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The Presidential Debate

bobknightfan said:
JUL 13 - 1969 Drove to Bragg & reported to G-2 after my 10-day leave at end of BCT; slept in an open barracks for first & only night; 655 days left in the army
JUL 14 - 1969 Moved into a small, single-wide trailor on Bragg Blvd about 4 miles from post after spending one night in the barracks after coming back from BCT
JUL 16 - 1969 Apollo 11 lifts off with Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin & Michael Collins on its way to the moon for the first-ever manned lunar landing
JUL 17 - 1969 Carolee Acock is born in North Wilkesboro, NC (my future daughter-in-law)
JUL 18 - 1969 Ted Kennedy drove off a Chappaquiddick bridge at night after leaving a party, killing Mary Jo Kopechne
JUL 20 - 1969 Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes first man to walk on the moon
JUL 24 - 1969 The Apollo 11 crew returns to Earth after a successful trip & the first manned moon landing
JUL 26 - 1969 Frank Bristow (my WF roommate) writes a letter to his parents from Dong Tam; tells of making E4, getting letter from me, his unit stand down & awaiting orders to leave Vietnam
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Thanks. I think this is very cool, especially the part about your buddy in Vietnam.
 
BobStackFan4Life said:
Thanks. I think this is very cool, especially the part about your buddy in Vietnam.
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He died from cancer on July 13, 2004 at age 58. Could very well have been related to agent orange. Nobody will ever know, but the 9th Division was operating out of Dong Tam in the Mekong Delta below Saigon. There was a lot of agent orange being used for defoliation in the area at that time.
 
bobknightfan said:
He died from cancer on July 13, 2004 at age 58. Could very well have been related to agent orange. Nobody will ever know, but the 9th Division was operating out of Dong Tam in the Mekong Delta below Saigon. There was a lot of agent orange being used for defoliation in the area at that time.
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I wonder how his number came up. Had he already graduated from Wake?
 
I figured if you were in college they'd be much less likely to take you and go for someone like a high school dropout instead.
 
BobStackFan4Life said:
I figured if you were in college they'd be much less likely to take you and go for someone like a high school dropout instead.
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We graduated in 1968. They were taking everyone back then. Frank wasn't married, but I had a 9-week old son when I was drafted. Actually, they gave me a 90-day deferral for my son to be born. I was originally supposed to be drafted on January 31st, 1969 but they delayed it to April 30th. We had 570,000 troops in Vietnam at the time I was drafted. I was just lucky to get an 18-month stabilized slot position at Fort Bragg after BCT or I would have almost certainly been sent to Nam as well. I was one of five guys being interviewed for that job by a crusty old sergeant major who headed up the G-2 section there at the USATCI. It was, without a doubt, the most important job interview I ever had in my life.

ETA: That was before they started the lottery system for selecting draftees.
 
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bobknightfan said:
We graduated in 1968. They were taking everyone back then. Frank wasn't married, but I had a 9-week old son when I was drafted. Actually, they gave me a 90-day deferral for my son to be born. I was originally supposed to be drafted on January 31st, 1969 but they delayed it to April 30th. We had 570,000 troops in Vietnam at the time I was drafted. I was just lucky to get an 18-month stabilized slot position at Fort Bragg after BCT or I would have almost certainly been sent to Nam as well. I was one of five guys being interviewed for that job by a crusty old sergeant major who headed up the G-2 section there at the USATCI. It was, without a doubt, the most important job interview I ever had in my life.

ETA: That was before they started the lottery system for selecting draftees.
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Crazy that they took you even though you had a wife and newborn.
 
BobStackFan4Life said:
Crazy that they took you even though you had a wife and newborn.
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Other than the deaths of my parents, the day I left my wife & baby and got on that bus at the induction center in Asheboro to go to Fort Bragg was the worst day of my life. BCT was the most depressing 9 weeks of my life....especially since I did not know until just before the end of it that I was going to be able to stay at Bragg after BCT. The odds were probably better than 50-50 that I would go to AIT for 8 weeks and then on to Vietnam if that sergeant major had not selected me for that job at G-2.

There is a story behind that, too. I just happened to be in the training cycle that was going to graduate the week when the SGM wanted to select a replacement for one of the guys in his office who was scheduled to ETS 4 weeks after I finished BCT. That gave the other guy 4 weeks to train me to take his place. So I was lucky to be finishing BCT in exactly the right week. There were five companies with 200 men in each training cycle. The SGM sent one of his guys over to Trainee Records to pick out one guy from each of the five companies for him to interview for the job. I didn't find out until much later, but the SGM gave his guy 4 criteria to use when picking out the five guys to be interviewed: 1) He wanted an older guy, not an 18 or 19-year old. (I was 22 at the time); 2) He preferred a married guy, to give him a break; 3) He wanted a guy who scored well on the GT test (IQ) that everyone took at the beginning of BCT; and finally, 4) He preferred a southerner. Evidently, he checked all four boxes with me and I got the job.
 
bobknightfan said:
Other than the deaths of my parents, the day I left my wife & baby and got on that bus at the induction center in Asheboro to go to Fort Bragg was the worst day of my life. BCT was the most depressing 9 weeks of my life....especially since I did not know until just before the end of it that I was going to be able to stay at Bragg after BCT. The odds were probably better than 50-50 that I would go to AIT for 8 weeks and then on to Vietnam if that sergeant major had not selected me for that job at G-2.

