For Vietnam Vets, an apology and thanks

[del]

Ravi, even if I had one today I would tear it up, sure wouldn't post it, something that disgraceful should be burned

pathetically weak

 

[JakeStarkey]

Ravi, even if I had one today I would tear it up, sure wouldn't post it, something that disgraceful should be burned

pathetically weak

I agree, Del. Ravi's losing his mind.

 

[JenT]

Ravi, even if I had one today I would tear it up, sure wouldn't post it, something that disgraceful should be burned

pathetically weak

I agree, Del. Ravi's losing his mind.

Really? I thought Del meant his own knees were knocking again

Try some vitamins Del, and a good steak once in a while should help

 

[del]

pathetically weak

I agree, Del. Ravi's losing his mind.

Really? I thought Del meant his own knees were knocking again

Try some vitamins Del, and a good steak once in a while should help

pathetically weak and stupid.

you guys make a great team.

 

[JenT]

I agree, Del. Ravi's losing his mind.

Really? I thought Del meant his own knees were knocking again

Try some vitamins Del, and a good steak once in a while should help

pathetically weak and stupid.

you guys make a great team.

now now Del, nobody on my team said you were stupid

 

[JakeStarkey]

Del, be nice. Not hard to do.

 

[JenT]

you might learn from this man though

fresh air and hard work does wonders

 

[del]

Really? I thought Del meant his own knees were knocking again

Try some vitamins Del, and a good steak once in a while should help

pathetically weak and stupid.

you guys make a great team.

now now Del, nobody on my team said you were stupid

and your alleged point would be what, fruitcake?

 

[Ravi]

Del, be nice. Not hard to do.

You're a liar and a fraud. JenT, I believe, is merely an idiot.

 

[JenT]

pathetically weak and stupid.

you guys make a great team.

now now Del, nobody on my team said you were stupid

and your alleged point would be what, fruitcake?

well I would say but I might hurt your feelings again, wouldn't want to do that

(but you really shouldn't be so hard on yourself)

 

[Diuretic]

Why did they beat him?

I can easily believe that the police and the National Guard were often spat at...spit at?

i think he was basically in the wrong place at the wrong time and just got caught up in it. the cambridge TPF was trying to disperse an antiwar demonstration. i never talked to the guy, i just saw him go down amongst a bunch of cops with batons and helmets. he was in full uniform with medals, like he'd just come from some kind of official affair.

those TPF guys didn't care who or what they were beating, as long as they were beating someone. scary shit.

I bet. Pretty strange that they'd beat someone in uniform though. But cops tend to overreact.

Especially when working in large groups.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Law enforcement are folks, too, right? They get scared, and, yes, they over react. I remember when the NG troops shot students their own age, and the student rebellion of late spring 1970 began. In some cities in California, I gather, particularly near Santa Barbara and the other university towns, police officers weren't safe by themselves through out that summer. The police were going to clear out the students who had overtaken the administration and fine art buildings at one public university, and several hundred students turned out in football helmets, fashioned shields, arm and knee pads, and baseball bats. Up to a thousand students gathered at the upper windows of the library to watch the mayhem. Wiser heads prevailed, the cops did not come, and the professors that night managed to talk the students out of their buildings, and gave them a token building over near the athletic field. That more did not die that May through the summer of 1970 is amazing.

 

[del]

now now Del, nobody on my team said you were stupid

and your alleged point would be what, fruitcake?

well I would say but I might hurt your feelings again, wouldn't want to do that

(but you really shouldn't be so hard on yourself)

among your many delusions is the one that you could hurt my feelings.

trust me, you've got a better chance of having a coherent thought than hurting my feelings, which is to say, no chance at all.

 

[Diuretic]

I'm not sitting on the fence here, I promise!

Any urban myth (assuming this "spitting on returning military personnel") I think (cos I can't prove it) has a germ of truth to it. It is entirely possible that in the United States in the aftermath of the Vietnam War someone spat on a returned military person, probably hurling the epithet "babykiller!". I don't see how anyone can prove that happened and I don't see how it can be proven not to have happened. If you ever work out how to prove a negative, contact me, I'll manage your publicity for a small fee.

I didn't see it here in Australia. But there's a lot of stuff I miss on a daily basis, I have to admit, so it could have happened. I can tell you what I saw at various anti-war demonstrations though and at least in my experience there was no spitting. There was a heap of chanting, flag-waving, swearing, laughing, joking (at one demo I saw an old school chum of mine and we had a good talk in no-man's land between the demonstrators and the cops, when I got back in line my Sergeant reamed me out for "fraternising" - for fux sake.

