Posted on 09/15/2025 1:44:07 AM PDT by CIB-173RDABN
A Generation Betrayed By CIB 173rd Abn
We were the children of victory—the generation born in the aftermath of World War II, raised in what may rightly be called the Golden Age of the United States. We lived in a time of abundance, opportunity, and freedom. Our parents returned from war to build lives in peace, trusting in the strength and righteousness of the nation they had fought to preserve. We inherited that trust and that faith.
But somewhere along the way, we were betrayed—not suddenly, but slowly, insidiously, by those entrusted to lead us. The clearest fracture came with the Vietnam War, a conflict wrapped in patriotic language and Cold War urgency, but beneath the surface, it was something else entirely. We were told it was to stop communism, to prevent the so-called Domino Effect, where the fall of Vietnam would lead to the collapse of all of Asia into communist hands.
But history has exposed that as a myth. Vietnam fell, but the rest of Asia did not. Our leaders didn’t fight to win, they fought to bleed the Soviets, to draw out resources, to play a geopolitical game where our soldiers were pawns and our nation’s soul the wager. They said they were protecting freedom—what they really protected was a strategy.
And as the war dragged on, it divided our country. It eroded trust. The very fabric of America—patriotism, duty, faith in leadership—was stretched and then torn. The youth, seeing the hypocrisy, turned not only against the war but against the country itself. Into that tear flowed the ideologies we thought we were fighting against.
While we were distracted overseas, another kind of battle was being fought at home—a quiet infiltration, not of armies, but of ideas. Communism, socialism, and radical activism crept into our institutions: education, media, government, even religion. The universities that once taught love of country now taught suspicion of it. Patriotism became a punchline. Our flag a symbol of hate. The enemy didn’t take Asia—they took our schools. And from there, they took our culture.
Even as we returned from war, disillusioned and often broken, our government continued to expand its reach—not just over foreign policy, but over the minute details of our daily lives. In the name of safety, we surrendered freedoms. Smoking bans, seatbelt laws, helmet mandates—none of them egregious on their own, but collectively forming a web of control. Each “for your own good” rule nudged us further from liberty and closer to dependency.
The irony is painful. We fought to stop authoritarianism abroad, only to find it creeping in through the backdoor of bureaucracy and benevolence. One domino at a time. Not in Southeast Asia, but here—at home. And now, we live in a country where freedom is often conditional, where speech is policed, where dissent is dangerous, and where history is rewritten by those who disdain it.
We were a generation betrayed. Not by foreign enemies, but by domestic mismanagement. By cowardice disguised as compromise. By leaders who treated our lives as leverage in a game we didn’t agree to play. The legacy we were meant to preserve has been allowed to rot, not by force, but by forgetfulness. We forgot who we were. We forgot what we stood for. And now we must ask: is it too late to remember?
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Sit and bitch about being betrayed or stand up and take back your country.
Sit and bitch about being betrayed or stand up and take back your country.
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I am 79 years old and a combat infantryman (Vietnam 1965-1966) you know nothing about me or what I have done or doing. Besides sitting around freerepublic making comments, what have you done for the nation lately?
This is an essay, nothing more nothing less. A reviews of our history if you will.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4340229/posts?page=62#62
excerpt:
What I’m watching right now is to see where we are in the arc of escalation.
Interestingly there’s a pattern in history where there’s a 20 to 30 year buildup of grievance before there ends up being a major revolution or an assassination. In this country we’ve had 20 to 30 years of grievance.
We had children raised up under the grievances of their parents, and now they have what’s called an ‘inherited grievance.’
Where their parents will tolerate the injustice that they see, the children will not tolerate it, and they are more likely to engage in much more physical and violent manners to be able to change the world because the grievance is their entire life. It becomes their identity.
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The above is the text from a tik-tok video of somebody (professional student of history?) that your post made me think of.
Thank you for your service. While I don’t share entirely your views on the Vietnam War, I do on your “war at home”. Although my link is with regard to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and the response seems to indicate that the war at home is not lost.
TPUSA has 900 college chapters and 1,200 in high schools. In the past view days they have received 32,000 applications to start new chapters. (Heck, it could be 64,000 as the article I read was from Sunday morning).
