questions for Richard..off topic

[Kevin E. Ramsey RPT]

Thank you Conrad, both for serving OUR Country, and telling it like it is. A
Full and Fair Count, ,,,,,,,,,,,indeed.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Conrad Hoffsommer" <hoffsoco@martin.luther.edu>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Friday, December 01, 2000 12:21 PM
Subject: Re: questions for Richard..off topic


> Chief Robin,
> At 13:32 12/01/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>
>   On a personal note, the Gore camp's
> >contempt for American military personnel removes him from any serious
> >contention of being the real Commander-In-Chief.
>
> This is the thing about he-who-would-do-or-say-anything-to-be-ki.. er..a..
> president which sticks in my craw the deepest.
>
> Way back when, during the Vietnam War, I was stationed on a ship which
> spent a _lot_ of time in the Tonkin Gulf, particularly in 1972. (Remember
> the Haiphong blockade?? 75 days at sea between port calls...)  At that
> time, mailcall was not a daily affair.  It might be 2, 3 days or up to a
> week between having that mail helo landing on the fantail.
>
> 1972 was, as you may remember, a presidential election year.   I voted
> absentee and I sent mine off in plenty of time, I think.
>
> Here's the rub.  My ship was big enough to have it's own mailroom and did
> cancel stamped mail, usually.  HOWEVER, members of the service in a
warzone
> do not need postage!  All one had to do was to write "free" where the
stamp
> would go.  (That's called "franking" and congress has the same
priviledge.)
>
> Smaller craft would not have mailrooms and their stamped (and franked)
mail
> would be routed through the Fleet Post Office in San Francisco.  The
> stamped mail would _then_ get a postmark, or maybe not, which could easily
> be more than a week after mailing it.  My folks got lots of letters from
me
> without postmarks.
>
> Anybody out there still think that excluding military ballots with missing
> or late postmarks is fair?
>
> Does anybody care anymore what the military has to put up with to preserve

> the republic?
>
> Stepping down now from rant mode.
>
> Conrad Hoffsommer
> PO2 USN - Quit when still alive.
>
>
>
> Conrad Hoffsommer - mailto:hoffsoco@luther.edu
> *They call television a medium. That's because it is neither rare nor well
> done.
> *98% of the population is asleep. The other 2% are staring around in
> complete amazement, abject terror, or both.
>