Chris, are you sure you aren't Scandinavian? Being this morose this early is depressing.
Hah! Ya Pup! Time goes even faster! Yer slidin' downhill fast now! Hah!
On a less despondent note, may you and yours have a good new year!
"Remember back to the future, in 1985; when he went back to 1955... yeah, that's 1979 to right now..."
OMG, that is the best line you've ever uttered! My sides hurt! Stolen for sig...
Chris,
Congrats on the marriage. Mine will reach 24 years in May. Sigh... 
May you and your family have a wonderful and prosperous New Year!
And yeah, I feel old all the time. I remember some of the missions I flew in '79, 30 years ago. I remember being single. This spring, my oldest will graduate from college with her BA. My son is headed to Benning's School for Boyz" for Airborne School this coming week, then back overseas. My youngest will graduate from the 5th grade.
Ah well... life goes on, brah...
Given that Carter tops my list of worst presidents during my lifetime (6, about to be a 7th; and excluding Nixon since I don't recall whether he was in office in '74; and he's in a class of his own anyway) I got no argument that the Iranian Hostage Crisis was mishandled. That having been said, did we have the capability to do much more than a hostage rescue mission short of nuking the bastards? We were, what, 3 years out of Vietnam, with a military that by all accounts was a hollow, drug-riddled force (or was being slowly rebuilt from same); in a period where the USSR's facade of military indomitability had not yet been pierced, facing a country with a long land border with same, and limited seaward access.
Obviously the Iranians thought we could do something useful given their behavior when Reagan was elected. I just wonder how much of Carter's decision-making was informed by timidity in Playland on the Potomac?
Do you want to feel really old?
Peter Criss (KISS ex-drummer) turns 64 this year. First album released in '74.
Shoot me now! I grew up listening to them (parents hated them, suprise!).
Ian,
The "drug-addicted" hollow US military is a myth perpetuated by the left & Hollywood to support and sustain their beliefs.
The fact is that the US Military never lost a single action in Vietnam. We broke the back of the Viet Cong twice, and the NVA as well, but were forced to "ease up" on them and allowed them to regain some force, by Nixon's WH team, especially Macnamara & Kissinger.
When the US left Vietnam, that country was solid, and well-capable of defending itself, with the caveat that the US would keep supplying logistical support (spare parts, ammunition, etc) until the South Vietnamese could bring their own armaments factories online, which they had started to do.
Congress, (controlled by the Democrats) in a fir of pique, to spite Nixon, completely cut off funding to the South Vietnamese. In 1975, the south fell to armoured columns of NVA regulars, despite heroic and legendary defensive fighting by the ARVN,
ARVN soldiers held bridges and intersections with a single magazing each of ammunition, and no hope of reinforcements, until over-run, ARVN pilots took off on CAS missions with a half bag of ordnance and only enough gas for a one-way trip.
The actions of the left, especially the Democrat-controlled Congress, directly led to the "killing fields" over the next few years, and the nightmare of communist control in the decades since. It is exactly what they wanted to do to Iraq.
If anyone wants to speak of war crimes, they should first start with the Congress, controlled by the left, who abandoned millions of innocents to a horrible fate.
You will not, of course, read about this in school. Or the papers & magazines, on TV or the movies. You need to read the actual histories to see what happened.
As to Iran, I was flying with the US Navy when that happened, and it was a direct-result of the micro-management that Carter demanded. It wasn't the men or the tactics. We could've pulled that mission off. It was an issue of the inability to interact properly due to the restrictions put on the teams by the White House. There's more, of course, to the story, but that's the abbreviated version.
Respects,
Blame the FAA for the flying car miscarriage.
Just imagine a working stiff trying to keep up STCs, engine logs, roadworthyness directives, and required maint. records by licensed mechanics on a used Ford ...
The damned car would cost $2,000,000, and driving time would cost $100 per hour for total maint. costs.
And he would have to get a note from a federally licensed special doctor to be able to even have a license.
Thanks for the info, Tim. The "rebuilding" view of the late-70's/early-80's I had gotten from some sources I generally considered fairly reliable; but I wasn't there. I knew damn well the combat in Vietnam was won by the US, and that the ARVN was backstabbed by the pulling of logistics by the US. Didn't know how much white house meddling interfered with the execution of mission - though I'm not at all surprised.
"let's just say that mid '68 to early '69 must've been a good 9 months for pretty people to breed."
Ah, so that explains how I got here when I did... :-D
Outstanding post man. Ain't getting old hell?!
Being born the first day of 1969 makes me special obviously.... 
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