And a good friend of my family survived the Bataan Death March and he never used it to advance himself or get elected or feed at the public trough for 3 decades. He too was tortured and starved for 3 1/2 years.
Excellent point... My ex's father also did the Bataan Death March (New Mexico National Guard). Was a great guy. Died of 'old age' in his late 50's as a result of the same 3 1/2 years your friend did. Doc said he was effectively 75 years old physically.
The Navy fouled up PACOM so badly, DOD decided it was time for a change and were going to give it to an AF 4 star. McCain pitched a hissy fit and threatened to hold up programs if DOD followed through. So PACOM is still headed by a full admiral.
This discussion has made me go back 50 years or so to the proposals on which I worked. All of the teams busted their butts to prepare the ultimate package. A couple of times we were told by the military customer that it appeared that our proposal was the winner. Not an official declaration but individual comments. In all but one of those competitions the award went to a competitor after congressmen got into the process. There were re-evaluations, revisions to the competitor's design, 6 month time extensions, and changes to analysis of the winner's proposal.We got used to it after a while and never assumed that whatever we offered would win. Too many congressmen have places in their states where a nice military contract could be located. At that time, Seattle already had enough and they weren't going to see something else built there no matter how good it was .
And the protest has been made. Boeing, Lockheed protest Northrop's U.S. bomber contract win - Yahoo Finance
