sergeant’s shoes).

@Joe; that wasn’t a broadcast-band radio he mentioned, methinks ;-)

^bp; once on a deployment to Yuma, I met a lance corporal with a chestful of ribbons on his trops; he’d been bouncing around from PFC to Sgt and back several times, usually to do with barfights in the E-club or in town…

@K7WLD; I’d imagine that Drake 2B is still going, but sadly, in somebody else’s station now. We compared its tunable passband feature vs. a Collins S-Line at N0EFB in DaNang in ‘66; it did a better job on a woman’s voice in phone-patching.

My Sgt. stripes were mostly from my primary MOS, 6236, Aero-1A Fire Control in the old Phantom F4-B’s. Didn’t pick up the secondary 8981, MARS Operator, until my second tour, when I didn’t have to work two jobs to keep pro-pay…

Holy mackerel, more Hams. I’ve run into 7 or 8 others here at gocomics. Drake 2B, great receiver. I remember that on certain bands you could tune the preselector and get another band. That’s how a friend got WWV on 15 MHz. I think he used the forty meter band for that. The IF must have been half way between them. You could also add bands by getting more crystals for the local oscillator. Real late here in S Florida so see y’all later and 73.

Armed Forces Vietnam Network, Joe.

Eh, I was a cannoncocker with the 7th of the 15th; we had radios. :>

“^bp; once on a deployment to Yuma, I met a lance corporal with a chestful of ribbons on his trops; he’d been bouncing around from PFC to Sgt and back several times, usually to do with barfights in the E-club or in town…”

yeah, back in the days when you could still see 20 year corporals…I think I saw my last one in ‘80.

I’ve never heard an explanation of why the Army did away with the rank of Specialist Fifth Class, the last of the spec grades above E-4 to go.