On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 16:59:03 +1100, David Strike
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 18:50:02 -0800, Shep Griswold wrote:
>
>>Please make this BS stop
>>It is getting seriously old (or should I say SERIOUSLY old?)
>
>>OK OK I'll admit it ......I'm Robert Lung ....send me tons of hatemail,
to
>>my personal e-mail, and lets get this crap off the list-serve
>
>Mate!  Sylvia and I visited - among other places - the War Museum, in
>Canberra, (the Capital City of Oz) on Monday.  It's a place that I always
>brings a lump to my throat.  One of the exhibits features all of the
>Victoria Cross winners (the highest award for gallantry in the British
>system of Honours).  Most were awarded posthumously.  One particular one
>stuck in my mind.  It concerned a guy in Vietnam leading an ARVN platoon.
>His radio operator was badly wounded in a skirmish with advancing NV
>Regulars.  The guy refused to leave his wounded comrade and was last seen
>clutching a hand grenade in each hand.  The retreating platoon later heard
>the twin explosions as the enemy overran their position.  The survivors
made
>their escape because of his sacrifice.

>
>With all due respects to Bob, I personally doubt that you're 'Robert
>Lung' - but even if you are, I'm very impressed by the fact that
>you're prepared to throw your body onto a live grenade for the sake
>of your comrades!  :-)))
>
>Strike

With all due respects to Strike, while I consider your conjecture
plausible (unless you know it for a FACT that Shep is not the
real Robert Lung), I am of the opinion that your analogy is
seriously flawed.

I have NO REASON to even suspect Shep was the villant, but when
he posted what he did, I took it in good faith, at face value, as
FACTUAL, unless PROVEN otherwise.


In this case, unlike your Viet example, there is nothing HONORABLE
about the comrade Robert Lung.  He is a back-stabbing Chicken
Shit, a street mugger, who took a video of his own crime and
showed it to his friends (as in one Darwin Award case, not this
case, except in analogy to Lung's bragging to Chuck and other
KNOWN members, including Chuck, the Co-Manager of Scuba-SE).

In this context, if Shep is indeed a pretender to be Robert Lung,
he is both a fool and an accessory to neighbor crimes committed
by Robert Lung and Chuck Hopf, as acts of obstruction of
justice.

It likens someone hurling himself in front of the mugger or
back-stabber, to protect said mugger from being identified in a
line-up, where there are KNOWN witnesses to the true identity
of the mugger.

In THAT context, I find it rather ironic to say something like,

" I'm very impressed by the fact that you're prepared to throw
  your body onto a reporter's camera for the sake of your
  mugger friend!"   :-)))

Or, to Haldermann or Erlichmann,

"I am very impressed by the fact that you're prepared to lie and
 go to jail for 'obstruction of justice' for your friend Nixon
 whom you KNOW committed the impeachable crimes."

Are these acts really heroic or honorable?


Strike, I hope your CONJECTURE is correct -- because if Shep did
what YOU said he did, it would be his one-time forgivable crime
(in Scuba-SE) for obstruction of justice and protecting the
criminal who had known witnesses.

On the other hand, if Shep is NOT Robert Lung, and you glorified
his act as a heroic act, in an entirely inapplicable analogy,
then, with all due respects to you, Strike, you have unwittingly
CONDONED the mugger's backstabbing act, GLORIFIED the acts of
obstruction of justice (to protect Robert Lung and Chuck Hopf),
and should only leave the door WIDE OPEN for future acts of this
kind, by OTHER Robert Lung's.

I shudder to dwell in such a neighhood.

-- Bob.