Four Vietnam vets share life's ups and downs, 50 years after induction

Stars and Stripes ^ | 12/15/15 | Tighe

[pabianice]

... “We got Stars and Stripes, and were reading how back home there were demonstrations and they were calling us baby killers,” Opitz said. “We were afraid we were going to be shot, but they’d taken my gun away.”

Returning vets were a cautious lot.

“I traveled all the time in civilian clothes,” Bell said, with Opitz adding, “A lot just took off their uniforms and threw them in a trash can.”

Although troops deployed to Vietnam saw more combat action than Bell and his comrades in the Dominican Republic, Bell said, “We had people killed and injured, and there were snipers...”

[PROCON]

Welcome Home Bump.

We Were Soldiers Once, and Young.

[Chainmail]

Interesting read.

I for one have been just fine with my service in Vietnam and I never cared what the twits back here had to say. We had vicious enemies to fight, nice people to protect, and the best young guys in the country around us.

The hard part for me was to forgive the guys of my generation that didn’t go, didn’t fight. I think I have finally gotten there but my best friends are still the men I served with.

[mountainlion]

Hanoi Jane Fonda met my brother's plane shouting don't go go AWOL. He was on his way home form Viet Nam and she told him not to go home!! Jane, Treason is forever.

[easternsky]

Your last sentence is mine also,just a bond nothing breaks, not even death.

[windcliff]

“I told the cab driver I just got back from Vietnam, and he was like ‘so what?’, So what...”

[5thGenTexan]

“White Christmas” is one of our favorite Christmas movies because of the continuing “doing it for a pal in the Army” theme. Shows the bond created by those who served, even to those of us who didn’t.

[exnavy]

Thank you for your service, marine.

[Night Hides Not]

The hard part for me was to forgive the guys of my generation that didn’t go, didn’t fight.

I was lucky, as I graduated from HS in 72. On 4/1/72, I received a letter notifying me that I had been awarded a 4 year Army ROTC scholarship. The next day, I told a few folks that I thought were my friends.

The news spread like wildfire on a HS campus located 15 miles south of Berkeley. My last two months were miserable, I was called every name in the book by dozens of know-nothing dip$hit liberal teenagers.

One of my favorite teachers expressed his disappointment to me. The only one thrilled for my success was my calculus teacher, a former Jesuit priest from Marquette. When I told him I was considering Gonzaga, he wholeheartedly supported it.

Looking back at my transcript, I was #35 of a class of 450, yet I had been awarded the best scholarship of anyone in my class. My four years of college were paid for, and I had my choice of any school that offered Army ROTC.

I've never been back to a single reunion, with no regrets. I have maintained zero contact with anyone I went to HS with.

I've maintained contact with more than a dozen college classmates, and we're planning a get together in May, when we celebrate the 40th anniversary of our commissioning. There were 20-22 of us that hung together from matriculation to graduation. It was a good group, which produced a Major General and several Colonels, 6-7 Rangers, and over half the class earned jump wings.

Thank you for your service.

[Red_Devil 232]

I remember my last day in the Marines. I had been stationed back in the states for just about a year from overseas deployments to Japan, Viet Nam & Thailand. I was ready to get out and go home and go back to college.

At the time I was working in the Sgt. Major’s office and had been receiving advice from him to stay in the Corps. Even my father advised me not to get out. Well today was my last day and the next day was the “Hook”!

The Sgt. Major was on the phone and when he got off he told me the CO wanted to see me. I just thought this would be another talk about staying in the Corps. The CO did give me the reenlistment talk. After telling him I was going back to college he asked me to come with him. He took me out to his car, a little MG. He drove me to the base barbershop and had me given a regulation hair cut, high and tight. Oh Man! I was getting out of the Marines the next morning and driving back to Mississippi. I never got spit on.

[Little Bill]

I got out in 68 after two tours. I was lucky that the area I lived in had a very HIGH number of VN Vets. We had a small number of altercations with the locals but other than that we got on with our lives.

[LZ_Bayonet]

Ditto...everything you said

[onedoug]

And then I...I.... Can’t say it here.

[Cold Heat]

Å“A lot just took off their uniforms and threw them in a trash can."

I can vouch for that.

[M Kehoe]

Bttt.

5.56mm