Would you have been an ace?

[tom d. friedman]

alot of 1st class eloquent replies on this thread. this is what makes wix tops!!

I think I'd have made a great target.

[Broken-Wrench]

[quote="Bill Greenwood"]

Once there was a mass shooting by a sniper at our college. Wounded people were lying out on the hot pavement and no one wanted to leave cover to get them. I and another guy were willing, I was scared,but though it was worth the chance. We got talked out of it when told the sniper had hit a small dog who ran by. On an emotional level, I regret not trying, but it might have been suicicdal.[/quote]


What school and date.. ? I can find out anything.... Were you really there? If it was where I think it was I can find the video and look for you behind cover .

[Mudge]

Bill...correct me if I'm wrong.

Charles Joseph Whitman...August 1, 1966...Univ. of Texas, Austin campus. Maniac had guns and ammo like you can't believe.

Mudge the usurper

[Bill Greenwood]

Mudge, you are absolutely correct. As for as I knew there had never been any mass shooting like this at any US school. We were just college kids, having a great time in a great town at a great school. Vietnam had not become a huge issue yet. We were drinking beer, going to the lake, going to football games, and for me trying to make up some grades. Like most Texas kids, guns were familiar as I had grown up around hunting. But, I never imagined anything like a nice summer day turned into such a scene with bodies all over, and finally a busy campus of 25,000 shocked to a halt. I think it is why I have an emotional aversion to guns now. Charles Whitman was an ex Marine and a crack shot. Several things made it worse for me, one was that he had been our dorm conselour my freshman year, so I knew him though not well. He was older, quite and serious, but no hint of anything like this that I saw. The story was that his Father in Florida was abusive, but he had a loving Mother and wife in Austin, and he was in graduate school. I can remember it very fresh, crouching behind a stone wall 30 feet from a lady laying on the hot pavement in a pool of blood, and trying to decide to go get her. It was all chance as the sniper was hidden, and we didn't even know if the victims were alive. Looking back, I wish we had tried. That lady was pregnant, shot through the back. She lived, but the baby didn't.

[Broken-Wrench]

Wow a pregnant lady shot through the back only 30 feet away, and you did nothing to help her. Her unborne child that died very well could have been the one to cure all the world ills. I wouldn't want to be carring that cross either.

[bipe215]

I'm already an ace. I've shot down three Citabria's, one Luscombe and one J-3 (that was close, J-3's can turn TIGHT). Of course, all these aircraft landed safely, completely oblivious to the fact they had been downed by the Blue Baron, but I can dream can't I....
But seriously, don't think you know till you've actually done it.

Steve G

[wendovertom]

I'd probably have been a statistic. It is one thing to monday morning QB and probably nothing like the real deal.


Tom P.

Wow a pregnant lady shot through the back only 30 feet away, and you did nothing to help her. Her unborne child that died very well could have been the one to cure all the world ills. I wouldn't want to be carring that cross either.

Just my opinion - I don't think this should have been said - whether sarcastic or not.

[Chicoartist]

I just ran the numbers, and I come out with 24 kills for my two 300-hour tours in P-47s and P-51s in the ETO (Sept 43 - May 45). For my projected 112 combat sorties, that's pretty good, eh?!

Oh, almost forgot - looks like I would have gotten 12 strafing victories as well.



Yea, right ...

Heh heh ... like Randy Haskin says from experience: basically, who the hell knows until you're there? Some theories hold that it was pretty much the luck of the draw. However, in my reading of the facts the top scorers were almost all very aggressive in the air, they all had excellent eyesight (Don Gentile had 20/10, he said in his book One-Man Air Force), they were excellent marksmen, and they knew how to fly an airplane - in other words, opportunity and preparation came together to create scoring. Sure, a little luck (as in not getting their tushy shot off while still newbies ) played in there as well.

I intend on finding out for sure soon as I get this danged Time Machine thing worked out!

Wade

[Jack Cook]

and you did nothing to help her.

When you weren't there and never been in such a situation it's easy to sit back and take a well aimed cheap shot. Suggested reading "Goodbye Darkness" by William Manchester (no pictures though ).

[lestweforget]

I agree. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour. Bill probably would not be here today if he had put himself in the firing line. No one should judge that was not there. Sounds like a suicidal situation to put yourself in to me...