Posted on 05/16/2021 7:22:09 AM PDT by DIRTYSECRET
Hindsight's 20-20 right? As a young lefty I was for it. Was the South worth dying for? It wasn't. The people that went-were they chumps? Misguided perhaps. The seed may have been planted when JFK said we'd pay any price, bear any burden. Was that reckless just as he lived his life? We are much more mature nation as a result. It took Iraq/Afghanistan to open my eyes. Gulf of Tonkin didn't happen. Where were the WMD? After 911 we bomb Iran's infrastructure, put them in the stone age and threaten to do it again. It would not have cost a trillion. Happy Sunday.
You mean after 9/11 we should have bombed Saudi Arabia back to the Stone Age. The Saudis were the majority of terrorists on 9/11. Iran probably cheered, but they didn’t do it. Neither did Iraq.
US war policy is like the drunk looking for his keys under the streetlight. That’s not where they are, but they are easier to find in the light.
“1 out of 16 baby boomer males saw combat in Vietnam. For every baby boomer killed in Vietnam, 10 committed a felony to avoid the draft. Was that generation against war or against personal participation? 80 percent of them supported the Gulf War.” USA TODAY Jan. 1993.
The Saudis were guilty of the Kobar Towers bombing. What if fracking was in full swing at the time? Beruit 1983-We learned from that and got out. I think our enemies in the Mid-east would have taken notice had we destroyed every bridge, power station and phone exchange in Iran like Khadafy did when he saw we weren’t f-ing around. We owed the ayatollah more than one.
I also voted for Carter. Carter had been a naval officer, engineer from a farm background, a southerner; I thought he would straighten out the Democrat Party. How wrong I was! I’ve not voted for a Democrat since.
“When Carter pardoned the draft dodgers I felt like burning my honorable discharge. Another slap in the face to those who served.”
I’ve got one of those, too (honorable discharge). The mistake was sending almost 60,000 of our young kids to their deaths and God only knows how many came back with half thier body left behind.
Why the hell did we do that? What grand purpose was worth destroying a large chunk of our future? The last war we fought for an American purpose was WWII. That’s it.
In addition to Vietnam, add to that Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan and I thank the good Lord above I don’t have children or grandchildren that can be sentenced to death because of the whims of the political elite!
Carter was a horrible president, but I’m not so sure what he did was the right thing to do. Maybe not for the reasons of his belief, but for those who did not want to fight a war we did not want to win and a war that had no purpose to futher the cause of our country.
I was gung-ho and very proud when I was 20 but I’m older and wiser today.
His mother was spot on when she once said that she should have remained a virgin. I wholeheartedly agreed with her on that point.
Agree
We had a war going and the men of this country signed up and fought - while those that chose not to be men hid under the bed and pretended to be "antiwar" or ran off to Canada.
Jimmy Carter rewarded those treasonous bastards by pardoning them and we had to wait for Ronald Reagan to finally recognize our courage and sacrifice for our country.
Why do t\you think that it's so hard to find volunteers now? Everyone knows how our "grateful" country rewards its heroes.
I know you are entitled to your opinion. You are so very wrong because you think you are better and worth more than those who were drafted. Those who were draft dodgers from Bill Clinton in his own way to the present President that used deferments to avoid Viet Nam.
In my opinion you are unworthy and a moral coward. Don’t use the blood and bodies that died there to justify your words.
I think this is a topic that still splits people.
It was a lousy war that was unnecessary, in my mind - and poorly executed.
Some people went and served honorably despite that.
They should be applauded.
Some risked much to not serve because of conscience - and for various reasons.
The war split the country.
I came along 2 years after they ended the draft and a number of years before Selective Service began, so while aware of the war, was not called up.
I never had to grapple with what I theoretically might have done...
Some did but most were drafted. Others, like me, recognized the war served no great national purpose and, anticipating being drafted, signed up for the Navy or the Air Force in order to stay out of the jungle.
I remember walking through a ward in the Naval hospital in Philadelphia in 1970 and seeing beds filled with maimed 18 year old Marines. I respected their bravery but was disgusted with the policies that led to their injuries and the deaths of many of their brothers in arms.
War is complicated.
Attempts to rewrite Carter’s pathetic legacy are dull bore these days..
I was on active duty from 76-84, at the advent of the all volunteer force. It won’t be long before Democrats reinstitute a draft, but not for the military...it will be for their “climate force.”
I was on active duty from 76-84, at the advent of the all volunteer force. It won’t be long before Democrats reinstitute a draft, but not for the military...it will be for their “climate force.”
I was a draft dodger. I received 3 draft notices. I took them all to my squadron admin and they finally stopped. Carter reinstated the draft when I was almost a year into my first enlistment in the USAF.
Wrong, they should have gone to prison......
They could have served as conscientious objectors....
However, from the perspective of a veteran, you are correct that we involve ourselves in too many conflicts we have no business being part of other than business......
You’re a leftist. We get it.
Hi Cindy!
Gosh, that was brilliant of you. So, having a heavily armed and trained force of communists, supported fully by the Soviets, the Chinese, and their Warsaw Pact buddies invading an ally and the key to controlling the Southeast Pacific and the paths to support our other allies - the Japanese, the South Koreans, the Philippines, and Australia weren't reason enough to risk your precious skin?
We had to fight a war 10,000 miles from home, using 1960s logistics, and dealing with a vicious enemy that killed their own citizens while know-it-alls back home decided that the "war wasn't the right one" for them.
I fought there for 17 months and I was one of those "maimed 21 year old Marines" in the hospital afterward.
No, it hasn't been long enough for you types to emerge from hiding, much less pretend that you're "conservative".
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