God Bless America and Our Troops
Posted on 08/29/2004 4:44:09 AM PDT by stockpirate
To: stockpirate I am not sure this is the proper place to put this...but here goes... To All The Vets of Viet Nam,
I was born in 1955, a baby boomer...into an alcoholic and abusive family. I was 14 years old when Woodstock rocked this nation. I remember standing in front of a 12" black and white set watching it unfold on the 6 o'clock news. I also remember my father using the term..".long haired hippie pukes" and being totally disgusted with the whole mess. Being 14 with a father who like to use his fists..I naturally rejected anything he said as any kind of truth. He had lost my affection and my trust many years ago. My father also told the story of being wounded in the Korean war...he even had a scar to prove it. I later found out when I got older, that he had spent the entire war in England..so much for his credibilty.
My mother thought it would be good to alert me at that tender age of 14 about the drug scene that was waiting to prey upon me. She handed me a bunch of Life magazines with an expose of the underground culture of drugs. Living in a small town in Central NY..this was definitely a foreign concept. I was mesmerized by the pictures of hippies and the freedom they appeared to have. Oh how I longed to have a place in this world where I could breathe without fear of being hit. I was ripe for the picking.Within 6 months I found myself hobknobbing with drug dealers and the like.
The next couple of years I was entrenched in the drug scene..my friends were of like thinking..we had all bought into the Love, Peace, Free Sex and drugs doctrine being perpetuated on the youth of this nation. I became a sympathizer of the likes of Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. Their books became gospel for me....I devoured the book.."Soul on Ice" by Eldredge Cleaver. I hated the Viet Nam war...not because of it's political significance...but the idea of war and chaos in general. I had seen too much of that as I was growing up...I longed for peace in my soul. I drank and drugged to relieve some of the inner pain.
I bought into anything that my father hated....and hated anything he bought into. My father was a veteran and stood by the President..even though he was a democrat.....He stood by his brothers in arms. So it was natural for me to take the opposing view. I hated war. Our little town had 3 casualties in the Viet Nam war..two of whom rode on my school bus....they were older than me but each had made a distinct impression on me as I rode the bus....I remember Joe who used to make the sound of a cricket as he ran his fingers along the roof of the bus...he was so tall!!..and Ron was the cute older brther of my sister's friend. Both gone, both dead and for what purpose? My teenaged brain couldn't comprehend the whole idea of death and war.
In 1975, I was 20 years old...a survivor of years of self abuse through my reckless lifestyle..and now a mother of two children. I sat in front of another TV and watched as they were airlifting people out of Saigon. A plane full of refugees were taking off when the plane, carrying children, crashed on takeoff. I sat in front of the TV set and cried...sobs coming from somewhere so deep inside of me....I realised as I was sitting there...that this was the first time I had ever cried for anyone else but myself. My heart was starting to unthaw from years of guarding it.
When the war ended I didn't abuse the vets who had served bravely for my country, no my attitude was worse than any abuse bestowed on them...mine was one of indifference, one of apathy, a "so what and who cares attitude." I never spoke a word that brought shame to a vet, but my heart was full of hatred for anyone who would willingly go and make war.
On Memorial Day, my father would put on his legion uniform and march in the parade and shoot his gun off at the village green in remembrance of those fallen. I watched with a mocking spirit within me. It was a big deal to him (dad) when he became post commander..all I could see was another opportunity for him to drink. I saw him as a hypocrit..a man who espoused peace and freedom ...who oppressed his family with violence and bondage.
But something happened to me over the years...an ideological change, a paradigm shift of thought. I woke up in the mid 1990's and I found myself with the same ideals my father had about his country. I fell in love with where I live and what it stands for. Maybe it was watching my children growing up and wanting better for them or Maybe it was watching CNN during the first Gulf war knowing my brother was in a tank somewhere inside Iraq... or maybe it was the day I sent my youngest son off to the Marines for safe keeping. Maybe it was coming to have faith in Christ. But something definitely changed within me. Maybe it was turning off the TV for a moment and allowing God to speak to me without all the static.
I joined Free Republic over a year ago at the request of a friend. And today I watched a video clip of the VVAW throwing their medals. I must have watched it 6 times. It was this clip that prompted me to write this piece. After so many years I wonder if it would really make any difference to the men and women who served our country by going to Viet nam, if I were to say.. from the bottom of my heart...that I AM SO SORRY for not giving you the Honor you so richly deserve. I am sorry for the indifference I showed you when you returned...of turning my eyes and closing my ears.. when I heard a derogatory remark aimed at you. Would it make a difference if I told you that I am proud of the service you gave to us on behalf of our freedom..that I appreciate your sacrifices and the blood shed for the freedom we all share today. It is 30 years late but I couldn't let another day pass with writing these thoughts down.Please Forgive Me.....
