I remember that Freeper back then too, posted a lot of pictures and notes from there. Perhaps the whole stay there was a learning and realization experience about why were there, how we got there and what staying there cost us in terms of blood and treasure.
I know that my own time during Viet Nam was felt differently then than I do feel about it now. Were it not for SEATO, we should never have even been there.
It was nice, having “our man in ______” reporting back to FR. Wish we had more, in various locations around our country and the globe.
I remember watching a 1958 graduation class of U.S. Marines, and you could still feel the war.
I remember grace.
That FReeper is still here. 😏
I sincerely thank for your service in Vietnam.
One of the missions I was on was with CPATT - Ministry of Interior Transition Team. One of the things we worked on was teaching the Iraqis to spend their own budget properly. They’d had a huge surplus the previous year because they had *our* money coming in.
We got them spending *their* money. I wanted to see us stop giving them all of those billions and I like to think I played a tiny part in that.
And at least what we did send was closely monitored. There were a lot of cost and budget analysts on the ground and auditors were regularly pulling records and asking a lot of questions.