There is a story behind that, too. I just happened to be in the training cycle that was going to graduate the week when the SGM wanted to select a replacement for one of the guys in his office who was scheduled to ETS 4 weeks after I finished BCT. That gave the other guy 4 weeks to train me to take his place. So I was lucky to be finishing BCT in exactly the right week. There were five companies with 200 men in each training cycle. The SGM sent one of his guys over to Trainee Records to pick out one guy from each of the five companies for him to interview for the job. I didn't find out until much later, but the SGM gave his guy 4 criteria to use when picking out the five guys to be interviewed: 1) He wanted an older guy, not an 18 or 19-year old. (I was 22 at the time); 2) He preferred a married guy, to give him a break; 3) He wanted a guy who scored well on the GT test (IQ) that everyone took at the beginning of BCT; and finally, 4) He preferred a southerner. Evidently, he checked all four boxes with me and I got the job.
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Sort of experienced the same thing in August of 1990. I had submitted my letter to resign my US Navy commission and was all set to transition to civilian life when Iraq invaded Kuwait. I had a 10 month old son and was looking forward to settling in to a new life with my young family. I got a call from my Operations Officer on a Friday afternoon telling me to come to work on Saturday morning. He also told me to start packing to deploy the following Wednesday. Seven months later I was finally back home. I'm not sure my son recognized me when he and my wife picked me up at the airport. I'll always remember the puzzled look on his face as we drove home.
 
I think this debate is going to be underwhelming. It's like watching a Super Bowl you expect to be high scoring that ends 17-13. Both sides are going to spend a lot of time feeling each other out before going two minute offense near the end. The later debates should be more interesting.
 
Deadbolt said:
I think this debate is going to be underwhelming. It's like watching a Super Bowl you expect to be high scoring that ends 17-13. Both sides are going to spend a lot of time feeling each other out before going two minute offense near the end. The later debates should be more interesting.
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Opinions about both candidates are already pretty firm. I read an article yesterday that polled voters about how much the debate would affect their voting decision. 17% said that it was possible that the debate would change their mind, but only 6% said that there was a strong likelihood that it would.

Voters who are predisposed to support each of the candidates will mostly look for reasons to justify the decision they have already made. All-out attacks by either candidate on the other could be extremely risky as it might well be viewed as a sign of desperation. To use a football term, the game is close to even going into the 4th quarter. You need to avoid making a turnover.
 
Historically, how much does the national needle move on average after the debate?
 
Demonwolverine said:
Historically, how much does the national needle move on average after the debate?
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Not as much as some would think....unless someone makes a big mistake. By this time, all the candidates are pretty adept at "verbal sparring" and "slipping punches".

However, I don't think we have ever had a presidential debate quite like this one, so it's rather hard to handicap.
 
I won't be surprised if Clinton goes very negative. Her campaign sees all the momentum and enthusiasm is with Trump. Fully expect Trump to be terrible.
 
I wonder if Trump will show his binders full of women to the crowd.
 
bobknightfan said:
Other than the deaths of my parents, the day I left my wife & baby and got on that bus at the induction center in Asheboro to go to Fort Bragg was the worst day of my life. BCT was the most depressing 9 weeks of my life....especially since I did not know until just before the end of it that I was going to be able to stay at Bragg after BCT. The odds were probably better than 50-50 that I would go to AIT for 8 weeks and then on to Vietnam if that sergeant major had not selected me for that job at G-2.

There is a story behind that, too. I just happened to be in the training cycle that was going to graduate the week when the SGM wanted to select a replacement for one of the guys in his office who was scheduled to ETS 4 weeks after I finished BCT. That gave the other guy 4 weeks to train me to take his place. So I was lucky to be finishing BCT in exactly the right week. There were five companies with 200 men in each training cycle. The SGM sent one of his guys over to Trainee Records to pick out one guy from each of the five companies for him to interview for the job. I didn't find out until much later, but the SGM gave his guy 4 criteria to use when picking out the five guys to be interviewed: 1) He wanted an older guy, not an 18 or 19-year old. (I was 22 at the time); 2) He preferred a married guy, to give him a break; 3) He wanted a guy who scored well on the GT test (IQ) that everyone took at the beginning of BCT; and finally, 4) He preferred a southerner. Evidently, he checked all four boxes with me and I got the job.
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I can empathize and sympathize that this is one of the worst feelings in the world, bkf. Telling my 3 kids (all under the age of 10 at the time) goodbye at home and then hugging and kissing my wife, with tears in both our eyes, as she left me at the terminal in Greensboro to fly to Fort Benning to deploy to Iraq for a year -- fearing that something could happen to any of us in the year to come -- was the most difficult day of my life.

There are a lot of sad George Jones songs, but "The Closing of the Door" really tears me up every time I hear it, because I know firsthand the emotion behind the lyrics "I've heard the sound of my dear old momma crying And the sound of the train that took me off to war."

My hat is off to all of the men and women (servicemembers and their families) who have lived through that experience multiple times, and keep on serving knowing that it may very likely happen again.
 
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