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How many Veterans are offended by the peace symbol and why? (vanity)
7-14-2009

Posted on 07/14/2009 11:35:38 AM PDT by Freedom2specul8

RANDOM POLL:

Veterans: how many of you are offended by the peace symbol and why?

(Family members and friends who know the answer, please feel free to speak on behalf of Veterans who cannot post.... )

Thank you for your time!

To quote myself: "I’ve always associated the peace symbol with those who spit on the vietnam vets"


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Military/Veterans; Miscellaneous; Society
KEYWORDS: chrisparry; jimthompson; peacesymbol; racism; veterans
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To: ~Kim4VRWC's~

I’ll give you two perspectives, one from my Vietnam vet uncle and one from an aunt of the same era.

My uncle detests most symbols from that era, not just the peace symbol. Tie die, Willie Nelson braids, love beads, VW buses ... anything like that still sets him off to this day. He makes an effort to be at the airport to greet returning soldiers. If he sees anyone dressed in 60’s attire, he’ll ask them what their intentions are: protesting or supporting? If they’re protesting, he goes ballistic and gives them “what for” about how Vietnam vets were treated. Typically they leave, but sometimes he “converts” them and gives them a “Support Our Troops” t-shirt to put on.

My aunt wouldn’t let her children wear 60’s attire growing up. She lost many friends in Vietnam. Her grandson got involved in Seattle grunge music and bought an old VW bus to transport his band and gear. She forbade him from coming to her house for family functions in that bus. When he quit the band and wanted help with college tuition, she made him sell the bus before she’d help him. To this day, she forbids her grandchildren to wear any 60’s attire to her house. If she helps run them around to their activities, she makes them change clothes if she perceives their attire to be “disrespectful” in any way but especially so if they’re wearing 60’s tie-die and peace symbols.


81 posted on 07/14/2009 1:07:48 PM PDT by BuckeyeTexan (Integrity, Character, Leadership, and Loyalty matter - Be an example, no matter the cost.)
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To: 3niner
It's not "upside-down", it indicates the direction chickens go when there's fighting to do.

I'm calling it what a 'Nam vet friend of mine calls it.

Good enough for me. ;-)

82 posted on 07/14/2009 1:12:03 PM PDT by Allegra ( Socks)
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To: CTOCS

Thank you for your sacrifice. You and all of your fellow servicemen deserved so much better than what you got. May we never do to our current heroes what was done to you.


83 posted on 07/14/2009 1:12:18 PM PDT by TXBlair (With any luck at all, I'll be dead by then.)
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To: TXBlair; CTOCS
Thank you for your sacrifice. You and all of your fellow servicemen deserved so much better than what you got. May we never do to our current heroes what was done to you.

Amen, brother.

84 posted on 07/14/2009 1:15:24 PM PDT by Allegra ( Socks)
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To: Allegra

Tell, your ‘Nam friend about it indicating chicken direction. He’ll probably be amused.


85 posted on 07/14/2009 1:16:42 PM PDT by 3niner (When Obama succeeds, America fails.)
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To: ~Kim4VRWC's~

“Peace symbol” is what its proponents called it. But the really meaning and usage was “anti-war symbol.” And it was directed against our soldiers fighting in Vietnam. That history outshadows everything else, including the possibly evil or satanic sources of the symbol.

As far as I know, nobody had any idea what the prior history of the symbol might have been. It suddenly appeared, and it was an expression of protest against the Vietnam War—and often in favor of Ho Chi Mimh and the Communists.


86 posted on 07/14/2009 1:19:56 PM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: awake-n-angry

what kind of peace though. Peace between brothers or peace between God and man. Christ came to bring the latter. But Christ brings a sword to divide father from son on the subject of Christianity.


87 posted on 07/14/2009 1:19:59 PM PDT by griffin (Love Jesus, No Fear!)
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To: BuckeyeTexan

LOL sounds like your Aunt and Uncle were quite an awesome team! I love that story. We didn’t allow the peace symbol either, but it was never an issue. My kids weren’t into the peace symbol jewelry etc.


88 posted on 07/14/2009 1:30:35 PM PDT by Freedom2specul8 (Please pray for our troops.... http://www.americasupportsyou.mil/)
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To: CTOCS
"We should pack up and leave them to the tribal wars they have been fighting for centuries. "

I have a friend who was in the gulf war who agrees with you... And I too would like to thank you for your service. My dad and uncle voluntarily joined the air force and navy during the 60's right before I was born..but were not in combat.

