Barack Obama Condemns America's Treatment of Vietnam Veterans As 'National Shame'

Telegraph(UK) ^ | May 28, 2012 | Raf Sanchez

[Steelfish]

Barack Obama Condemns America's Treatment of Vietnam Veterans As 'National Shame' President Barack Obama called America's treatment of its Vietnam veterans "a disgrace", as he vowed that soldiers returning from the unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would not suffer the same dishonour.

By Raf Sanchez 28 May 2012 Speaking before a monument to the 60,000 Americans killed in Vietnam, Mr Obama said the war was "one of the most painful chapters in our history", especially "how we treated our troops who served there."

"You were often blamed for a war you didn’t start, when you should have been commended for serving your country with valor," he told an audience of veterans on Memorial Day.

"You came home and sometimes were denigrated, when you should have been celebrated. It was a national shame, a disgrace that should have never happened."

He announced that the US would begin a 13-year programme of honouring the three million Americans who served in the conflict.

The words were spoken to former Vietnam troops, many now in their seventies, but will have echoes for younger soldiers coming back from Middle Eastern wars for which the American public has long lost enthusiasm.

The invasion of Iraq, which Mr Obama has often called "the wrong war", remains deeply controversial, both for the Bush administrations's promise of finding weapons of mass destruction and the 4,500 US troops killed.

Meanwhile, the ongoing war in Afghanistan, which Mr Obama has pledged to end by 2015, is opposed by up to thirds of the American public, according to recent polls.

"When our troops return from Afghanistan, America will give this entire 9/11 Generation the welcome home they deserve," Mr Obama said.

[Steelfish]

This from Obama:

"The invasion of Iraq, which Mr Obama has often called "the wrong war"

[Chode]

said the living embodiment of National Shame... feh

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Phuk him. He didn’t even mention WHY or WHO they were fighting, today. Natch.

[nolongerademocrat]

Desperation.

[Army Air Corps]

So says the guy who cavorted with the people who mistreated Vietnam vets.

[Cicero]

I don’t know which is worse. When Obama skips Memorial Day to go golfing, or when he goes to a war memorial to give one of his speeches.

This makes me sick. Which side were you on, Obama? Which side were all your Communist friends and relations on?

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Obama is covering his red ass because of future revelations about how his administration has treated many Iraq/Afghanistan veterans, and because he has/had so many communists in his administration it began to look like a North Vietnamese/Red Chinese Politburo.

Obama: the man of unlimited hypocrisy and treason!

[EyeGuy]

And yet his friend and enabler, Scum Ayers wipes his filthy feet on the American flag, and is in general, a consummately talentless, traitor bastard.

[Revolting cat!]

Panderama.

[TigerClaws]

His mentor and ghostwriter said blowing up buildings in opposition to the war wasn’t enough.

Hypocrisy to the level it borders on the ironic.

[Army Air Corps]

Makes you wanna vomit, no?

[POWERSBOOTHEFAN]

It IS a shame. These brave men made a great sacrifice and they deserved better treatment.

If I had been around at the time I would’ve shown my appreciation and gratitude.

[Mortrey]

This from Bath-House Barry who wanted all veterans to pay for their own medical care.

Sodomite-Soetoro.

[ansel12]

A Vietnam war draft evader and son of an anti-Vietnam war activist, represents our side in this argument.

It’s going to be a long year.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Steelfish. The LAOTUS lies again.

• Romney tells vets dangerous world demands powerful military (Promises to maintain military power)

[NonValueAdded]

perhaps we’ll see an Executive Order outfitting the White House mens rooms with Jane Fonda urinal targets?

[Steelfish]

And this is the guy who praised Sen. Kerry when he delivered the keynote speech of endorsement. We have a filthy biased media unwilling to point these out.

[Chode]

absolutely...

[cardinal4]

Cardinal4 Condemns Baraq Hussein Obama as a National Shame..

[Navy Patriot]

The people who mistreated Vietnam vets are Obama’s base.

[free thinker 03]

Oh Barf!!!
It is his party, his bomb making friends, his hollywood buddies, some of his co-workers in the senate and the liberal press.. they are the ones responsible for the denigration of the Vietnam Vet.

[PA-RIVER]

Unlike the President, many of us chose to honor the Vietnam Vets sacrifice by signing up for the Selective Service in 1980.

