Ok, I've had about all I can take wading through the posts about the Swift Boat Veterans or Kerry's crew or the countless dirges by some wacked out old Viet Nam vet as if any of them made a damned difference in my opinion of the two major candidates.

Here's my take on military personnel and it's clouded by my own experience from my 6 year stint in the Navy in the late 70's. Now I was not in the military during wartime and never exposed to enemy fire so there may be a completely different vibe going on during those times, but I feel I have a very good idea of the makeup of our military personnel.

In all of life you generally make a judgment about the people that surround you, what percentage you fit in with and trust and what percentage you tend to stay distant from. I can tell you that in the military, the good group maybe made it to the 10 - 15% category where in most other groups I've had experience with, there's probably 25 - 30% you can put up with. The part of the military group I remained distant from were a pretty hard-core, nasty bunch. A great many were alcoholics. Most were extreme rednecks, easily provoked and had very little intellectual diversity. From what I observed, patriotism was not a motivation in their enlistment but rather an escape from the rigors of general life and the competition it gave. When talk came about war and killing, the more mellow group seemed to understand the risks and responsibilities we had accepted and did not look forward to being tested. The redneck majority however, seemed to have a bloodlust for the fight. They easily branded others around the world as beneath them and deserving of whatever justice our military strength could mete out. Fine ambassadors for the American ideal.

So let's cut this crap about any of these jokers having any more credibility than any other American. From my own experience, if someone says they were in the military (especially if they liked it), they generally lose points. That applies to the guys knocking Kerry as much as the ones supporting him. To me, the whole thing is a wash. There's too much power to be gained from the veterans going public on both sides to give them any claim to the truth and anyone that blindly follows either group is just plain gullible. Probably the truth (as always) lies somewhere in the middle. Kerry probably did some soldier-like stuff on that boat, a mixture of heroics and just plain ass-protecting and his personality was more than likely on the cuff between the intellectuals and the rednecks. The Navy probably embellished the whole incident for not only Kerry but all the other blowhards claiming the high ground. Remember how the military was grossly overinflating body counts at the time.

Kerry can't be faulted for playing the story cause that's what the country expects of politicians during this time of national panic and it's a necessary political weapon to have a chance at winning over a sitting president during wartime. Had GWB served in Viet Nam he'd be embellishing his crap too right now. Obviously he got some strings pulled during his military career. The funny thing is I could care less about where or how Bush served. For any of us here on the board that were draftable age during the Viet Nam conflict you know what a horrible concern that was. I'm not so sure what my actions would've been had I had a low number in the lottery. How can I fault Bush for finding a way out of it? I'm not the same man I was in my early life. Neither are Bush and Kerry. Let's rate them for who they seem to be today.

So please people, let's let this dumb topic drop and talk about the real issues. Stop buying into the garbage that's been taking over the CE board for the past few weeks. I would hope we're all above this petty shit.