You seem to be conflating some of my words with those of a previous poster with whom you were earlier communicating. My response was quite simple. You invited me to speculate so I speculated admitting I was speculating and you now accuse me of speculating. Do you think you have sohmehow cornered me here?

I would be amused it I weren't bored with you. I will not bother to reply to your any further in this particular thread.

No, you've missed it again. I agree that you speculated. My posts to you were to the effect that your speculation doesn't make sense, at least to me. Care to address that?

As a Vietnam Navy veteran, RM3 in cryptographics, I can now understand your mindset, bohica. We enlisted men, who do the work, take the chances (and the casualties), often used part of leisure time- of which there wasn't a helluva lot- to mock LT and the rest of the puffed up officer cadre. I had a job at one time- not to give away national secrets, but this was 35 years ago, and I'm sure the technology has been superseded many times over- in which a certain secure circuit had to be reset every day within a fifteen minute window. This was ship to shore communication. If that period lapsed, the ship was to assume the station had been obliterated, and the vessel was to launch. Think nuclear sub here, with missiles to match. So, it was, to say the least, a task that required intense concentration. All the LTs ever did- because they didn't know a damned thing about it, except it was important- was to hover around making mindless critiques. Sounds like the MQ's for LT haven't changed. So, pardon me if this Vietnam vet doesn't salute your line of bilge, bohica. Anchors aweigh. love heywood

when they start characterizing Obama as some kind of secret saracen. This sicko spectacle can only make me desire change all the more vigorously.

I read my own post and disagreed with part of its slant. All junior grade officers were not jerks. A couple were sane, and treated their men (almost all of us were then, back in the draft days). And those LTs and JGs that served on patrol boats in Nam had some of the highest casualty rates of the war. Props to them, and their brothers. I don't want to make the mistake of tarring an entire strata with the same brush. But my overall point was, and is, that enlisted men (and women) work while the junior officers nit pick about shoe shines and haircuts. Anchors aweigh. RM3 Tom