I was stationed in San Francisco '68-'69 and got to know the anti-war movement well. Mostly they were young people looking for a party and some were sincere in what they believed. However (as proved by Congressional investigation) many of your "...highly decorated (and some badly disabled) Vietnam veterans..." were simply lying scum with vivid imaginations
Those who served during World War Two defended us against two powerful military forces either of which was capable of invading and occupying this Nation, one of which had attacked us. What our troops did in that honorable war was necessary and in a single word, glorious. They deserve the gratitude of their generation and of every succeeding generation of Americans. Because, again, they defended the U.S. against two menacingly capable enemies.
The North Vietnamese did nothing to provoke our military aggression. They did not attack us. They did not threaten us. And they were absolutely incapable of harming the U.S. in any way. Yet our government saw fit to engage in a military adventure in that nation which cost the lives of 58,000+ Americans and caused the maiming and scarring of tens of thousands more.
Are you capable of understanding the fundamental and critically important difference between those two scenarios? If you were drafted to serve in Vietnam, or if you were naive enough to enlist believing you were serving your country rather than the interests of a corrupt and/or incompetent government, then you have my sincere sympathy for being misused by demagogic political opportunists like Robert MacNamara. But if you think there is some reason why I or any other American should be
grateful for the suffering you endured in that unnecessary and utterly immoral debacle, please enlighten me as to that reason. I would like to know how your service in Vietnam served my interests or the interests of the United States. The simple fact of the matter is you were badly misused, wasted, and there is absolutely nothing glorious about that, and that's the message you should be sending to Americans who are too naive or too stupid to know it.
I joined the Marine Corps in 1956 for no reason other than a sense of pride and patriotic obligation. Fortunately my active service occurred during peacetime but I remained ready for combat deployment if the need arose. At that time I did not believe my government would deploy us because of circumstances other than defensive necessity. So we'll call that my time of innocence, which has long since passed.
I joined the protest movement when my cousin, Thomas, who was as close as a brother to me, was drafted and killed just five weeks after arriving in Vietnam. The shock of that loss is what caused me to question the need for it. Can you blame me for being pissed off because there was absolutely no good reason for it? Should I be grateful to Tommy for dying in Vietnam? Should I be grateful to you for whatever miseries you endured there? If so, why? You have my sincere sympathy but certainly not my gratitude. And if you had any sense you'd be as pissed off and disgusted about that outrageous waste of life and limb as I am rather than trying to assign some glory to it.
Face it, Vietnam was a sow's ear. Trying to make it into a silver purse will serve only to obscure the reality of a sad and disgraceful debacle that deserves to be reviled. And your attempt to portray the entire protest movement as "young people looking for a party" is as unfairly inaccurate as would be an attempt to portray every trooper in Vietnam as being as degenerate as those who engaged in the My Lai massacre and the like. While it's certainly true there were some tie-dyed long-hairs whose bizarre and melodramatic behavior attracted attention of the Press, the main body of the movement engaged in the kind of political activity that eventually brought an end to that outrage.
Alright , Mike, you've had your say; now, I'm going to have mine.
First of all, you have once again missed the point entirely. Like a certain commentator on the news recently, you cannot or will not understand the difference between respect and honor and "glorifying" or "celebrating" war. Thee was NO "glory" in Vietnam, just as there is not and never has been any "glory" in WW II, or any other war. All war is ugly, brutal and nasty; there is no "glory" in killing and being killed", no "glory" in shattered minds, bodies and lives, no "glory" in the inevitable collateral damage to the innocent. There is also precious little to "celebrate" when it is all over, other than survival, and the courage honor and selflessness on the part of his fellow troops one has witnessed. I know, because I've been there; I know because I have yet to talk to one single combat veteran of any of our wars who thought there was anything remotely "glorious" about the exercise.
The real irony is that that "great, glorious, grand crusade" of WWII you wax so nostalgic about also taught us in hindsight that its terrible carnage might have been mitigated, or prevented entirely, had the great powers of the day been willing to fight a much smaller conflict against oppression when that evil was yet small and weak. Our policy ever since has been to do just that. The result has been a series of smaller, limited conflicts with limited goals. A war which has been prevented is, of course, a difficult thing to see, while the cost in blood and treasure expended in doing so is all too visible; but the fact remains that after two awful conflagrations within two decades of one another, we have seen nothing on that scale in nearly seventy years, for which we may thank God, (and perhaps a little of our "interventionism", too). There is one thing worse than fighting an unnecessary war, and that is timidity in fighting a necessary one. Which is which, is a decision our system leaves in the hands of politicians, not those of the common soldier or junior officer who bears the brunt of the fighting.
I have knelt at the Wall, and put my hand on those black granite panels. On those are written the names of childhood friends, classmates, friends, men I served with, men who were my commanders, teachers and mentors, fellow officers, and those of my own men who I could not bring safely home. I do not feel grateful that they died; in their deaths, in the deaths of all 58,282 of my brothers and sisters including your cousin Thomas, is only sorrow and loss. What I AM grateful for, is not that they died, but that they lived-lived with the ideals of duty, honor and country, lived with the courage to do what they believed was right, not what was easy; lived with a dedication to something greater than themselves; lived with a love of freedom, this nation, and their fellow troops so strong that they would risk everything to protect them. I will always be grateful for the honor and the privilege of knowing and serving with such individuals.
Likewise, I am not grateful for the suffering of any of my wounded brothers and sisters, then or now. I am heartbroken, when I see our younger vets return from today's war blown up, shot up, brain-damaged and emotionally scarred. I AM grateful for the strength of character that so many have shown in rising above challenges that seem overwhelming; we could all learn something from that kind of inspiration.
So I tell you what; you keep your your pity, and your sympathy, for the damn few of any of us who need or want it; you won't find many. You keep your holier-than-thou attitude for those who share it. You keep your can't do attitude. You keep tearing down your country, whenever she fights a war you don't approve of; and I'll keep raising Old Glory every morning, and taking her down and folding her every night, and thanking God that America is still a nation who produces more people who care enough to make sure she remains a place where even people like you can spread your lies, and show your thinly-disguised contempt for soldiers and vets who continue to protect your right to do so without retribution (though not without rebuttal).
One more thing-Vietnam vets are not victims, fools, suckers, or villains. Neither are today's vets and service members. That your ideology is so small and weak that when we salute each other, or mention honor and Vietnam in the same sentence, you act like we just put sand in your shorts, is telling-and pathetic.
That is all.
no, I moved from the Marine Corps to being a doggy because my CO would not let me transfer, my appeal to Battalion and Regt. was shot down too.
)......
