Did you ever meet the son or daughter of a rich person in the military?

[Elwood P Dowd]

After serving my 2 years during Vietnam, my father asked me this question. Even though he was a conservative in many ways, he absolutely hated the military/industrial complex that sent us off to war. He refused to watch war movies and by the time I was drafted, he would turn off the nightly news shows when Vietnam clips came on the tube.

The only rich kids I met in the Army were a couple of spoiled brats in my basic training unit that were from the National Guard going through their obligatory 6 months of active duty. Thinking back, they remind me of George Bush - little pompous dickheads who talked about their daddy and their money. They had exactly ZERO friends!

That's who we have running our country today - a little pompous dickhead who would have ZERO friends if he were stuck in a basic training unit, and his name was Smith.

[CaTeacher]

1. yes, I know an extremely wealthy family.

They have only two children, both are sons and both of them served in the military--4 years for one, 6 for the other. That was their active duty--both of them did reserves for a while after that.

BTW, the older son served active duty during the gulf war. The younger son served during some of the Clinton conflicts and was put on some very dangerous missions. These people were quite rich--but they were not as rich as the Kennedy's or Kerry's and those children served.....

So--yes, some children of the rich do go in as well.

[Philostopher]

2. I remember two, back in the early eighties.

My first husband was in the Air Force, and there didn't appear to be any immediate danger of any action any enlisted guys in the Air Force would wind up intimately involved in. There were two different guys, one who was okay but a little dim and the other was a prick from Texas nobody could stand. I don't remember if he nicknamed other people, and if I remember correctly he didn't have the patience to stick with college (and he wasn't even athletic enough to have been a cheerleader), but otherwise he could have been a Bush* family member, right down to the 'I don't care what you think' smirk. He'd lost his driver's license in Texas over one too many DUIs -- so many his blood with money couldn't buy him out of them anymore -- so as punishment, his daddy told him he could enlist or he'd be kicked out of the house and lose all financial support. He chose the Air Force because he thought it would be easy. It was, relatively, I suppose -- I can't imagine he'd have had a very easy time in the 'real world' if he'd had to go on his charm. Don't know what ever happened to him, but he always reminded me of Milo Minderbinder from Catch-22. He's probably selling used cars in Irving, Texas right about now, talking about how scared he is Kerry might win the election.

[DemBones DemBones]

3. Only one, and I think he was there because he

was trying to find himself. His parents may well have made him go in. My dad was career Navy so I knew a lot of military people over the years but only remember that one guy, who married a friend of mine.

Of course, John Kerry was evidently from a fairly wealthy family and he chose to serve, as did the Kennedys. Military service since WW II hasn't been as popular, though, and when things started heating up in Viet Nam, those who could get out of it usually did.

[Racenut20]

4. Roger Staubach. And another one in the Seabees

His father was one of Senator Henry Jackson's law partners in Seattle. Was on a two year active, 3 year meeting type of contract the Navy offered then.

[ThomWV]

5. Yes

During my first (of three) tour in Viet Nam I served with a fellow named Roy T. (I have no right to post his last name) who was from South Texas and from a very wealthy family. In fact while serving at a place called Dak To, on the Cambodian border in 1967 Roy got news in the mail (from lawyers) informing him that he had been given just a bit over two million dollars from the estate of his grandmother. At that time he had a month or two left to go on a 4-year enlistment. This might surprise you but from that moment forward virtually everyone in the rather small unit we served with at the time protected Roy. The place where we were was the target of daily rocket and mortar attacks, snipers were a problem as well. Roy's job confined him to the fire base but even there it was hardly what anyone would call safe. We got his meals for him, he didn't have to be the one in the morning to walk out to the chopper pad to see if there was a mail bag. We kept that boy out of the open. Do you want to know why? It was because deep inside each of us knew that he was the only one of us who really had much of anything to go home to.

[tkmorris]

6. Only once

When serving at NAS Sigonella (Sicily, Italy) I met the brother of Harry Anderson, star of the television show Night Court. Hell I dunno, maybe he himself wasn't rich, all I know for certain is he was damned sick of people noticing him because of his brother.