Words are cheap Mr. President. You had your chance to show some appreciation in 1980 and chose to spit on them.

[Flag_This]

Democrats have authored multiple dark pages in our history and then called them “national” shames.

[ImpBill]

Being spit upon by some miscreant hippy was one thing.

The deeper cuts came from friends and neighbors who wanted to know if I got into drugs or killed any civilians when I got back to my home town.

It may be comfortable to sit back today and blame the left for how we were treated when we came home, but the truth is that not many on the right stood by our sides and welcomed us home with open arms either.

Bitter? Been working hard for 40 years not to be. Sometimes it works - sometimes not.

[tacticalogic]

Talk about a slap in the face.

People who used to call returning Vietnam Vets "baby killers" now hold positions of power and influence in his administration.

[4buttons]

They fought communists, and that would be YOU. Shut your hole.

[raybbr]

I would be willing to bet that out there is a tape, transcript, etc. showing that this bastard said some bad stuff about Viet Nam vets and this is the mea culpa.

[ConorMacNessa]

Letting that Anti-American, Marxist rat turd tread on the Hallowed Ground of Arlington National Cemetery is a National Shame! And yes, I do take it personally.

Many of my comrades-in-arms from the Vietnam War are buried there. For this loathsome cipher to invoke their names and their sacrifice for what are surely his own puposes is an absolute disgrace.

Numerous members of my family are laid to their eternal rest there. Among them, my father, a career officer in the U.S. Navy - WWII, Korea and Vietnam. My beloved mother, his wife. My uncle, Maj. John T. Dowd, USA, WWII, Korea and Vietnam. Also a few other ops he could never tell me about. Started out as a cavalry officer in the early 30's - served with the Old Guard - went on to become a Paratrooper. His beloved wife, Virginia Gavin Dowd, my aunt. My cousin, RAdm. Jack Jarabak, USN. My cousin, Charles M.Doran, USA - Vietnam - a Screaming Eagle.

They were American Patriots,

I presently qualify for interment at Arlington by virtue of having wounded in combat. I speak on my own behalf and on behalf of my Brothers who have fallen. This President is not my President. He is not worthy to stand on the Hallowed Ground of our Fallen Heroes. He is not worthy to stand in the sight of my beloved family interred there. He is not worthy to give "tribute" to the veterans of the Vietnam War or any other War waged by this great Nation.



Nos genuflectitur ad non princeps sed Princeps Pacem!

Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. (Isaiah 49:1 KJV)

[tet68]

When Obama praises my sacrifice, I hear echos of
“reminicient of Jengis Khan”.

FUBO and take your slimy socialist friends with you.
Communists tried to kill me and I’ll never forget that
but at least they did it with their own two hands.
Not like you ya bastage.
t.

[Army Air Corps]

Well, we do know that he was a member of an anti-military organisation while he attended Columbia. They actively discouraged young men from registering for Selective Service. The organisation also opposed to any military presence on campus.

[Revolting cat!]

Obama sees himself as a revolutionary. And he learns from revolutionaries. Lenin knew very well that he had to have the armed forces on his side to succeed.

[what's up]

This is a laugh.

Obama's minions were the ones who spit on the Vietnam Vets!

Now's he's pandering for their votes.

Can't wait till this guy is GONE.

[ZULU]

??????????????

The DemocRats have thrown away their tactic of twisting the facts. Now they just make up total lies as they go along.

The way Veterans are treated IS a shame, but this bastard and his political party are in the forefront of this treatment.

Romney should start blaming Obama for everything from the Dinosaur extinctions to the Bubonic Plague.

The Dems are totally out of control.

