re: Soldiers describing killing for the first time

quote:

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quote: He didn't actually think Curtis LeMay picked every target individually. But his stock answer to anyone who asked "What did you do in the Air Force?" was always "I worked for Curtis LeMay." If they followed up with a more specific question like "What did you do for Gen LeMay?, his response was "Whatever he told me to do. He outranked me."


That's actually a brilliant non-answer

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It usually worked in his favor, especially later in life when many people had little or no idea who Curtis LeMay was. The one time that it didn't was at a snoball stand. We ordered about ten snowballs for kids and grandkids back at the house. My dad, as always, was wearing an Air Force cap to protect his bald head from the LA sun. The kid at the window - who was about 15, tops - noticed the cap and asked THE question. My dad gave his standard response and the kid's eyes lit up. He practically shouted, "YOU WORKED FOR CURTIS LEMAY?!?" The kid launches into a soliloquy on Curtis LeMay. He knew shite about Curtis LeMay that LeMay probably didn't know himself. It was quite impressive, as the kid was obviously very intelligent.

As it turned out, the kid had done an "Influential Americans" history assignment on LeMay (A+ Grade, I'm sure.) Although he hadn't received an appointment yet, he was planning on attending the Air Force Academy and started barraging my father with questions. Sadly, my father had to confess that he was just being a wise guy and he hadn't actually reported directly to Gen LeMay. He was part of SAC and EVERYBODY in SAC worked for Gen LeMay.

The kid was disappointed, but still had a bunch of questions, which my father patiently answered as about twenty bucks in snoballs were melting. When we got home, my mom wanted to know what took so long. My dad said, "I'll tell you what took so long! Do you remember that Encyclopedia Brown child detective kid? He's working at the snoball stand now!"

My dad was a helicopter Gunner and said he never killed anyone