89 posted on 07/14/2009 1:34:22 PM PDT by Freedom2specul8 (Please pray for our troops.... http://www.americasupportsyou.mil/)
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To: DustyMoment

I hate it when I mess up a metaphor!

could = couldn’t

Damn.


90 posted on 07/14/2009 1:36:05 PM PDT by SJSAMPLE
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I am a disabled VN combat vet. For me, the symbol identiifed those persons whose philosophy undermined our tactical position and caused the deaths & injuries of many of our troops. The ludicrous rules of engagement that were inflicted on us, in order to placate those who wished us ill, are a product of those who wore the symbol.


91 posted on 07/14/2009 1:36:27 PM PDT by white17x
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To: Cicero; McGruff
"...was “anti-war symbol.” And it was directed against our soldiers fighting in Vietnam. That history outshadows everything else, including the possibly evil or satanic sources of the symbol. ..."

I didn't know who created it or why...very interesting articles Mcgruff. I guess the creator got his 15 minutes of fame because of the tshirt. He seemed pretty excited eh? Even though the president professes it to be the "Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament logo", I think it's a slap in the face to the Veterans precisely because of what happened to the soldiers in Vietnam. (reminding me of the dhs's inclusion of vets in the right wing extremist definition)

92 posted on 07/14/2009 1:41:39 PM PDT by Freedom2specul8 (Please pray for our troops.... http://www.americasupportsyou.mil/)
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To: BeerLover NYC

I had never heard of it being called a chicken foot until the past couple of days.


93 posted on 07/14/2009 1:45:05 PM PDT by Freedom2specul8 (Please pray for our troops.... http://www.americasupportsyou.mil/)
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To: ~Kim4VRWC's~
I don't mind seeing the symbol being worn by old hippies or present day wannabe’s, but such political trash being worn by the children of our current president, or any president for that matter, while on display in another country is beyond the pale and a direct affront to common decency on how children of world leaders should be dressed when accompanying their parents on such world junkets...........
94 posted on 07/14/2009 1:46:53 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco (This country isn't going to hell in a handbasket, it's riding shotgun in an Indy car....)
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To: ducdriver

I wonder if this guy got the idea from nero...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/08/malia-obama-cnd-t-shirt
“Since it was first sketched out by the British designer Gerald Holtom to accompany the Aldermaston march in 1958, the CND logo has become a universal peace symbol. Holtom, a conscientious objector during world war two,”


95 posted on 07/14/2009 1:47:37 PM PDT by Freedom2specul8 (Please pray for our troops.... http://www.americasupportsyou.mil/)
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To: Hot Tabasco
I don't mind seeing the symbol being worn by old hippies or present day wannabe’s,

I wish the first family were white so I could call them "hippie white trash...."......

96 posted on 07/14/2009 1:49:27 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco (This country isn't going to hell in a handbasket, it's riding shotgun in an Indy car....)
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To: ~Kim4VRWC's~

I’m not. But then I wasn’t in Vietnam.


97 posted on 07/14/2009 1:51:30 PM PDT by Doohickey (I try to my days one at a time, but occasionally several days attack me at once.)
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To: Allegra

Depends on which way the chicken is walking...


98 posted on 07/14/2009 1:52:19 PM PDT by Doohickey (I try to my days one at a time, but occasionally several days attack me at once.)
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To: ~Kim4VRWC's~
I had never heard of it being called a chicken foot until the past couple of days.

I wore a green tshirt in college right after I got back from VN that had a chicken's foot superimposed on the symbol, and the words "Footprint of the American Chicken" below it.

It wasn't too popular, but that wasn't why I was wearing it.

Another cool one back then had a top-down view of a B-52 on the "peace symbol."

Still, I fought for their right to use it, wouldn't want to live where they can't, and often appreciate the "heads-up" it gives me about people I meet.

99 posted on 07/14/2009 1:52:24 PM PDT by umbagi
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To: ~Kim4VRWC's~
Yes, actually, it does, and I'm pretty mellow about that sort of thing. US Navy, 1970-1980. I recall it being a totemic character then for the sanctimonious who wouldn't have had to serve anyway, and since then a mocking tribal symbol that is rubbed in my face that shouts "we won, you lost" by people who didn't give a crap about the Vietnamese people and stopped their ears to their screams when the "good guys" ended up throwing them in re-education prisons.

That is, I suspect, a rather dated attitude these days - I am certain the young 0bama girl couldn't have had a clue how offensive it might be and I rather doubt that her parents did either, given the decade's difference in our ages. But despite the intervening years I find that I have neither forgiven nor forgotten, and so yes, it does offend me. I'll get over it.

100 posted on 07/14/2009 1:55:08 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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