[Godwin1]

I've always thought this an urban myth. I returned from a year in Vietnam in January 67, admittedly an early stage of the war. I still had about 9 months to serve in the Army but had been granted a furlough before reporting to the stateside duty station.
We were processed by military reps at the Seattle airport and had vouchers to travel to our homes of records. We were in—or changed into—I forget, Class A uniforms but only had summer khakis. We were blackened with the sun and had our campaign ribbons and decorations. I was flying to NY with a stop in Chicago.
At the bar in the Seattle airport, no soldier could buy a drink. The patrons insisted on paying. When I boarded my flight—it was a half empty red eye, the stewardess put me First Class and brought me drinks on the flight to Chicago. Ditto for the Chicago -NY flight. Everyone I met on the way was friendly. And, when I met my friends and family and in our wider community—a working class NYC neighborhood—everyone expressed relief at my safe return and gratitude for my service. I went back to college after I was finally discharged. Admittedly, probably most of my classmates and profs did not know I was a vet, but some I became close to did and no one EVER criticized my service.
I think the bad treatment was limited to extreme leftists and few whores like Fonda and Kerry who tried to stir up hatred against us—remember Kerry's Gengis Khan crap—for their own selfish reasons. Most real Americans respected our service as most real Americans respect the service of those who seve now. It is only a few low life pols—Illinois Senator Durbin who compared GIs to Nazis and communists—that attack Gis now. And the despicable Durbin has shut his foul mouth now that Obama is C and C. Sorry for the long post , but this myth has troubled me for years.

[Mike Darancette]

Sure makes me want to go right out and vote for him. /sarc

[ldish]

he is one desperate MF!

[Navy Patriot]

The deeper cuts came from friends and neighbors...

Same here, but I made little effort to spare their feelings, and my father was a Communist hater from his days in university in the '20s, so he and my family had my back. I had the support I needed.

Thank you for your service.

[mardi59]

I heard this sickening pack of lies and after I barfed I wanted to kick my tv in.

His people were the ones blowing things up and spitting on vets upon their return. His hypocrisy has no limits. He is disgusting!

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Most of the problems for returning vets happened in SF-Oakland. Travis AFB was where most soldiers returning from Vietnam had to process out of the miltary or through to their next duty station.

[Navy Patriot]

We got a lot of that “baby killer” stuff out San Francisco way, starting in ‘70, but never from businesses or establishment types.

[Yardstick]

Call me cynical, but I think there’s a backhanded motive here. Obama is using the occasion to link the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with the Vietnam war, which of course was the “bad war”. From the very beginning the left has wanted the American public to see Iraq especially as Bush’s Vietnam. Obama is helping to deliver that.

[ansel12]

By 1972 we were told that one of the reasons for the private GI quarters at the Seattle airport was to give us some privacy not just for resting, but to avoid problems that would arise occasionally.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

I couldn't find a year when Travis AFB kicked into high gear as the center for all processing but it looks like it was after your time.

Over the years some Freepers reported firsthand that they were spat on by jerks after returning from Vietnam and most of it was in SF.

[Steelfish]

This is the guy who appointed Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court that when she was Harvard’s law dean she opposed ROTC coming onto campus to seek recruits to our military. Lying hypocite.

[boycott]

Maybe he should take it up with his Sect. of State?

Like Hillary, obama loathes the military.

[mardi59]

She’s one of his cronies. He has surrounded himself with socialist comrades. The hippies from the sixties have taken over the establishment they hated and are attempting to make it their liberal utopia.

Obama must lose in Nov.

[Intolerant in NJ]

I think the bad treatment was limited to extreme leftists and few whores like Fonda and Kerry...don't think it's such a myth - I went through SeaTac about a month before you, in December '66, on the way from Okinawa back east - flew space-available on United and as the agent finished processing me he said "here's your ticket, baby killer" - not quite getting spit on, but I've never forgotten........

[mardi59]

“baby killers”

***

How hypocritical the left are. They called those returning “baby killers” when they were the ones lining up daily for abortions. Hypocrits and liars!

[ansel12]

You don’t understand where Romney puts us on this, Obama was only twelve when we finished up combat in Vietnam in 1973.

Mitt Romney was avoiding the draft and media attention while living in France with a Mormon issued draft deferment while his left wing anti-war Mormon Bishop father ran as a republican presidential candidate AGAINST the Vietnam War, and claiming the military had brainwashed him into supporting the war.

No man in Romney’s direct family line, has ever served the United States in uniform during their entire 170 year history in America.

Mitt Romney was pushing to homosexualize the military almost 20 years ago, Mitt and his family has a worst Vietnam history than the kid who was only 7 during the worst of the Romney family’s anti-war activities.

[Carthego delenda est]

“Obama sees himself as a revolutionary. And he learns from revolutionaries. Lenin knew very well that he had to have the armed forces on his side to succeed.”

Are the ‘forces’ on Obama’s side?