I was being tongue in cheek, but I actually can remember some of the 60’s and (more clearly) the early 70’s. I remember watching war coverage on the news and wondering where my dad was on the maps. I remember when it ended, and seeing my dad come home. On an unrelated note, I can also clearly remember watching the moon landing in '69 (I was 3). I was an intellectually precocious kid, and already a news junkie.
My husband said he wasn’t treated poorly. He got more shit for being a long-haired hippie than he did for being a vet. He doesn’t recall a single incident of anti-vet rage. He got out in '66, just when the anti-war movement was starting to build a head of steam.
I know you were…I was just busting your chops.
I can remember some of that stuff, too, but I doubt either one of us, despite any precociousness that might have been in evidence, would have grasped all the nuances of the culture wars going on at the time.
I can also remember it, clear as day. I was around six months old at the time, which has led me to question the reliability of such memories, vivid as they may be.
On the contrary, the details are of the essence. The American soldier who liberated a German concentration camp is not the same as the German soldier who guarded it. They were both soldiers but one was serving the side who was committing a crime and the other one was serving the side who was fighting to stop the crimes.
In Iraq it is America who is in the wrong and so are American soldiers. The honorable thing to do is not to follow orders blindly but to refuse to carry out such orders.
I’m not, and I’m a full-fledged member of that group who supposedly did these things. I didn’t, we didn’t, and they didn’t. Its a lie.
Think about it. First off, we weren’t all that widely beloved. Quite the opposite. We were the people our parents warned us about. How come, then, the story goes about the vet being spat upon by us DFH, but there isn’t any story about how the vet beat the living shit out of the DFH? Wouldn’t you expect at least one such incident, if this were so widespread? Was the ACLU goon squad stationed in airports to protect us? Wouldn’t such a story have been met with glowing approval and wide repeating?
Second, please consider: we had relatives and friends overseas as much as anyone else. We had people we loved there too, you know. Some didn’t come back, some came back as someone we no longer knew…
Third, this has the classic outlines of the Urban Legend, its all somebody told somebody else what somebody had seen or heard. There are no original sources, no newspaper accounts of such incidents. Why not?
Fourth, we were much encouraged by returning vets. There was a huge change in public demonstrations when the Viet Nam Veterans Against the War started to show up. The presence of uniformed veterans marching in our midst was huge. It hit like a ton of bricks. When you’re marching with a guy wearing his boonie hat and his sleeve pinned up over his missing arm…ain’t nobody going to call him a yellow-bellied chickenshit!
If you never believe another word I say, believe me now: I swear on the soul of Eugene V. Debs, it was a lie. So if being old enough to be there and see is some sort of substantiation, then hear me: it was a lie. And it still is.
I know that for me it turned me into a chameleon-like personality, enabling me to ingratiate myself into various social groups at the many schools I attended over the years. Shit, I went to five different high schools, with my senior year landing me at a Fairfax County school where the graduating class was 1,180 people! Talk about being awash in a sea of nameless faces!
Still, another thing I encountered…a “grass is always greener” scenario…I would go to school X that was off base somewhere and make friends with a couple local kids.
I would express to them how nice it would be to actually be in one place and have the same friends for years at a time instead of moving every 2-3 years, and they would invariably reply that it was ME they envied, as they were “stuck in this town” or somesuch.
I have exactly ONE friend that I made in the eighth grade that I managed to keep up with over the years, and that only because he continued to live in the same area of Northern Virginia as I contued to move around…and joined the Army myself.
Independant nations if they wish to remain independant nations MUST have armed forces.
Perhaps one day when humanity has evolved and matured and we all love one another and the Easter Bunny gives us all a big wet kiss then we wont need them as people will be so nice that they wont want to take advantage of defenceless people.
So you should thank service people,ESPECIALLY if serving in the armed forces is not your cup of tea,because as long as there are enough people who are willing to serve voluntarily in spite of all the risks and hardships then there wont be a draft and YOU wont be called up.
I’ll make my declarations I dont think that we should have invaded either Iraq or Afghan but I’ll back our troops to the hilt,they do not get to pick and choose what wars they fight in.
Also it particulary bugs me when smug pacifists spout off about their beliefs when they are only able to do this because other people who they enjoy slagging off; are sacrificing their lives just so that they can do that.
I dont know what part of the world **Jetboy ** lives in but where I come from driving a cab,working on oilrgs and being a fisherman are well paid little numbers and people are fighting to get jobs in these areas no matter how shitty the hours.
To be fair working in a convenience store is low pay but at least they get to go home everyday,get to see their families everyday,are in warm and dry surroundings and not many of them get killed or maimed .
And THATS why nobody is overflowing with thanks for those “poor saps”.
Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say they must have armed forces that are being used effectively? A soldier fighting in Iraq to overthrow the Hussain regime is doing sweet fuck all to protect the US’s status as an independant nation.
The cost may be considered prohibitive, but the troops do have a choice. They aren’t automatons, if a soldier decided that invading Iraq on false pretenses was morally wrong, they couldn’t be forced to fight.
I have no opinion one way or the other as to who is lying in this case. I’m only saying that if it never happened, you should tell your comrades that they never should have told impressionable little 15-year-old Gen Xers that they personally went down to the airport and did it.
Imperial Japan, along with Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and their various hangers-on and collaborators deserved to be stomped down into the dirt. Hard.
The damned Stalinists did, too, but alas the situation didn’t work out for that to happen.
No. He’s simply not in the right frame of mind to play “humor the 'tard” just now.
This reminds me of that old Stephen Seagal movie. He leaves a trail of bodies, kills every single bad guy all by himself, and tells his friends “hey, I’m just a cook”.
Is that why new recruits are often told that you never want to antagonize the clerk and the cook? Becuase he might start stomping people? 
I won’t speak for elucidator, but anyone who boasted of such a stunt is certainly not my comrade.
(Emphasis added)
And let me emphasize, once again: the returning 'Nam vet were amongst the best things to ever happen for the anti-war movement. We (and I use the term “we” very, very loosely…) had no animosity at all for the common “grunt”: just as I said, they were as often our own friends, brothers and cousins as anyone else.
That said, and in the interests of relentless truth, it must be noted that there were damn near half-a-million such returning vets, it is impossible to say that there was never even one such incident. It is, however, clear that even if there were, it has been wildly exaggerated to serve a cause, and that cause is a slander to millions of people I can call “comrades”, and am proud to do so.
And they do it every time, don’t they? Speak out against a stupid, futile and wretched military adventure, and the first thing they will do is wrap themselves in red white and blue bunting and call you “unpatriotic”. When has anyone ever honored their country by supporting a dishonorable cause?
And they’ll do it again, too. Because it works. Works like a charm, and will continue to work so long as we let them get away with it.
It’s because they might make you watch a Steven Segal movie.
I have two particularly loud relatives in this regard. Funny thing is neither of them served. When I asked the Flag Waver why he didn’t serve, he told me it was none of my fucking business. Make some sense out of THAT!
That’s good to know. (Just don’t tell Starving Artist he was a “long-haired hippie!”;))
In the British Army the Catering Corps have killed more Brit squaddies with their cooking then the enemy ever did.
Its the hardest course in the Army because I’ve never met a cook who’d passed it judging by what they dished up.
My experience with US Army cooks was the opposite. They did quite well, considering the materials they were given. That was nearly 30 years ago, of course. As I understand it, much of the cooking is handled by civilian contractors now. I imagine it must be a lot like the food a contractor supplies the cafeteria where I teach. i.e. bland, unsatisfying, and in slightly short supply.