I've only been active on this forum for a short period of time and already your posts have made it clear to me why you have so much difficulty. <<snip due to word count>> Yes, it is true, I only retired as a major. However, I also made E-5p in only four years prior to the sixteen that I served as an officer. However, I do not have to justify my E/O grade to you.
While you belittle my service, I was combat injured on a patrol. I wrote two letters that day. I am willing to bet that you have never had to write a letter. <<snip>>
<<snip>> I am not sure what your rank was when you retired from the service, if you retired but I feel sorry for those who were in your command. I am sure every day they thought about just how they could frag you and get away with it. When you walked away, I am sure they were muttering under their breath.
There is little doubt in my mind that if you were in the field at all, it was in an air conditioned CP, while those under your command stood watch outside in the heat. Good day.
Well Major and with all due respect, while Barry Sadler wuz his own kind of hard case I've read a couple of your posts that present hard luck stories about why you did not get promoted. All the same, you made major for which I congratulate you because it is a significant rank to attain. In Army combat commands getting major is a very big deal indeed. That you started out as EP for four years and got passed over three times (as captain) is not a matter of shame but rather of circumstance and it is situational.
When I was commissioned butterbar in 1966 the Army-wide promotion schedule for all junior officers with a baccalaureate was 1-1-2 (one-one-two for the unitiated, just as infantry is 11 one-one and artillery is 13 one-three etc). One year as 2Lt, one year as 2LT, two years as captain. After my four years obligation I got out as captain and after two years in grade, same as the qualified others. For those captains who stayed in, which were a good number of 'em, they then had to deal with the profound challenges of being promoted to major. Of course, the higher up we go the fewer availabilities there are for promotion. Additionally, and I only make mention of it for the record because you and others well know, while a battalion needs one LTC (possibly two), a btn needs eight or ten captains (or even a few more), and many more lieutenants than captains.
You seem unaware as a recent active poster I was in the Army ceremonial unit at Ft. Myer Va across the Potomac for all 48 months of my active duty service. The unit is of course the 3rd Infantry Regiment, The Old Guard of the Army. It was activated in 1784 and is the Army's oldest active infantry regiment. I was there 7/66 to 7/70 which was during the Vietnam War. Curiously, I was asked once while I was a 2LT if I wanted to go to VN and I of course said no. I was asked again as a 1LT and I said what they expected me to say, which was of course no. I was not asked after I got promoted captain. I say curious because while orders to ship out to VN came down on 3rd Infantry, others such as myself never received orders but, rather, we were asked if we wanted to go. Even more curiously, Army accepted our decision, which was not to go.
Bizarre indeed but true. The trick was that Army did not want to dissemble The Old Guard so it limited the number of orders to ship out to VN. Further, Army did targeted asking, i.e., it inquired of officers and some nco who everyone including the higher ups knew were against the war or who were dubious at best about the war. The small number of such officers -- to include myself -- were welcome to remain in TOG as most of us were the most involved in being the ceremonial soldiers the Army idealized for Old Guard membership, duties, command. Thus there was a confluence and Army played it.
As the war went on the Army (and Marine Infantry) had a serious problem getting enough junior officers to fill command positions in VN. The mortality rate was horrendous, and this was true for infantry especially although I take nothing away from artillery (or armor which of course was deployed in VN but nonetheless had limited utility in the climate).
Life expectancy of a 2LT of infantry in VN was six months. It wasn't much better for 1Lt or Captain either.
In TOG we did not argue about the War in Vietnam, not EP and not officers either. Some spoke openly they wanted to ship over to fight the war but no one said he didn't want to go -- unless in the rare instance of being asked verbally, one on one, and ever so informally off the record but for keeps. In each instance of an officer being asked, it was by your company commander in his office with the door closed. In TOG company commanders kept their office door open except for certain specified and limited circumstances or situations as governed by guidelines written by the regiment and signed off on by the colonel.
