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Please don't unnecessarily rewrite references -- it misleadingly lights up diffs, like a christmas tree, when the article's intellectual content remains unchanged[edit]
Another contributor unnecessarily rewrote half a dozen of the references to this article, making them essentially unreadable and unmaintainable. I reverted their edits to the references. The same edit contained mysterious excisions. Geo Swan (talk) 21:05, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
found another us vet of the Spanish civil war[edit]
He is absolutely a documented vet of the war, I dont see the issue, why do we need to revert it to Delmer Berg? — Preceding unsigned comment added by I Dan tha Man I (talk • contribs) 06:25, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The Virginia-Pilot article says:
"His first four years in the Navy were spent in Spain helping evacuate American refugees during the Spanish Civil War."
So, Putnam, served in the US Navy, not the Spanish Navy, not the Spanish Army, not a Spanish militia, and not an International Unit, like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. The USA was officially neutral. This means he was definitely NOT a veteran of the Spanish Civil War.
Prior to the official start of the USA-Vietnam War, when the USA was officially neutral, President Kennedy sent Green Beret "advisors". US Spokesmen had plausible denial as to whether those Green Beret "advisors" were combatants, even though those Green Berets went on combat patrols.
Were those Green Beret advisors entitled to combat pay, campaingn ribbons? I dunno. I don't think so. Maybe some fought, in court, arguing that the their non-combatant status was a fiction.
Officially neutral nations, that have an unofficial preference for one side in a conflict, sometimes embed the occasional "observer" in the armed forces of the side they favor. Officially those observers are non-combatants.
If enlisted rating Putnam was serving on a US Navy ship that regularly patrolled off the Spanish coast, this absolutely would not make Putnam or his shipmates combatants. If he was part of a landing force, that secured a pier, so US citizens could board his ship's boats, that would not make him a combatant.
Putnam may be a fine guy. Officially, he would be a veteran of World War 2 and the Korean War. But the Virginia-Pilot seems to say that, after WW2 triggered his non-degree commissioning as an officer, he spent World War 2 serving in the Continental US, in shore assignments. Serving, as an enlisted rating, in a (neutral) ship, that was adjacent to a warzone, may have been the closest Putnam got to actually serving in a warzone.
Did Putnam's ship spend four years rescuing American citizens, in Spain? That is ridiculous. When citizens are trapped in a foreign country, when a sudden war strikes that country, the USA, or some other country, may mobilize nearby units of their Navy to help rescue them. But citizens who choose to enter that country, against official advice, after the war struck? Attempts to rescue them would have to be under exceptional circumstances. Spain's leadership asked the foreign volunteers to go back to their homes long before Franco's victory. So they would not need rescue.
I am going to repeat myself, even if Putnam participated in a landing, it would not make him a veteran, since the USA was neutral.
Now, if he went AWOL, deserted the Navy, and joined up with a Spanish fighting unit? Then he could claim to be a veteran. But he didn't do that. If he had done that he never would have been commissioned. He might have served the remainder of his Navy service in the Brig. Geo Swan (talk) 17:19, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
