For me, who lived through that time, the scales keep falling from my eyes and I continued to be horrified.
During the wind-down of the Vietnam War I was a new Mom, working a full time job and living a law-abiding American life.
There was no Internet, no Free Republic, no Rush Limbaugh. Not that I would have sat and read and absorbed it all like I do now, I don't know. I've always been a reader and did read the newspapers, newsmags, that kind of thing. So I likely would have been reading web sites like FreeRepublic, et al, had there been an Internet.
I had no idea that Kerry started the VVAW, no idea that he testified like he did before congress, no idea that he met with Communist leaders, no idea that millions of Cambodians, etc, were slaughtered because America withdrew.
I do recall the antics of Jane Fonda and remember thinking what an ass she was. But there was an ill-wind blowing throughout America at that time, ill more because America wasn't fighting the war to win it. I now know it was because spineless cowards like Kerry wanted us out of there and were afraid to fight the war like a man. The Vietnam War was what you get when Democrats try to run a war.
That ill wind blew on my young self and I was weary and tired of watching the body bags being unloaded on the TV. Someone on the Today show announced that the Vietnam War was over one morning and by me that was just fine.
Now, soundly over age 50, I can't help but compare it to today's current events. I supported the war in Iraq, I supported due to the claim of those weapons of mass destruction, but I also supported it because Saddamn was just a bad, bad man and it was time for him to go. Part of my American pride stems from my country having saved the lives of thousands, perhaps millions, of Iraqis from more brutality by Saddam and his satan sons.
I would never have supported an American withdrawal from Vietnam had I known the Cambodians and who's that guy, Pol Pot? would suffer or come to power.
I also, today, take great pride in our country's lonely but noble quest to stem terrorism. I would not stand it if the US gave up, withdrew from Iraq and Afghanistan, wasn't firm in resolve. But back then I shrugged relief that America was getting out of Vietnam.
The dichotomies(sp?) of the two eras strike me vividly.
I know that there wasn't enough truth out there and that guys like Kerry were orchestrating their own rise to power in the blood of others.
It's different today. The main difference being: access to the truth.
I enjoyed your comments...I'd surmise I'm slightly older than you..I'm 56..if we had FOX news, talk radio, and the internet in 1964..Goldwater would have beaten LBJ..
Great history lesson. I was more or less the same (55+ now)
The scales came off my eyes when I became a born again
Christian and decided to live my faith and not to just
claim it.
He didn't, but he may have resurrected it from the dead. It was formed in about '67, but was broke by '68 and nearly defunct. It made quite a comeback in '70, at about the time Kerry returned from Vietnam and went to Paris to meet with the officials of "political wing" of the Viet Cong and of the North Vietnamese government. This was also the time he married his first wife and her family's money. Connect the dots.