Most Catholic Priest are not child molesters.
Most teachers are not sex offenders.
Most parents provide for the safety of their children.
Most fireman are not arsonist.
Most policeman are not lawbreakers.
Most doctors are not negligent to their patients.
Most ...key word...here. When propaganda is put out,against our American Soliders, by the likes of John Kerry or Jane Fonda during the Vietnam war, it paints a picture that is not fair to "MOST" Vietnam soldiers, But that is what happened when John Kerry and Jane Fonda painted their one sided picture of abusive American Soldiers and Innocent Viet Cong Citizens.
I was in high school when I turned 18 in 1973 (the last year of the actual draft); my number was high, 260, but age 19 was the year of "prime vulnerability"; I, like all of my friends, received a "1-H" designation (H for high school). Nevertheless, my Dad had me apply for a passport, "just in case" I needed to leave the country. He said that it was obvious by that time the war was not being fought to win; and he did not want his only son to face service for such a non-cause. In the lottery in 1974, still held despite an end to the draft, my number was 30; I was the only one of my friends who got a new draft card, with "1-A" classification. My father was still glad I had a pasport.
I worked for several years at a Post Office in the late 1970s, with a fair number of Vietnam vets. The one obnoxious guy who always talked about his service in "'Nam" taught English in Saigon to S. Vietnamese officers. A good guy who I became friends with didn't talk about his service unless you asked him; Airborne.
I had never considered myself pro-military (I definitely wasn't anti-military) until September 11 2001, when I could see the smoke from the Pentagon from my office in DC. That changed everything. I went home and put up the biggest flag I had over my garage door; the one from my Father's casket from 1995. I knew he wouldn't mind.
Question #1: Whose responsibility is it to declare war according to the US Constitution? Look it up.
Question #2: And why didn't they? Let me help you with the answer: Because they, and their Democrat majorities since 1954 would have been expected to authorize all that it would take to win it... and they, the Democrat politicians, had no intention of winning it, that's why. Given what he had to work with and riding the electoral blow out of 1972 the best Nixon could come away with was "Peace with Honor" but only after he took that electoral mandate forward 1 month later and bombed the crap out of Hanoi in Dec., 1972. POWs came home in Jan 1973, rememeber?
When Nixon was bloodied by Watergate, and after we had largely gone home, who was it that withdrew funding for South Vietnam, that saw the entire nation fall to the Commies in 1975, and destroyed our military intellegence structure that dogs us more than 25 years later? After, you answer that, who is it then that should be held equally as complicit with the failed outcome of the war in SE Asia and the "Killing Fields" as the Commie perpetrators themselves?
Question #3: So why do you ignore "them"?
Stockpirate, to your friend:
That's a wonderful apology...........now stop the cop-out.
We are what we choose to be.
We are not a product of what happens to us, but what happens in us.
There comes a time in every adult's life when they must stop rationalizing their misdeeds and accept full responsibility for their actions.
You chose the hippie, druggie, free sex, anti-war crowd because you wanted to, not because you had a drunken father.
YOU made some mistakes, and you corrected those mistakes to the best of your ability.
That's all that matters.
Thanks ! :^D
btt
I enjoyed your post, thanks for sharing that.
How many of us were in that place oh so many years ago?My Dad was career enlisted Air Force.
I remember in 1968 as a Freshman in H.S. in Spokane, Washington seeing all the anti-war nutbags on TV and thinking how stupid they were, acting that way when our guys were over there FIGHTING a war. I NEVER understood it or sympathized with those losers.
In 1972, I graduated from H.S. at Lajes Field in The Azores, Portugal. I came back to go to college at UT-Arlington, Texas. Dad came back with me to get me set up before I went to school and I bought a 1965 Mustang with money I had earned, arranged for me to stay at my aunt and uncle's for the summer and after Dad went back I got a summer job. I bought me bumper sticker to put on my car:
"I'm PROUD to be an American!"
And I was, too. I still am!
Thanks for your service!
LOL...PLAY BALL!
VVAW worked with the NV to get US not to bomb NV troops during an attck by NV.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1201299/posts
And this one go to 54
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1201386/posts
It is interesting to hear from someone who doesn't know what they are talking about.
She posted it in a posting that I put up that had a video link to VVAW people throwing their medals over a fence.
I guess you were luckier than some.
Believe me, I do.
I've been reading a rare US history book which isn't slanted left....and got to the chapter on Vietnam.
Wow. The left sold us a bunch of propaganda back then!!!
Thanks for your reply, I pinged the lady that wrote this and hope she is reading the wonderful replys that are here. And the ASS**les I hope she ignores.
Thanks F-117A, Isent her a png and I hope she is reading this.
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