Can we agree that Bush was right? ...Finally?

36 years huh? how did he avoid the "up or out" policy in regards to promotions? promoted 3 whole times in 36 years? no, sorry. the army doesnt keep you around if you arent motivated to advance in the officers corps to a point. now, if u had at least made him a ltc, i mighta not thought about the rest.

If your in some elite fighting force(rangers, green beret, airborne), they may not allow it, but if your in supply you could probably get waivers for your whole career.

Codeword: Maverick

In military parlance, a "maverick" is an officer who was previously enlisted.

Typically a maverick is a senior NCO (non-commissioned officer) who gets a degree (often through a military education program), qualifies to become a commissioned officer and receives a commission.

Thus a soldier could become say, a master sergeant, get a degree and become a second lieutenant -- starting at the bottom of the officer scale, but having some serious chops as a guy who made it to the top of the enlisted ladder.

Mavericks tend to be respected by officers and enlisted alike, because it is generally understood that a second lieutenant with 20+ years of service may know a little bit more about his trade than a butterbar straight out of the academy.

A maverick could very well serve honorably and with distinction both as an enlisted soldier and as an officer, and retire as a major -- probably as a "gimme" after having served as a company commander with the rank of captain.

So I don't see anything necessarily implausible about that aspect of the story.

Bush has learned alot during his presidency, now he is his own man.

Rant,

Do you know something I don't know?

Gah... Internet is acting up again.. I'm sorry.

[edit on 25-2-2006 by LostSailor]

You guys all seem to know a good deal about the service. I know jack. But what if this guy was in the reserves?

What Makes The World Go Round

Originally posted by Damocles
unless you consider basic economics. people like their money. if he was at least an E-5 with over 10 years...taking a commission would result in a pay cut for several years. and honestly...most career NCO's despise officers so it is a fairly rare thing to see a CAREER NCO get a commission.

I remember there being an issue with that long ago, but it looks like they fixed it. The pay scale is based on cumulative years of service, not time in grade.

According to the pay chart, a senior NCO can count on a pay raise in addition to the other perks that go with being an officer -- which are considerable.

Aside from the better housing, I don't recall being served with real silverware and crystal goblets in the NCO club. Plastic pitchers of cheap beer was more like it -- and admittedly, us NCOs liked our beer cheap and plentiful.

They even introduced the "E" grades for commissioned officers who had at least 4 years and a day as warrant officers and/or enlisted, and they get quite a nice little cushion for their trouble, it would seem.

So unless I'm quite mistaken, that problem has been resolved, and money is actually an incentive for going gold.

Thus a 36-year major is still not implausible -- although I will agree that there is plenty to doubt with respect to other aspects of the story.

Just sayin'.




Oh, and yeah. Maybe add some reserve time in there at the end.


[edit on 2/27/2006 by Majic]

May give him away but he was a colonel in the regulars and a major in the reserve. Hope that helps.

Ask The Experts

Originally posted by Damocles
either the guys they got to rig that det. are GODS of demo and i dotn know near as much as i think i do. (and i like to think that after 12 years i got at least kinda good at it....but i could be wrong and im willing to concede that point) ORRRRRRRRRR a plane hit each of the buildings and after nearly 90 mins of burning the steel got weak and gave out in a catostrophic failure.

Sorry bud, but 12 years of hands-on demolitions experience is no match for 12 hours of watching doctored video and googling the Internet for “alternative media sources”.

If you want to build a solid reputation in the conspiracy community, you need the kind of real world online credentials that can back you up when the chips are down, and that means putting in long hours of hunching over a keyboard, squinting at grainy WMVs, fanatically championing any theory other than the official one and backing up your opinions with links to other conspiracy sites that promote the same unique views you and everyone else in the “alternative media movement” have in common.

And God forbid you should disagree with any of those views, because that means you're a government disinformation agent, a New World Order provocateur, an alien -- or the worst and most loathsome possibility of all, the absolute lowest of the low, the most primitive form of life known to “free thinkers”: a sheeple.

Meanwhile, my point stands that we can not agree that Bush was right, because too many people have different ideas of what is right, as conclusively demonstrated in this thread and thousands like it.

That's okay , Majic!

Someday Bush will be huddled on his ranch with his $millions of stolen gold and the admiration of millionares everywhere, but we of the alt view will have our comradery while on the soup kitchen line at least.

Viva la Revolution!





[edit on 3/3/2006 by bodebliss]

Ask The Experts

Originally posted by Damocles
either the guys they got to rig that det. are GODS of demo and i dotn know near as much as i think i do. (and i like to think that after 12 years i got at least kinda good at it....but i could be wrong and im willing to concede that point) ORRRRRRRRRR a plane hit each of the buildings and after nearly 90 mins of burning the steel got weak and gave out in a catostrophic failure.

