Posted on 05/23/2014 10:35:41 AM PDT by TangledUpInBlue
In June 1969, LIFE magazine published a feature that remains as moving and, in some quarters, as controversial as it was when it intensified a nation’s soul-searching 45 years ago. On the cover, a young man’s face — the very model of middle-America’s “boy next door” — along with 11 stark words: “The Faces of the American Dead in Vietnam: One Week’s Toll.” Inside, across 10 funereal pages, LIFE published picture after picture and name after name of 242 young men killed in seven days halfway around the world “in connection with the conflict in Vietnam.”
(Excerpt) Read more at life.time.com ...
that aside, its a very moving, very sad list....all those young men....
I suppose every war has this equal long list of young men, lost.....
what does it do to a society when so many young men...young men who were adventursome, honorable,patriotic, etc are lost to their generation....that many fewer good men as husbands and fathers....
multiply that over all the wars, the the change in society has got to be very, very devastating...
because who is left at home?....particularly during the draft, there were the draft dodgers, the ones who escaped to college, ones who claimed one malidy after another.....
To think most of those boys were only deployed once. Not like today’s Army with the multiple deployments subjecting them to higher risk that they may not return, and if they do, you won’t be guaranteed to come back in one piece. Flame away if you wish, but I’m sick of this “New Military”, I especially feel bad for boots of the Army and the USMC, both of whom pull the weight in combat. I would not recommend it to my grand children. Multiple deployments is a killer. It kills our families who end up on the receiving end of the bad news with broken marriages, broken homes and an endless stream both physical and mental hardships. Sorry if I offended anyone, I’m just another person with a different opinion. If anyone should be multiple deployed it should be the members of Congress, put them in field gear and send them to the fighting front with the Osama Killer and the Beech of Benghazi.
Andrew Daniel Chowka
Private First Class
H&S CO, 1ST AMTRAC BN, 3RD MARDIV, III MAF
United States Marine Corps
Stamford, Connecticut
August 10, 1948 to March 14, 1968
ANDREW D CHOWKA is on the Wall at Panel 44E, Line 45
—
He was my best friend and my neighbor.
He died fighting Communism.
of course these were kids in college mostly...RICH kids....kids that never had to worry about the draft....RICH kids who could sit in college and waste time....
and these people run the country now....
my sister was involved in that...of course, she's been retired since age 57 on a big fat pension and medical benefits from her govt job....
funny how these people can not loose, no matter what...
I remember Walter Cronkite used to start the evening news each night by saying “Today in Vietnam 47 servicemen where killed”...or whatever the number was.
Day in day out week after week.
Never forget Uncle Walter in the Viet Nam fiasco he helped creat:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/walter_cronkite_vietnam_and_th.html
Reminds me of one of my favorite scenes in movie history.
Sam Kinison in Back to School.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3cb09hVH_g
Well that and the fact that we were getting involved in a civil war in a rinky dink country where we had no national interest what so ever. After 50,000 Americans died we turned tail and ran and the civil war resolved itself pretty much like it would have had we never set foot there.
I never held it agains’t the guys who said no I’m not going to get conscripted to go get shot at for no good reason. If they had refused to go to Hawaii to repel a Chinese invasion I would have felt differently.
We are now in Afghanistan doing the same thing with less casualties and a voluntary army. But in the end we will leave having accomplished nothing and Afghanistan will go back to its 7th century existence as though we had never set foot there.
To think that during that entire period I had to worry from elementary school through high school if I were going to have to fight in that damned war.the war ended in 1973 and I graduated from high school in 1974.
I joined the U.S.A.F. That fall.
Sad not cool..All so young,reminded me of a high school year book.
No deferments no politically connected parents or connections......
I think the one thing it accomplished, is that it send a message to the Soviets that they weren’t going to be able to take over countries without a fight.
Imagine had we not fought in ‘Nam. Would then the Soviet Union still be in existence today?
Vietnam was a battle within a much bigger war.
No different than 9/11. Kids serving now could have been 6 years old when that happened.
No different than 9/11. Kids serving now could have been 6 years old when that happened.
I beg to differ with you.These young people today that are joining the military are doing so voluntarily.When I was growing up I had to worry about being drafted right out of high school.
That’s not meant to demean their entry into the military because I volunteered as well since my draft number was never called.As the military draft had ended.
I looked and started to cry. I knew several who died while I luckily served domestically in 1969. It was a controversial war especially with leaders that were not in it to win it.
Me too. I can hardly bear to look at anything to do with Viet Nam. It was so horrible I try to forget about it. My brother in law was a river rat and he can’t talk about any of it without crying. I had friends who didn’t make it and friends who either got injured badly or are emotional wrecks from it.
The school my kids went through, Churchville Chili, lost two in Vietnam. Scott F. Bechtold (class of '65) and James Widener (class of '66). Jimmy was MIA for 39 years and his remains were found before his Dad died and his Dad was able to attend his funeral at Arlington. Check out Jimmy's Virtual Wall page, many accounts about him from family and friend.
Our politicians were definitely refusing to let America win that war. There was too much treason in D.C. to permit that. Our pro-Red betrayers in government were at the same time permitting trade with communist countries,who in turn, were using said aid to help their buddies in Hanoi to kill Americans in Viet Nam.
PFC DAVID DUANE CASE
SP4 GEORGE WARREN FISCHER Jr
LCPL PAUL SCOTT MANDRACCHIA
PFC GARY LEE STYMUS
Here's a photo of the monument:
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