Posted on 09/27/2021 5:10:16 AM PDT by Kaslin
You begin begin with,
" Somewhere in the late- 1960’s a totally false, entirely made-up narrative began to crop up in the United States. ,
and then go on to describe the factual truth of soldier shaming, that you say in the beginning was totally false.
After Nam, they were slashed to almost nothing : education benefit for EMs were $1500 - just enough for one trade school ; VA hosing loans were cut far below the down payment on the average home ; medical treatment in VA hospitals was a near death sentence. Basically, there were no usable benefits.
Public sentiment seemed to be : the only good vet is a dead one. Spit on, derided, ostracized, none of that helped us recover from the traumas we endured.
The Solitary World of a Vet by Ray Starmann
https://cherrieswriter.com/2017/11/21/the-solitary-world-of-a-vet-guest-post/
“We have a duty as the most powerful nation that the world has ever known.”
The only duty we have is to the United States of America and the lawful citizens thereof. We don’t owe the rest of the world a damned thing.
L
I arrived in Vietnam in January 1966 and after a brief and unsucessful stint as a truck driver for an artillery battery, I migrated from being a howitzer cannoneer to an artillery scout observer for a rifle company. The Marines I served with were good, solid young American men and we treated the Vietnamese as we had been taught to, as people who we were protecting from the terrorist communist forces, even when it risked our own lives.
In May 1967, I was shot and ended up going through multiple nodes on the long road to recovery. When I could finally be released from the hospital, I began to run into the hostility and meanness that our country exhibited towards us. I was refused service in a restaurant with my parents because I was in uniform, I was told to "get out" of a car on the freeway when my driver heard that I had served in Vietnam, I was spat upon and jeered.
The left had so saturated the narrative in the media, that those of us returning were forced into our own shell, staying with fellow veterans and isolating ourselves. Anybody remember the movies and TV programs we had at the time? Vietnam veterans were always the crazies who would suddenly go nuts and start spraying gunfire - or display superhuman combat skills and wreck whole communities (Billie Jack, Rambo, et al)
It was shameful - so when the Marine Corps sent me a form letter asking if I wanted to return to the Corps, I jumped on it, just to get back to the people I believed in and to get away from the crazies at home.
I remember the days when I was reluctant to be seen in my military haircut stateside as it led to being hassled by hippies and ignored by girls.
Would never go off base in uniform.
I’ve experienced it. I’ve been spit on when in uniform.
All I can say is that God’s hand was on my shoulder which kept me from beating the SNOT out of that punk kid. ;)
What’re you sayin’ Dave ?
—
He is saying : the narrative was false, and then describes what the narrative is. (Many people have no idea how badly vets were treated during and after Nam, imagining they got the same treatment today’s vets enjoy.) He must state the nature of the narrative (true/false) and describe the detail of that narrative to allow others to understand what he is writing. There is no contradiction.
And judging from our track record over the last fifty years, we would do less damage nuking them than trying to help them.
Sometimes liberals like to play dress-up as “patriotic” by telling veterans “thanks for your service.” But what they say and do among their own kind is something totally different. Liberals despise the military, veterans and all those associated with them.
My uncle, upon returning from service as a Navy SEABEE in Vietnam, had fecal matter thrown at him by leftist punkasses at the SF Airport in 1969. Leftists are the lowest of subhuman scum.
“we would do less damage nuking them than trying to help them.”
Indeed. NATO went from being a mutual defense organization to a crutch for Leftist governments in Europe costing us hundreds of billions of dollars. It’s welfare with guns anymore.
The only thing the US military should be about is turning anyone who attempts to harm us into clouds of pink mist scattered over square miles of rubble.
Then we leave and give them nothing.
THAT is the lesson we should teach the world.
**** with us and you die and not one penny of “aid” to rebuild.
Not one single penny.
L
I know what he means, but he didn't make it clear to those that don't know ..................
imo
I didn't get the spit and such ... but girls would not talk to a 20 year old in uniform and most others barely communicated ... yes and no if that was all that was needed.
Especially the enemIES crossing into our nation
“...**** with us and you die and not one penny of “aid” to rebuild.
Not one single penny....”
^THIS^
I enlisted in ‘77..
I met a guy in the late ‘80’s, big guy.
His name was Al.
We were talking, and he let it slip he was in nam.
So, I asked him if was in Vietnam.
His head sunk, he lowered his shoulders and meekly said Yeah.
I extended my hand to him, and when he took it, I said “ Thank you”.
His head came up, he squared his shoulders, straightened his back, increase his grip on my hand and said, “ You.... are welcome”.
He was my friend for years after that. This was before all the hype about thanking a vet.
This is all any vet ever wants to hear.
Thank you.
It doesn’t matter where you were, or what you did.
Every veteran gave something to this country that they can never get back.
Time
Agreed. But many of us gave up parts of our bodies, suffered from diseases, the intense heat, the long hard walks with heavy loads and constant fear. The sleeplessness of hard slogging all day under heavy loads then long nights fighting to stay awake on Listening Post or Outpost or ambush duty. The shocks and sorrows of seeing good young men mangled and dead and the end of innocence when you shot other men dead yourself.
Veterans of combat are in their own difficult class and no one, ever can repay what they have given.
The narrative was that the United States had no business fighting the war in Vietnam, and the American soldiers fighting it were an instrument of U.S. imperialism.
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