Q-4-U re: Domestic spying during Viet Nam .. my friend's hell.

[DemoTex]

Was that legal? A good friend of mine, who graduated at the top of his class from the US Military Academy (West Point) in the late 1960's, was drummed out of the corps because of photographic evidence that he attended a peace rally in Atlanta in December 1971. He was home on leave at the time, from his post-Viet Nam billet in the Advanced Artillery School at Ft. Sill, OK.

Charlie had OERs (Officer Efficiency Ratings) from his duty as an arty captain on FSBs (fire-support-bases) Sarge and Vandergriff, in the upper A Shau Valley (near Laos), that stated that he was general officer material (fast track to a general's star).

The picture of Charlie at the Atlanta peace rally was made by U.S. Army CID (Criminal Investigation Division). The paranoid-powers used that ambiguous picture to strip Charlie of his TOP-SECRET clearance. Thus he was kicked out of Ft. Sill's Artillery Officers Advanced School, which required a T/S clearance because of the nuclear weapons in the Army's artillery inventory. He was sent to another outpost as race-relations officer in 1972 ( a career-killer for a West Pointer).

He subsequently earned a PhD in anthropology at the U of Hawaii. Then he went insane. Chicken or egg? One must wonder. I think the system drove him over the edge. I truly do.

[ewagner]

1. That's not an unusual story

You learned to get very paranoid about photographers at peace or even civil rights rallies.

[PVK]

2. Everyone should don Groucho glasses.

That'd be hilarious.

[Catrina]

3. And burquas, I knew there had to be a good use for them somewhere ~

Grouchos and burquas ~ :rofl:

That's a very sad story ~ I'm sorry about your friend. I wonder how many more there will be as a result of Bush's wars ~