And this is your opinion based upon your knowledge and skills from 12 years in the industry. But as difficult a project as the demo of these towers may seem to be I would suggest that the odds of the two towers collapsing as they did due to separate airplane impact are much higher than that they would collapse identically due to a planned event such as a demolition. It is the uniformity/identicality of the event that raises my suspicions as much as deliberate govt. obfuscation.

Originally posted by MajicSorry bud, but 12 years of hands-on demolitions experience is no match for 12 hours of watching doctored video and googling the Internet for “alternative media sources”.

If you want to build a solid reputation in the conspiracy community, you need the kind of real world online credentials that can back you up when the chips are down, and that means putting in long hours of hunching over a keyboard, squinting at grainy WMVs, fanatically championing any theory other than the official one and backing up your opinions with links to other conspiracy sites that promote the same unique views you and everyone else in the “alternative media movement” have in common.

And God forbid you should disagree with any of those views, because that means you're a government disinformation agent, a New World Order provocateur, an alien -- or the worst and most loathsome possibility of all, the absolute lowest of the low, the most primitive form of life known to “free thinkers”: a sheeple.

Meanwhile, my point stands that we can not agree that Bush was right, because too many people have different ideas of what is right, as conclusively demonstrated in this thread and thousands like it.

I believe that the question was framed to ask whether Bush was right that 'terrorists' are bad guys who need dealing with. But as magic seems to imply, we need to define our terms. Many would argue (including me) that the US govt. and, currently, the Neocons are the biggest and baddest terrorists due to their use of WMD and economic embargo against innocent civilians causing massive death and misery unending. So from my perspective, while I agree that terrorism as generally defined is a 'bad thing', labeling certain groups of people 'terrorist' does not thereby authorize the labeling party or group to take the moral high ground and do terrorist things to those they have labeled.

In other words, the justification used to murder dark skinned foreign people without due process is to label them as 'terrorists'. It is circular illogic fundamentally flawed. And, by that illogic, those whom have lost innocent family members and friends due to the vicious bombing campaign or the unrelenting economic embargo of a decade are justified to identify the American people as 'terrorists' and kill as many as they can. Fortunately, the Iraqi people seem to be much more intelligent than that. So far, anyway.

The life given to the notion that the buildings were brought down by explosives is provided largely by a govt. that has obfuscated at every opportunity and refused, initially, to authorize any sort of investigation and ultimately accept the results of a very poor one at that. One that failed to deal with such issues as why a building untouched by airplanes managed to collapse in the very same manner a full 8 hours after the towers, e.g.

If we had an open govt. which released the video it confiscated and performed an open and serious investigation of the causes of the collapses and the causes of the airliners hitting the buildings in the first place there would be much less momentum giving life and breath to this community of, as you say, free thinkers.

Originally posted by crmanager
This is not an attempt to inflame anyone. This is a point of view that needs to be stated.

The world is at war. Not a religious war or even a political war.

Really????Hmmmmm....sure seems like one to me.

If you guys are talking about WTC 7, it was purposely brought down by demolition charges because it had been weakened to a very unsafe condition by the debris from WTC 1 & 2. If you are not talking about that then I don't have any comment.

Originally posted by Astronomer68
If you guys are talking about WTC 7, it was purposely brought down by demolition charges because it had been weakened to a very unsafe condition by the debris from WTC 1 & 2.

I could be misunderstanding something here, and this may have already been mentioned (I didn't read all 12 pages) but I wanted to point out that it takes weeks and lots of planning to properly set up a building for demolition.

So that means that 'somebody' had some weeks warning that this was going to happen to set up bldg 7... You realize that, don't you? Someone here knew.

Like some have said before you don't have to involve the White House to do 911. You just need high level people in places like the military, CIA, FBI, NSA etc and be part of or friends of the purported secret shadow government.

It is better the less the white house knows in case it leaks out under media pressure. Also you can blame the whole thing on the white house if your kind gets the light exposed to them. This is what is going on right now btw.

Want to know who did 911? follow the money. Who won and who lost is your best guide.

white flag operation on TWO levels here.

Originally posted by Britguy
Have to agree to disagree.

I'd sooner see the politicians who engineered the rest of us into these positions put against a wall and shot

Britguy -

Bravo! I absolutely agree. Be glad you do not live in the US where over half the residents of the country are delusional and proved it by putting a moron in the Oval Office.

