Serving for that amount of time with the prospect of going to war “counts.”
Please don’t dismiss your service. MOST vets never see or hear a shot fired in anger. Most that do, wouldn’t wish it on anyone else.
Thanks for your service.
I would never classify myself frauduelently as a combat veteran of any kind, but I am quite proud of my service, and learned a great deal from it. Fraudulently assuming that role of combat veteran is an extremely disrespectful and dishonorable thing to do...I view it as a mark of someone who mentally weak to the point of being mentally ill.
I am grateful to my country for allowing me to serve, and doubly grateful to those who did put themselves in harms way in combat, as well as anyone who did serve.
One of my favorite movie scenes is from "The Caine Mutiny" where the Caine's officers are celebrating their legal victory over Captain Queeg, and the pilot who was their defense attorney comes in and berates them:
LT GREENWALD: Well, well, well. The officers of the Caine in happy celebration.
LT. MARYK: You're kind of tight.
LT GREENWALD: I've got a guilty conscience. I thought the wrong man was on trial, so I torpedoed Queeg for you. I had to torpedo him. And I feel sick about it.
LT MARYK: Take it easy.
LT GREENWALD: When I was studying law, and Mr Keefer was writing his stories, and Willie was tearing up the playing fields of Princeton, who was standing guard over this country of ours? Not us. we knew you couldn't make any money in the service. Who did the dirty work for us? Queeg did, and a lot of other guys. Tough guys who didn't crack up like Queeg.
ENSIGN KEITH: Queeg endangered the lives of the men.
LT GREENWALD: He didn't endanger any lives. You did. A fine bunch of officers.
LTJG PAYNTER: You said yourself he cracked.
LT GREENWALD: That's a very pretty point. I left out one detail in court. It wouldn't have helped our case. At one point, Queeg came to you for help, and you turned him down.
LT MARYK: Yes, we did.
LT GREENWALD: He wasn't worthy of your loyalty. So you turned on him. You made up songs about him. If you'd been Ioyal to Queeg, do you think all this would have come up? I'm asking you, Steve. would it have been necessary to take over?
LT MARYK: It probably wouldn't have been necessary. If that's true, we were guilty.
LT GREENWALD: You're learning. You don't work with the captain because of his hairstyle, but because he's got the job, or you're no good. The case is over. You're all safe. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
There is a lot contained in this one passage, but all of it completely hits at the core, and particularly the recognition that there are people who serve during the good and prosperous times, who man the wall while the rest of us enjoy our lives. I am proud to have been one of them, and that is good enough for me.
I don’t dismiss it. I am proud of my service. I have a DD-214 to prove it, but I doubt that this indian has one. My point was this: contrary to what most people think, there were more sailors, soldiers, and airmen that were serving stateside at that time. All of us who served during that time were aware of our importance. I was in the Air Navy and the Carriers that were parked off the coast of Vietnam could not have launched the thousands of bombing sorties without our support. However, I felt the pain of my brothers who were killed or maimed in that awful place when we read the casualty reports. I talked to several who deployed back to us after their tours and we learned about how utterly mismanaged the war effort was.