Anyway, I did see during some of the demos some (obviously) military personnel (those of you who were actually around back then remember that young men had long hair and if you had short back and sides you were in the military or a copper or very, very square) hopping in and trying to go the biff with some of the demonstrators. The coppers on the occasion I'm remembering stopped the soldiers before any damage was done and told them to piss off, which they did. No-one was hurt although there was much invective tossed around on all sides. But no spitting - from anyone. But in that crowd of thousands of people it's entirely possible that someone, somewhere, spat on someone else.

The point is, if it happened, what do you think about it?

I wouldn't have spit* on a returning military person even though I was opposed to the war in Vietnam. The way I see it, the poor bastards had no choice but to go, either that or do several years in the stockade (interestingly those who refused to be conscripted when they were notified were locked up in military prisons after being court-martialled. Why would I blame them? I would have preferred to piss down the leg of the bastard Prime Minister who involved us in that war but that wouldn't happen either of course, I might be cranky but I'm not nuts.

Anyway, if it happened to anyone it shouldn't have happened and if someone got biffed for doing it then they got what they deserved. If it didn't happen then that's good because no-one is actually carrying the memory of being spat on on their return from a war.



*The spit/spat thing is a real pain to work out.

 

[JenT]

and your alleged point would be what, fruitcake?

well I would say but I might hurt your feelings again, wouldn't want to do that

(but you really shouldn't be so hard on yourself)

among your many delusions is the one that you could hurt my feelings.

trust me, you've got a better chance of having a coherent thought than hurting my feelings, which is to say, no chance at all.

well if I "insult" you without one profane word, to the point I get a three day vacation, I assume I hurt your feelings. But you're right. you're a tough man, I could never hurt your feelings, what was I thinking.

Just keep following me around and calling me stupid, big tough powerful people can do that.

 

[noose4]

you might learn from this man though

fresh air and hard work does wonders

 

[JenT]

Just two days ago...how odd a whole town remembers and apologizes

[edited]

Fort Campbell welcomes home Vietnam vets
By KRISTIN M. HALL, AP
Sun Aug 16, 8:08 PM EDT

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — Tears filled the eyes of some Vietnam veterans who were warmly greeted with cheers from their family and friends Sunday in an re-enactment of their original return from the war, when they were often met with angry demonstrators and harsh headlines.

The ceremony was a first for the 101st Airborne Division and the Army, said Maj. Patrick Seiber, an Army spokesman based at Fort Campbell in Kentucky.

"Our hope is that other units and other posts will follow our lead in having this type of ceremony," he said.

Mickey Leighton, a 72-year-old Army veteran from Naples, Fla., said listening to the applause and praise from the community was very emotional.

Leighton, who started his military career at Fort Campbell in 1956, served two tours in Vietnam including the Tet Offensive. He returned in 1972 in the midst of angry anti-war protests that often placed blame on the individual soldiers.

"We were treated very shabbily," he said. "In some cases they would throw eggs at us, they would throw empty beer bottles at us and they would call us baby-killers."

He said many soldiers would immediately change clothes because they didn't want to wear their uniforms in public in the late 1960s and early '70s while traveling home after returning from war.

"Never in the history of the military have I known of any division or any military installation providing a specific welcome home for Vietnam veterans," Leighton said. "This is very touching."

In contrast, Fort Campbell soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are welcomed back with a ceremony after every deployment, with many completing three or four tours since the wars began.

Army leaders and the community around Fort Campbell collaborated for the Vietnam ceremony, Seiber said. The 101st Airborne Division Association, a group for former soldiers from the division, helped to organize and get the word out.

"I can't think of a better community to do this in than the Fort Campbell community," Seiber said.

Fort Campbell welcomes home Vietnam vets | Comcast.net

Diuretic, did you miss this post?

Apparently America remembers

 

[Diuretic]

No Jen I didn't miss it. Nor did I ignore it.

 

[del]

well I would say but I might hurt your feelings again, wouldn't want to do that

(but you really shouldn't be so hard on yourself)

among your many delusions is the one that you could hurt my feelings.

trust me, you've got a better chance of having a coherent thought than hurting my feelings, which is to say, no chance at all.

well if I "insult" you without one profane word, to the point I get a three day vacation, I assume I hurt your feelings. But you're right. you're a tough man, I could never hurt your feelings, what was I thinking.

Just keep following me around and calling me stupid, big tough powerful people can do that.

you're fucked. enjoy it.

 

[JenT]

among your many delusions is the one that you could hurt my feelings.

trust me, you've got a better chance of having a coherent thought than hurting my feelings, which is to say, no chance at all.

well if I "insult" you without one profane word, to the point I get a three day vacation, I assume I hurt your feelings. But you're right. you're a tough man, I could never hurt your feelings, what was I thinking.

Just keep following me around and calling me stupid, big tough powerful people can do that.

you're fucked. enjoy it.

if you can give it and won't take it...

like sands through the hourglass...