When Carter pardoned the draft dodgers I felt like burning my honorable discharge. Another slap in the face to those who served.
I was a volunteer to help Carter get elected. His pardoning of the Draft Dodgers was the deal breaker for me. I have never voted for any democRAT since. The debacle in the Iranian desert (Operation Eagle Claw) was the “icing on that cake”.
Absolutely.
“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.
Never ever for any reason burn your HONORABLE DISCHARGE. Never throw you medals away, like John Kerry did. You earned that HD and any medals. I have 3 HD's myself. They have a special position of standing in my garage with all my other Navy accomplishments. Thank you for serving in that micro-managed clusterfuck war, Sir.