“Hell, half my company, (Comm Bn, 1st Mar Div.), were stoners. No big deal”
Actually 40 years on, we can see it was a big deal.
How do you think we got where we are?
It wasn't because of Vietnam vets, it was the ones who stayed home and hated those who came back.
Consider this: When we came home, we were smuggled back into the country. The deal was to fly us back into the country, scheduled for 05:30 landing at Travis AFB, so that they could bus us over to KSFO by 06:30, so that they could have 1,000 military personnel flown out and scattered all over the country before the protestors got out of bed.
We just went back to work, kept our mouths shut, and without a welcome home parade, got on with our lives. We were aware that college was meant as a final trade school, not a reason to hide from life for four more years. This was when being in the military was considered an admission that you had no chance in civilian life.
Personally, I'd very much like to round up all the civilian dodgers, Liberal arts majors with student deferments, Democrat voters and...