Posted on 07/23/2021 3:46:52 AM PDT by ransomnote
Remember last century when everyone was saying “Have a nice day!!!” ?
“Thank you for your service” rings just as hollow to me.
That, and calling every veteran a hero …
🤔
The kid called him a hero. The young serviceman did not refer to himself as one, nor to the older man. But the kid thought of them both that way.
To be hated and called a baby killer is more hollow than “Thank you for service,” in my opinion.
Most Vietnam vets I come across are dicks. I work cor one and he’s a good guy, but when I have to interact with any others, cor stuff like hiring a contractor for a service, and they’re wearing a Vietnam veteran ball cap, I’ll try to be respectful and strike up a normal conversation, likely mention my boss....whatever just trying to be nice, but they are mostly dickheads to talk to.
Here is my favorite comment to this video:
John Suliot
9 years ago
When I came home in 68, I still had my uniform on. My whole family was there. My brother-in-law said, ‘So John, did you kill anyone?” I said ‘no, not yet’.
One of my close proximity neighbors is a Vietnam veteran, and he behaves like a complete crazy psycho, never greets me or my wife when we are outside, and has yelled at me before for driving too fast down the alley. I had to tell him to shut the eff up after that one.
Is that a one-way alley?
Thank God we have some nice people trying to make us feel appreciated today.
Do you think that the haters from our generation have gone away? A fellow Vietnam Vet buddy of mine who lives a couple of blocks down the street got a typed and unsigned note in his windshield saying some of those hateful things that we heard so often back then: that he should have died back then, that we were butchers and criminals.
I wonder what the veterans of Normandy or Iwo would have felt about fellow Americans carrying the Japanese or Nazi flags in the street and chanting their support of the enemy? I wonder how they would have reacted to be spat on or denied service in restaurants when they wore their uniforms after they got back?
If there are some younger people now who want to thank us for our service and even call us heroes, I would welcome it very graciously.
John Suliot
9 years ago
When I came home in 68, I still had my uniform on. My whole family was there. My brother-in-law said, ‘So John, did you kill anyone?” I said ‘no, not yet’.
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LOVE IT!!!
I served during Vietnam, but have never been so fearful as today.
Most Vietnam vets I come across are dicks. I work cor one and he’s a good guy, but when I have to interact with any others, cor stuff like hiring a contractor for a service, and they’re wearing a Vietnam veteran ball cap, I’ll try to be respectful and strike up a normal conversation, likely mention my boss....whatever just trying to be nice, but they are mostly dickheads to talk to.
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Untreated trauma and PTSD, social rejection, years of isolation and blame can do that. They were randomly drafted so it’s not like unsavory people became soldiers. They were younger, their lives trashed, and returned to be treated like trash. The ones I have known have been more reserved that most, but good men.
When a nurse asks for my date of birth, I amuse myself by adding, “On my birthday, my Dad was dropping bombs on the Japanese”.
Invariably, the response is,”Oh NO!!!”
Most of the Vietnam Vets you run across today are fake, there’s less than 600,000 thousand of us left. The last units started rolling out in 73. I turn 71 in November and I left Vietnam in 71 and was discharged in 72, I was 19 years old when I enlisted. To be a Vietnam Vet we’re looking at a bare minimum age of 70. Most of those claiming Vietnam Vet status served during the period which ended in 1975. While they are Vietnam era Vet’s they never served in Vietnam. I’m not going to take anything away from them, they served and they could just as easialy been sent as the rest of us did. Luckily they wasn’t. But when they claim Vietnam service I get a little irritated. I had one the other day claiming he served in Vietnam when he didn’t even enlist until 1973. Yes he served during Vietnam but he never served in Vietnam.
Really? And it's clearly not in the realm of possibility that you are really the jerk in these encounters - you know, like speeding down an alley where any kid could pop out and get mown down?
Point taken.
Well that comment pretty well explains the situation.
Understand all that. I treat every veteran with respect, (until they treat me with disrespect) especially helping the really old ones when I can if I see them at the grocery or something you know. Both my grandfathers were WWII vets, and I never saw them behave like the Vietnam guys who wear this enormous chip on their shoulder all the damn time.
Shaddup, moron. Just because some old cranky coot yells behind his privacy fence fortress that I’m driving too fast, doesn’t mean he’s right. Any other situations that you aren’t party to that you want to comment on next?
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And you’re just certain that OTHERS are the problem in social interactions. Couldn’t be you...oh no...
Don’t hold me to the exact numbers, but this story is reflective of what you say.
According to the Department of Defense, there were 9,000,000 Vietnam era veterans. By the time the 1990 Census was released, that number had swelled to 11,000,000!
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