The Prince

Negative Creep · 05-18-2007, 10:42 AM

I agree with those who say the risk is too high. I'm no fan of the royal family, but can you just imagine what would happen if the insurgents captured him and paraded him on tv? If they killed him, I tihnk the pressure to withdraw our troops would be overwhelming. So it could do far more harm than good to have him there. Yes various royals have served in the past, and even led from the front, but that was against a very different type of enemy. Prince Andrew was part of a force fighting a sovereign nation's armed forces, not a bunch of terrorists

plan_D · 05-18-2007, 10:49 AM

I wouldn't be bothered if the little ginger prick died.

Negative Creep · 05-18-2007, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by plan_D

I wouldn't be bothered if the little ginger prick died.

I would, if only because we'd have to go through the whole Diana thing again. Country grinding to a halt, no decent TV for a month, the Daily Mail given 10 years worth of headlines, Elton John. The horror......the horror............

102first_hussars · 05-18-2007, 02:06 PM

Quote:

the Daily Mail given 10 years worth of headlines, Elton John. The horror......the horror............

Lucky13 · 05-18-2007, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Negative Creep

I would, if only because we'd have to go through the whole Diana thing again. Country grinding to a halt, no decent TV for a month, the Daily Mail given 10 years worth of headlines, Elton John. The horror......the horror............

OUCH!!!

renrich · 05-18-2007, 07:08 PM

I happen to know a good many white boys that were college graduates and came from fairly affluent families that served in Viet Nam. It is fiction that the brunt of the fighting and the casualties were borne by non-whites. Those white individuals that I am talking about were for the most part draftees. By the way, Hal Moore is a personal friend of mine and his point of view is quite interesting to hear.

pbfoot · 05-18-2007, 07:33 PM

I checked and your correct the high casualties suffered by black troops was up to 66-67 and was lowered later \
"Early in the war, when blacks made up about 11.0% of our V'nam force, black casualties soared to over 20% of the total (1965, 1966). Black leaders protested and Pres Johnson ordered that black participation should be cut back in the combat units. As a result, the black casualty rate was cut to 11.5% by 1969."

renrich · 05-19-2007, 10:35 AM

The overall deaths among Af-Am members of the US armed forces during the Vietnam conflict was 12.4% of the total which is almost the same percentage of the US population that is comprised by Af-Am. The percentage composed of whites was 85.6 %. At the same time Af-Am men comprised around 25% to 30% of active duty military members. Today, Af-Am people comprise around that same 25% to 30% of the military but the percentage of them in the combat arms is much lower. Another factor to consider in the Vietnam numbers is that those deaths are all deaths including from other than combat deaths. Since Af-Am men have a somewhat higher death rate from "normal" causes than whites, the percentages are slightly misleading.

renrich · 05-19-2007, 10:48 AM

Interesting demographics from the current Iraq war. The US Army is composed of 60.8% whites, 21.6% Blacks, 10.5% Hispanics, 7.1% other. The corresponding deaths are 73.3% White, 12% Black, 9.6% Hispanic, 5.1% other. Charley Wrangel is having a hard time with that except he is saying all those whites are poor white rural boys.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · 05-19-2007, 12:27 PM

In Iraq my unit did not have any blacks in it at all (but there are rarely blacks in Aviation, more are starting to join it but during my whole time in the Army we only had about 2 total that served in our whole BN) and 90 percent of the white people that served with came from normal middle class families.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · 05-19-2007, 12:28 PM

I take that back there was one black guy and he was from Haiti and he was a TI in our Maint. Company.

renrich · 05-19-2007, 05:21 PM

My feelings about our current all volunteer military is that we have never had a better bunch of people, on the whole, to protect us. We used to have, a few years ago, a bunch of SF guys from Fort Carson come each year to Crested Butte, CO to do winter training for a month. I got to know some of them, almost all NCOs, and they were good people and I am sure most would have ben successful in any endeavor. I was taking a bunch of people on a sno-cat real estate tour up on the mountain and one of these guys came up out of a snow cave right in front of us and my passengers got a huge kick out of it. Kind of startling.