The profanities that I am ready to expel are enormous.
Just who did this person speak to??
I was spit upon, I had people throw beer bottles at me from their cars, and I heard Baby Killer many times, and I graduated Parris Island in 1977...5 years after combat ended in Vietnam!
This woman needs to be Freeped and HOW!!
I think this is a guy.
yeah right, not only was my brother in law spat upon on his return from Nam, when he finally got home "the Baby Killer", had to pay 3 xs what was on the cab meter before the sob would drive A Bronze Star winner home!
I graduated PI July 73, I wore my UOD on boot leave and learned my lesson. The author of this article needs a good swift kick in the face.
And notice this puke publishes this crap on our birthday!!
Semper Fi
The left lives in a fantasy world.
I was about to ping you to this (you were the first to come to mind) but you beat me to it.
More vile absurdities from the lying, amoralistic academia nutjobs.
Scholar of Urban Legends?
Gosh...sounds like snopes...
I appreciate your service Race.
Cindy
I had rocks thrown at me in 1981. They screamed for me to go home. Hell, I didn't want to be in Illinois anyway.
you dont want to know the ones I used either....just got thru sending it....
why the HECK is it HIS business anyways?
Lying coward liberal trashy Kerry clone....
I was just a bit too young for Vietnam, but in college you couldn't find any vets who would speak about their experiences, and it wasn't definitely poor form to ask. It was pretty clear to me that the average vet was treated like fecal matter.
I would say the News and Observer needs some enlightening letters as well!
I can still remember when my brother came back from his tour in 'Nam in 1973. We were walking through the airport and some hippies yelled some vulgarities at him as we passed. I will never forget that and will NEVER let anyone else forget it either!
Welcome home brother. I apologize for the ignorant among us.
My Dad was a police officer who had to keep back protesters when the veterans came home. He knows that they were spit at because he was spit on when they missed their target.
They are crazy with hatred and denial RaceBannon. God bless you and thank you for your courage, patriotism, and protection of our country.
One returning GI was shot as he deplaned in New Mexico. But the perfesser's right. He wasn't spit upon.
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/10151361.htm?1c
A MORE WELCOME HOME
Tom Seuberling, an ex-Green Beret who grew up in Greensboro, survived three tours in Vietnam, but after his combat was over in 1971 received a harsh homecoming. In a United Airlines hangar in San Francisco, Seuberling stood in line waiting to board a plane home when he was cornered by a group of "peace activists."
"They spit on me and called me names like `baby killer,' " he recalled. "I couldn't take it and just cold-cocked one of them. During Vietnam, the military prepared us for nothing for returning home.
"They just thanked us for our service ... gave us a ticket and sent us home."
On this Veterans Day, the nation's latest combat veterans are finding a vastly different transition from the battlefield to civilian or noncombat lives.
Seuberling knows. A command sergeant major in the Charlotte-based 812th Transportation Battalion, his unit of Army reservists just returned from eight months of running supplies along a 900-mile front from Kuwait to northern Iraq.
They are finding a military that learned lessons from Vietnam and anxious to make sure this homecoming is smooth and painless -- not only for the troops, but their families.
Even before the unit left Kuwait late last month, each reservist was given a card with questions to answer.
Did you see combat?
Are you returning to marital problems?
Do you have any pent-up anger?
Do you sleep well?
"The cards provided a snapshot of what each reservist went through," said Seuberling, who commanded more than 1,700 reservists.
When the unit reached Fort Stewart in Georgia, they were met with a band-playing "Welcome Home" ceremony with speeches, and drinks and snacks.
Each reservist then met with a social worker, who used the cards to start a discussion on needs and problems they might be experiencing.
Next month, the military is sending Seuberling and his wife to meet with other returned veterans and spouses for a weekend of counseling.
"It's all a process of readjusting to civilian life," he said. "Everybody has been really nice and welcoming. People I don't even know shook my hand in the airport. A man at a Panthers game came up, slapped me on the back and thanked me for my service.
"That never happened after Vietnam."
Learning from hindsight
The military is operating from 20-20 hindsight, with military doctors, psychologists and chaplains buried in the work of unwrinkling the lives of troops who are on the battlefield one week and home with spouses and children the next.The transition is especially hard for reservists and National Guard members. Once they are home and their active duty ends, they have little support from comrades and neighbors who don't understand what they've experienced.
Military doctors are finding the wounds inflicted in Iraq and Afghanistan weren't just physical.
Earlier this year, a study by Army doctors showed that nearly 17 percent of returning Iraq veterans suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or anxiety.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, said that fewer than half have sought mental health care.
Military officials say they are taking the report seriously and are dispensing more services for Iraq and Afghanistan vets than for veterans of any other conflict.
"The military is concerned about these issues," said Lt. Cmdr. Breck Bregel, a Navy chaplain at Camp Lejeune. "When you fly someone out of the combat zone and four days later you're with your spouse, there's bound to be problems."
Counseling services
The Department of Veterans Affairs offers a range of counseling services for returning veterans -- including six months of counseling for reservists and National Guard members. The Department of Defense formed a Seamless Transition Task Force to identify veterans suffering from disorders triggered by combat.
The military is helping departing active duty troops with résumés and techniques to find jobs.
The programs are offshoots from the ones started during late stages of the Vietnam War as a crush of troops returned with drug problems and battle fatigue and stress disorders -- and little help available.
The Marine Corps enlisted the Navy's chaplain corps to help drug-addicted veterans. The program remains, renamed Chaplain Religious Enrichment Development Operation.
Bregel has spent recent months helping returning Marines find stability through a spiritual grounding.
He urges them to seek support from other Marines.
"The best way to transition back is just to be able to get together with your own buddies and talk in your own groups," he said. "No matter what kind of combat you saw, or if you were just over there, there's going to be at least some anxiety. But 99 percent of all combat vets can heal from combat stress and fatigue given the proper tools.
"We provide them with the symptoms everyone who goes through combat feels. They can't sleep. Wake up in cold sweats. They're anxious. And we tell them not to come back and unload everything on their spouse or friends. They won't understand."
90 days to relax
Seuberling knows from his post-Vietnam experiences -- he couldn't keep a job or a girlfriend and kept mostly to himself -- that many of the troops he commanded in Iraq are feeling some of the same stresses.
The 812th saw considerable action, running 1,200 convoys that moved everything from water to ammunition along the most dangerous routes through the war zone.
Snipers shot at them. Highway booby traps hindered their travel, and they encountered an Easter Day ambush that left 40 insurgents dead and five U.S. soldiers wounded.
"We had some bad nights," said Seuberling, who was badly wounded in Vietnam. "We had a lot of injuries and a lot of guys who saw some combat."
The unit has been given 90 days to relax before members have to report to the Charlotte base.
Seuberling plans to meet with each member.
"I just want to make sure they're doing fine," he said. "If some aren't, I will make sure they get the services they need. That's really critical."
ON HOMECOMING IN 2004
"We tell them not to come back and unload everything on their spouse or friends." TOM SEUBERLING SERVED IN VIETNAM AND IN OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM MORE COVERAGE
PARADE SATURDAY
2B | Uptown Charlotte will host its annual Veterans Day parade Saturday. Details inside.
VETERANS DAY CLOSINGS
2A | How local institutions will observe the holiday today.
ARTIFACTS OF WAR
8A | Smithsonian exhibit goes beyond 'great man' image.
VETERANS DAY PROGRAMMING
1D | WSOC-TV decides not to show "Saving Private Ryan."
Reach David Perlmutt: (704) 358-5061; dperlmutt@charlotteobserver.com.
