ESPN has confirmed he passed away.....RIP

Draft dodging Muslim wannabee......

For sure....he ran away, no less than 25000 Canadians vointeered for Vietnam....draft dodger Ali...no argument here

On 6/4/2016 at 10:18 AM, Puzzleboy said:

Draft dodging Muslim wannabee......

Good for him!

On 6/4/2016 at 10:14 PM, Poncho said:

For sure....he ran away, no less than 25000 Canadians vointeered for Vietnam....draft dodger Ali...no argument here

I`ve never understood that!

A lot were looking for work and opportunity......it was a start for some. We had a few guys at work that got their start in aerospace after having served with the US in Vietnam.

5 hours ago, Poncho said:

A lot were looking for work and opportunity......it was a start for some. We had a few guys at work that got their start in aerospace after having served with the US in Vietnam.

By jumping out of a fn plane ?

I guess that's where they got their rocket scientists from

Good for him.... how so?  He should have been an example to other young Americans.

And perhaps some Canadians thought that stopping the flow of Communism was a good thing.

 

9 hours ago, Bigfish said:

Good for him!

I`ve never understood that!

44 minutes ago, Puzzleboy said:

Good for him.... how so?  He should have been an example to other young Americans.

And perhaps some Canadians thought that stopping the flow of Communism was a good thing.

 

Your joking...............................................................right??

1 hour ago, Puzzleboy said:

Good for him.... how so?  He should have been an example to other young Americans.

And perhaps some Canadians thought that stopping the flow of Communism was a good thing.

 

Remember at the time we had a Communist Prime Minister......Oh wait......what's his kid up to?

Not at all, why?  I may not have agreed with that war at the time, but stopping the flow of communism to a democratic half of the country was a worthy goal.  Communism has failed in every modern country in the world, and at the time, was considered a grave threat.  And worth fighting.   
And while the citizenry of a democracy might disagree with engaging in a particular war effort, it is not for them to decide.  It's not for an individual soldier or military either.  It is for their democratically elected leaders and government to decide.

 

Vietnam sucked, and the U.S. lost a lot of good people.  You may disagree with Vietnam, but praising a man for dodging the draft when there was conscription is fundamentally wrong.  Where would the military (or the country be) be if all eligible young men dodged the draft, or all enlisted soldiers refused to fight in a particular battle?

 

War is god-awful, but sometimes you have to go.  Vietnam might have been the biggest mistake ever, in hindsight, but the choice to go cannot be made by peaceniks and cowards.

 

3 hours ago, Bigfish said:

Your joking...............................................................right??

Alot of Canadian soldiers believed in the war , and felt we should be there . So there's no reason to question someone who volunteered of his own volition . 

Australia had troops there .

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Australia_during_the_Vietnam_War

 

 

21 minutes ago, Puzzleboy said:

Not at all, why?  I may not have agreed with that war at the time, but stopping the flow of communism to a democratic half of the country was a worthy goal.  Communism has failed in every modern country in the world, and at the time, was considered a grave threat.  And worth fighting.   
And while the citizenry of a democracy might disagree with engaging in a particular war effort, it is not for them to decide.  It's not for an individual soldier or military either.  It is for their democratically elected leaders and government to decide.

 

Vietnam sucked, and the U.S. lost a lot of good people.  You may disagree with Vietnam, but praising a man for dodging the draft when there was conscription is fundamentally wrong.  Where would the military (or the country be) be if all eligible young men dodged the draft, or all enlisted soldiers refused to fight in a particular battle?

 

War is god-awful, but sometimes you have to go.  Vietnam might have been the biggest mistake ever, in hindsight, but the choice to go cannot be made by peaceniks and cowards.

 

Good post even if I did not agree with that war.

Yeah, I'm not sure what I think of that war.  Heavy, brutal losses, and was ultimately a failure for the SVA and the U.S.  Although I can certainly appreciate that halting the spread of communism was of paramount importance at that time.  Today, we take it for granted, as all modern communist regimes have fallen..... and it's sad to think that that might have happened in Vietnam eventually also (very likely would have).  60,000 dead and 300,000 wounded U.S. soldiers is quite the toll.

Watched an interesting documentary the other night about the airlift from the Embassy (Operation Frequent Wind - just ahead of the imminent fall of Saigon).  The nearest runways were all destroyed, so it necessitated the largest chopper evac in history.  They were literally pushing choppers off the deck of U.S. ships to make room for incoming choppers.  Unbelievable footage.  Worth watching.

 

 

Couple pics, and a snippet from Wiki describing the chaos on the ships:

During the course of the operation an unknown number of VNAF helicopters flew out of what remained of South Vietnam to the fleet. Around 12:00 five or six VNAF UH-1Hs and one of the stolen ICCS UH-1Hs, were circling around the USS Blue Ridge. The VNAF pilots had been instructed after dropping off their passengers to ditch their helicopters and they would then be picked up by one of the ship's tenders. The pilot of the stolen ICCS Huey had been told to ditch off the port quarter of the ship, but seemed reluctant to do so, flying around the ship to the starboard bow he jumped from his helicopter at a height of 40 feet (12 m). His helicopter turned and hit the side of the USS Blue Ridge before hitting the sea. The tail rotor sheared off and embedded itself in the engine of an Air America Bell 205 that was doing a hot refueling on the helipad at the rear of the ship. The Air America pilot shut down his helicopter and left it and moments later a VNAF UH-1H attempted to land on the helipad, locked rotors with the Air America Bell, almost pushing it overboard.^[18]:24–25 The stolen Air America Bell 204, landed on the USS Kirk, from where US Navy pilots flew it to the USS Okinawa.^[18]:20

So many South Vietnamese helicopters landed on the TF76 ships that some 45 UH-1 Hueys and at least one CH-47 Chinook were pushed overboard to make room for more helicopters to land.^[5]:118 Other helicopters dropped off their passengers and were then ditched into the sea by their pilots, close to the ships, their pilots bailing out at the last moment to be picked up by rescue boats.^[20]

 

Edited June 7, 20169 yr by Puzzleboy

In any case, Ali was certainly one of a kind.  Still sad to see him gone.  Quite the showman.  I saw George Chuvalo in a bar not too long ago..... he still looks ok considering......

http://madworldnews.com/liberal-praise-muhammad-ali/

So , Ali could travel to space and fight aliens , but not to Vietnam ........

 

 

Float like a butterfly sting like a Bee.

Float like a butterfly, dodge the draft like me......

Don't be silly.  Everyone knows that aliens don't hide in jungles and rice paddies, or shoot back. 

 

5 hours ago, StevieWonder said:

So , Ali could travel to space and fight aliens , but not to Vietnam ........