While I don’t share entirely your views on the Vietnam War, I do on your “war at home”.
And now we must ask: is it too late to remember?
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Life goes on and as new inhabitants become the current voters
they have little to remember of the past begone. I was in
1962-1965 but history moves on and the new becomes what is
making history now.
Well said. Was going to reply to that guy but you did it better.
I spent the last 8 years campaigning for conservative ideas in America. I became a precinct chair for the GOP in a solid blue district, knowing the futility but soldiering on. I am now a District officer and a analytics consultant to the County. I was sending out event updates this morning.
I am in the game. Hope you are too
I spent the last 8 years campaigning for conservative ideas in America. I became a precinct chair for the GOP in a solid blue district, knowing the futility but soldiering on. I am now a District officer and a analytics consultant to the County. I was sending out event updates this morning.
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You are doing more than most, I wish you well, and have nothing but success in the coming years.
Nixon resigned a month before I began attending high school. Our HS Class and the four before us (’72 was the first) were a mix of backgrounds, talents, interests, personalities, attitudes etc., and just about every HS in the county was very similar to ours.
There was so much permissiveness going on it was hard to believe. The fear and loathing, sex, drugs and rock & roll was everywhere and so was there this atmosphere of mistrust and having been betrayed but when you’re only 14 or 15 years old and had all of that going on around you, it was hard to know why things were the way they were, but you knew things weren’t going to ever be the same as they were in grade school. All of the sudden, you’re in HS and there’s all of this crime going on! I still wasn’t quite sure where the past left off and where the future should begin. It wasn’t the Greasers and the Frats anymore, it was the Freaks and the Jocks.
For some odd reason, I gravitated towards the Freaks but I still had roots in my original circle. Even though half the faculty, many of whom were only 10 years older than us (in Jr. High too), we still had to make sense out of what was and/or what was not happening in the world on our own. A good number of the entire school system’s faculty members were veterans of various foreign wars who just wanted to keep on keeping on with their lives and their work, and nobody ever blamed them for anything...
By 1976, we started seeing more patriotism as the American Bicentennial became a kind of vehicle for moving past our long national nightmare, but how far did that take us?
I had a hard time adjusting to the 1980’s, not knowing what we had in President(s) Reagan or Carter. Eventually, it was the School of Hard Knocks that helped me to find my way out of what turned out to be a teenage wasteland that a lot of us dwelled on.
By 2027 however, I think things are going to be a lot different for everyone because I believe that when Trump talks it up, saying how we will see (like never before) a new Golden Age in America, he will not disappoint.
Free Republic has the most intelligent, well-written threads on the Internet.
Such a joy to read and ponder.
Thanks, guys!
Once the world wars in particular were over and global dynamics reset, the power brokers were going to shut down that abundance, opportunity, and freedom. They do not give up nor share power willingly.
Before saying that Vietnam fell in 1975 and it didn’t hurt much as far as Communism in Asia, we have to figure out if the years 1954 to 1975 changed that result.
Before saying that Vietnam fell in 1975 and it didn’t hurt much as far as Communism in Asia, we have to figure out if the years 1954 to 1975 changed that result.
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True, and there have been countless books written on the subject, however for this short essay, it was not my intention to go very deep, just surface opinion of the time and the effect the war had on our nation in my opinion. I can always be wrong, and there is always room for a deeper dive into the subject. In a way, the comment section is where I often discover things I did not know about a subject so I do appreciate your comment.
I suppose you need to propose a plan of action. My action plan is to re-infiltrate the universities and public schools with conservative minded teachers.
College professors sympathetic to communism can be blamed for most, if not all, of the rot and evil in culture today. They have lived such useless lives of luxury they had to invent miseries where non exist. It feeds their ego and pays good money. The battle needs to be won there. Everything else has been birthed from the sewers of academia.
Excellent analogy. I’ve feel much the same as the author. When the US government allowed a known communist, John Brennan, to be head of the CIA, I knew our country was lost - the full circular firing squad of self defeat. There’s no way back except for a thorough cleansing of those government agencies that continue the rot of communism, and anti-American and anti-Constitutional governance.
They can't forget, you won't let them.
The Baby Boomers will be remembered as the worst generation in history. 1000 years from now, your generation will still be remembered and cursed as such.
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