From: "Gary Britt" 

You may be right that its time for some different republicans to purge out
the current ones.

Regarding Duke Cunningham, it just so happened that I was watching a
history channel thing on air combat in war about a week before this broke.
Cunningham's story was told and pretty amazing.  He was a true ACE.  One of
the first if not the first Vietnam ACE.  The plane the military had him and
everyone flying didn't have machine guns, just missiles.  Some egghead in
Washington thought pilots wouldn't ever need guns when they have missiles.

Anyway his most legendary run, began with him kind of on a routine patrol
mission with 3 other pilots.  They were over Vietnam and for some reason (I
don't recall) Duke the leader split the group into two teams of two and
sent the team of two experienced pilots off to do something necessary and
Duke kept the remaining pilot (a rookie) with him.  They ended up in a dog
fight with several planes.  I think the rookie got shot down and Duke shot
down one or more enemy places and took some damage to his plane.  Duke and
his navigator began limping back towards the ocean, their carrier, and
safety. Along came another north Vietnamese jet, which luckily for Duke
didn't see Duke and came down and across Duke's flight path.  Duke, low on
fuel, had to decide whether to engage or ignore this guy.  He decided to
engage and shot him down.  He then kept heading for the ocean and safety. 
He was getting closer to the coast when was engaged by another North
Vietnamese jet.  He described how unlike most North Vietnamese pilots who
bugged out rather than fight most of the time, this guy took him on and
really knew his stuff.  He described how this pilot followed him in and out
of various combat maneuvers like a pro.  Duke's plane was hit more than
once by machine gun fire, but ultimately Duke got the guy and shot him down
(this guy turned out to be North Vietnam's one and only ACE pilot who had
shot down numerous USA pilots).  Duke began again limping back for the
ocean and safety, but now his plane was trailing smoke.  His plane
ultimately caught fire and lost some control, but Duke kept heading for the
ocean.  Bailing out over land would  mean years and years as a POW. 
Ultimately the fire got so bad that the navigator behind him began to
complain of getting pretty warm back there.  Duke still headed for safety. 
Ultimately just as he was getting to the ocean, a large part of the tail
section of his plane fell off and his plane went into a flat spin and began
losing altitude rapidly.  USA people on the carrier could now see him
spinning around and on fire and were shouting on the radio for him to punch
out, to get out of there.  He couldn't hear them and stayed in the spinning
craft until he saw the water and safety.  Only then did he give the order
for the navigator to punch out. They both punched out and were recovered to
safety basically uninjured.

I probably screwed up some of the details of the story, but the jist of it
is correct.  It was a truly amazing story.  I believe there are radio and
possibly video of the end of that flight where he was in the flat spin on
fire coming out over the ocean.

I doubt that arrogance got him.  I think he started swimming with some
sharks and got greedy.  Apparently really greedy.  He probably rationalized
it in his mind somehow.  I think he was ultimately done in by the people
bribing him.  I think they dropped a dime on him to a newspaper.

Anyway, a bit to his credit.  He went into court and on TV and admitted his
guilt.  Said he took bribes, and that he was shamed and humiliated by what
he had done.  He apparently didn't try to mount much if any defense like
many who are caught red handed.

What he did was very wrong, and the fact that he is a real genuine war hero
makes it a larger tragedy for both him personally and the country.

Gary

"John Cuccia"  wrote in message
news:tjajp1djvf6ve5uf9njjouhlnece4h00ei{at}4ax.com...
> On Sun, 4 Dec 2005 12:07:48 -0500, "Gary Britt"
>  wrote:
>
> >Those were sadly for him, a former war
> >hero, just out and out bribes to him personally.
>
> He was one of the Navy's first Top Gun pilots and helped develop air
> combat tactics used in Vietnam.  I imagine that the arrogance that
> helped make him a fighter ace played an integral role in his downfall.
>
> >There are just as many, in
> >fact more, cases of democrat congressman being bribed.  8 out of 9 abscam
> >congressmen were democraps taking bribes.
>
> You ABSCAM comment illustrates the problem.
>
> Republicans took Congress by promising to clean up the corruption of
> entrenched Democrats, which they did, briefly.  Unfortunately they've
> been in power long enough to have been corrupted themselves. It's time
> for another purge.

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