Doc, I once again am not trying to defend Kerry. I don't care about the man. I just think some of his testimony has been misinterpreted or exaggerated, and that if you talked to the man today, he would not just piss all over Vietnam veterans like they're trash. I'm also very aware that there were many Americans who treated veterans very poorly, and I don't support that. I have watched/read pretty much all of Kerry's two-hour congressional testimony, and I saw very little evidence that he considered every single soldier a criminal. As I mentioned before, there were many things he brought up in his testimony which showed his support of veterans.
Also, once again, I am well aware that there were crimes committed by the VC and NVA, as all wars have crimes committed by both sides. And yes, those should be mentioned as well. However, those do not justify things that we may have done. I'm not saying we were WORSE or that we were BETTER, but there's nothing wrong with admitting that there were mistakes made. I'd be the last one to say that all Vietnam veterans are criminals. That's ridiculous.
We still arguing over this? OK, let's all take a deep breath, and think about why we are doing that. There are a few of us here, who actually fought in Vietnam, and a few more who were actually around back here in the states at the time, and old enough to understand some of what was going on there. There are a lot more here who likely were not even born until after our war was just a memory. Nothing is going to change the opinions of those of us who went to Vietnam back then, or those who stayed home. We lived it, and we have our emotions connected to it; some of those emotions are still pretty strong, and maybe always will be. This is primarily for the rest of you, still making partisan political hay of one kind or another over us, our war, and the ones who protested it.
Those of us who fought in Vietnam are all old now, most of us past sixty. Before we're all gone, there's something I'd like to say to those of you who think you know all about it, from the history books, the old newsreels, and the movies. Whatever our ethnic background, whatever our social class, whether we volunteered or were drafted, we were mostly young, scared, and trying to survive a year fighting in a strange place halfway around the globe. Most of us managed to find a few moments of laughter and cheer in uncomfortable surroundings, but most of the time, we were uncomfortable, dirty, bug-bitten, and sleep-deprived. Boredom alternated with horror, and moments of sheer terror. Sometimes, it wasn't easy to even tell who the enemy was; the line between combatant and non-combatant was often blurred; some things were cut-and-dried, a lot more weren't. Heroes? You want the plain truth? I don't think ANY of us felt much like heroes; we were too damn busy trying to stay alive, or keep each other alive, to worry about it. I don't recall any of us having too many thoughts about the flag, glory, or God, country, motherhood and apple pie, in the middle of a firefight. We won, on the battlefield; what we won otherwise, is something else we've argued about for forty years. All I'm really sure of is that 58,274 of our brothers and 9 of our sisters died for it, and the rest of us felt damn lucky to have survived it. Did they, and we, do all that, so someone today can run for political office on the medals he received, or someone else can call one politician a traitor, or another a "chickenhawk", depending on whether he did, or din't serve, and where? Sometimes, it makes me feel like a bunch of vultures are circling the carcass of our war, picking at the bones of the dead, and picking the scabs off the wounds of the living ; and I have to ask, is that what they died for, and what we lived for? I ask, because sometimes, it feels like that process stains the little bit of honor that's been lost in all the recriminations and counter-recriminations, and it makes me feel just a little dirty, and a little sick.
So excuse me when I say I wish we could just stop, and think about not doing this anymore, and maybe letting the dead rest in peace, and the wounded heal, if they can. I guess even that's too much to ask, and this won't change things, anymore than all the bickering over who is or isn't a "hero" will. So go ahead, if you have to; but dammit, sometimes, it hurts, just the same.
