R trained to be a SEAL, 'til his knees gave out. and 'other son' is headed for the Army's Special Forces or whatever it's called --though his knees are really bad already. Kid came back from boot camp... oh. my. dog. gained 25 lbs of sheer muscle and he was already a tough kid -- a sleek muscle machine kickboxer, but skinny. not skinny anymore. R says that the big macho look you see on _former_ SEALs, etc. is actually something they get into _after_ they get out. SEALs, in his experience, are very trim, lean people -- not all bulked out like The Body.
At 01:02 PM 6/9/2005, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>I actually do know a former SEAL, my late dad's best
>friend, they were an odd mix, my dad a liberal
>Democratic Jewish peacenik type (a WWII vet, invalided
>out, never saw combat), and Jack a conservative
>Republican fundamentalist Christian military type who
>says he fought in Vietnam, Grenada, and Gulf War I,
>maybe elswhere. Jack and his wife) are wonderful
>people, and I can see why they were good friends with
>my folks despite the political and religious
>divergences, but I don't want to know or even think
>about the stuff he's done. Seems to have been involved
>in Operation Phoeni in Vietnam (the assasination
>program in the late 60s that wiped out the leadership
>of the NLF), for example. I only infer this from
>things he's said by the way. My teenage daughter
>recently grilled him about his friendship with my dad
>and about his military activities, she'd make some
>interrogator herself. jks
"Finish your beer. There are sober kids in India."
-- rwmartin