IV, question: re-up

[Paul Mackin]

On 8/17/2011 2:29 PM, rich wrote:
> thought during Vietnam u were in for a year when u were rotated home
> hence the expression for those guys close to the end of their
> enlistment, "Short Timers"

Here's a nice little story by a guy in Vietnam who was considering 
re-uping but on what turned out to be good advise decided against it.  
It starts off:


I'd been in Vietnam more than a year, first at Tan Son Nhut for about 
nine months and then at Long Binh for four months. I'd already extended 
one month and thirteen days and was being heavily encouraged to re-up 
and extend for another one year tour of duty. The enticements were 
considerable: cash bonus, rank and of course, the chance to continue 
serving my country in a foreign war of liberation. To help liberate an 
oppressed people from the heavy heel of Chinese communism--that argument 
was pure bullshit to me. A better argument would have been--Do you want 
to stay in a situation where you have power totally out of proportion to 
your age, experience, training and rank? Or do you want to go home, take 
off your uniform and be a nobody in a job where you have no autonomy, no 
power, and are surrounded by people who have absolutely no interest in 
where you have been for the past two years or in what you have been doing?

http://www.vietnamwar.net/Willson2.htm
>
> On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 2:23 PM, Paul Mackin<mackin.paul at verizon.net>  wrote:
>> Yes, in WWII you were in "for the duration and six months" as the expression
>> went.
>>
>> No re-uping required.
>>
>> Don't know about Nam where like WW II and Korea there was the Draft.
>>
>>

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