Under Pressure, Blumert Produces Military Records
by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert
Memo From Editor Rockwell To:Blumert
"These are dangerous times. Since it’s an election year, everybody’s military record is being examined with a finetooth comb.
"There are questions about your commitment to liberty, Blumert.
"It’s time to come clean. And don’t tell me again that your records were lost in the San Francisco earthquake.
"You’ve given us different versions about your military career.
"Once, you dazzled a group of young libertarian women with an absurd tale about being America’s ace fighter pilot during the Korean War.
"That you’d shot down 15 MIGs and reached the rank of Major General upon retiring. (For your information, the women weren’t dazzled. They were nauseated.)
"I also recall, during a discussion about Senator John McCain, you had to outdo his epic tale by recounting your experience in Korea. You told the group you were a POW for NINE years, finally released in a trade for a Russian ballerina who had defected to the West. (It was later learned she was a female impersonator.)
"I want the truth, Blumert. I expect an immediate response."
Memo: from Blumert To: Editor Rockwell
"Alright, I admit it. Some of those reports of my being an Air Force ace, shooting down 15 Russian MIGS are greatly exaggerated.
"Actually, the closest I ever came to combat during the Korean War was getting airsick in an Air Force Transport and barfing all over the pilot’s dress uniform carefully folded on the seat next to me.
"It required all my negotiating skills to survive that close call.
"Before finally winding up in Air Force blue, like all other thinking cowards, including Dick Cheney, I did everything to avoid the draft.
"Dick Cheney’s five deferments are chicken feed. I had at least eight. The first 7 were related to student deferments.
"Then, disaster. The rules changed. The only deferments left were for war related research, like PhDs working on Hydrogen Bombs.
"I had run out of options. It was like waiting for the executioner to beckon. Korea, here I come.
"Then, a glimmer of hope.
"Get a job in a factory doing war-related things," some unremembered faceless fellow said. "This can get you out of the draft and it won’t cost you much."
"Details are blurry and I don’t recall the price, but I have a faded recollection of depositing money in somebody’s Swiss Bank account. My next image is of sitting in a windowless interview room in a Long Island City factory.
"I later learned that they produced pretty little precision objects that made bombs more deadly.
"Management consisted of seven ex-Nazi tool and die makers. After five minutes with me it was clear that I had to be kept away from any task that required dexterity, or tool and die making skills.
"There’s only one job here for you, Blumert," SS Officer Schmidt said,"Cutting the aluminum bricks, that’s your job. An average person can cut six bricks in a day. You might do four."
"It took three days, six band saws and a gallon of cooling fluid to produce my first (and last) cut brick. All of a sudden, combat in Korea seemed less horrible than another day at the band saw.
"There must be some way other than the band saw to avoid the draft?
"Yes, flunk the pre-induction medical and get the magical u20184- F’ status.
"The setting for this medieval ritual was a cavernous stone building on Whitehall Street on Lower Manhattan, clearly built for earlier wars. Hundreds of thousands of shivering American kids in their skivvies were herded through the drafty old facility during WW 11 — and those with a sense of irony were later able to make the experience part of a comedy routine.
Nobody was spared the indignities.
"Bend over," the rear-end doctor ordered.
"Do you like girls?" the psychiatrist inquired.
"Can you see the eye chart on the wall?" If you located the wall, this doc was satisfied.
The doc in search of hernias said, "Cough, but not on me."
"I didn’t get the cherished u20184-F’" rating, but had they awarded a 3-E status, I might have come close. But, you know the old bromide, — ‘close’ only counts in horseshoes.
"I was resigned to my fate: Korea here I come. Only divine intervention could save me now.
"I don’t know if the US Air Force qualifies as an agent for divine intervention, but they came to the rescue.
" During the Korean War, the Air Force was having a tough time acquiring and keeping pilots. No surprise. Some functionary at u2018military intelligence’ decided that if the enlistment period were cut from four to two years they would net more volunteers.
"Well, they netted one more, me, Blumert.
"The prospect of serving in the Air Force for two years instead of being killed or maimed on a desolate Korean mountainside was irresistible.
"The draft board was indifferent. Air Force/Army, it was all the same to them. u2018Go to the Air Force, my son, with our blessings.’ Maybe those weren’t the exact words, but I was off to Basic Training and Aviation Cadet school.
"This is the end of Part I."
Part II will reveal Blumert as a glamorous Aviation Cadet.
You will learn that he was the only Cadet in his class who didn’t know how to drive a car. (The other Cadets could disassemble and assemble a motorcycle in two hours).
You will get the details when, Blumert, wearing Air Force Blue, almost won $16,000 on a popular TV Quiz Show.
You will be fascinated (yawn) learning of other notable incidents in Blumert’s Air Force career.
"Finally, Editor Rockwell, I trust that making this information public will put those ugly rumors to bed, once and for all.
"(I’m having some difficulty locating the negatives of those horrid photographs that keep popping up on the Internet. I assure you, they have all been digitally altered.")