No Benevolent Heretic, I don't realize that. I do recall the press talking about the danger to rescue workers should WTC 7 collapse and then they talked about a team being sent in to take it down.

If one wanted to collapse a building in place, without damage to surrounding buildings, then yes, it takes very careful planning and lots of preparation before actually setting off the demolition charges. However, if one doesn't care about damaging surrounding structures and if the building is already almost at the point of collapse, then it doesn't take much time at all.

Are you saying that WTC 7 was almost at the point of collapse when they demo'd it? Because if you are I have to say that building looked pretty solid to me until the moment it fell in an identical manner as the towers at free fall speed right into its own footprint.

I enjoyed this article.

World trade center 7 was a 47 story skyscraper located about 100 yards north of the north tower. It was a large building by any standard, occupying an entire city block and housing many private and government offices including the city of NY emergency command bunker, the FBI, and the CIA. In most cities WTC7 would be the largest building in town by far. At 5:20 on the afternoon of 9/11 the building collapsed into its own footprint, with the exterior walls on top of the rubble pile, without causing significant damage to adjacent buildings.

There is absolutely no question that WTC7 was brought down with controlled demolition. The demolition was witnessed by hundreds of people, filmed from dozens of angles, including sound recordings of the explosions. The building was evacuated and an area was cordoned off around the building in anticipation of the demolition. People in the area were advised to "get ready, it's coming down". Numerous witnesses have given testimony of seeing the flashes and hearing the "pops" as explosions went off bringing down WTC7. The owner of the building, Larry Silverstein, gave the go-ahead, as he recounted later in a PBS documentary,

"I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, "We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it. And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse." (listen here)

Not even the 9/11 Commission report disputes the fact that WTC7 came down by controlled demolition, they simply dodge the issue by failing to mention WTC7 anywhere in the 400+ page report.

Since WTC7 came down by controlled demolition, what about WTC1 and 2? If one of the WTC buildings was demolished with pre-planted explosives wouldn't it be prudent to investigate whether the towers were demolished with explosives as well?

It takes WEEKS to plan and setup to "pull" a building with controlled demolition. It certainly can't be accomplished in a few hours among the chaos of 911 while the building is on fire. The explosives had to have been placed in advance and no one suggests that Osama's gang could have put them there.

The demolition of WTC7 cannot be made to fit within the official conspiracy theory so it must be denied.

Wow, they made the decision to "pull it" and were able to do so perfectly in a matter or hours. Spectacular work.

Explosive Collapses

Originally posted by Damocles
i wont even pretend to know whats up with wtc7...but i stand by my own assessment of wtc1 and wtc2.

I haven't seen anything all that credible which supports a WTC 1/2 demolition theory, so I tend to agree with you regarding the unlikelihood of that.

WTC 7 is another can of worms entirely.

Speaking personally, I remember being under the impression on 9/11/2001 that WTC 7 was deliberately brought down by explosives, based on the news I was watching on TV and listening to on the radio.

Maybe I was mistaken, but that's the impression I got from the news: that WTC 7 was "pulled", and that impression has stayed with me to this day.

But I could be wrong, you could be wrong, any of us could be wrong -- and to some extent, all of us are wrong.

Collateral Damage

In my opinion, the biggest problem facing most 9-11 conspiracy theorists is their tendency to lose sight of the very real fact that they could be wrong.

They get intrigued by a theory, become obsessed with it, then begin to see only evidence which supports it, and ignore or deride evidence which does not.

The consequences of this phenomenon are pathetic, tortured souls who live in prisons of self-delusion and become ever more isolated as they alienate and demonize those with differing views -- all while insisting ever more stubbornly on clinging to their beliefs as their emotional investment in them, fueled by frustration, self-righteousness and loss, inflates and takes over their lives.

It's a grim footnote to a grim chapter of American history.

Granted, not every 9-11 theorist falls into this trap, but far too many do, and evidence of this tragic syndrome abounds.

In any case, I think the specifics of 9-11 conspiracy theory are best reserved for the 9/11 & 7/7 Conspiracies forum -- although admittedly, the differences between that forum and the Slug-Fest forum are often little more than cosmetic.

In fact, in many cases, I think the discussion in the Slug-Fest forum is better-informed and more polite.

I Can't Believe You People!!

You're trying to decide whether or not Bush was right to invade Iraq...based on whether or not HE WAS THE ACTUAL ATTACKER OF THE TWIN TOWERS??

Let's base it on the football field-sized mass graves! Let's base it on the fact that WE FOUND cyclotron parts and missile parts for the Al-Huessein missile. Yes, it existed! Most importantly, let's base it on the FIFTY TONS of yellow cake we found!