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These people never change. I lived in Eugene Oregon for over forty years and got an MBA in Finance from the University of Oregon (U of O) after I left active duty. There were howling protests over the Army ROTC at the U of O and expressions of concern by all the important people in Eugene. We who served in Vietnam were popularly regarded with contempt, disgust, and derision. I will always be regarded as a lunatic, drug addicted, baby killing fascist pig by an important, popular faction of my peers and their descendants.

When expressing this sentiment became unpopular, the belief of those important Eugene citizens remained unchanged. To be considered a citizen of the city you had to despise veterans and the United States of America. The Veteran’s Day parade was forced into Springfield by the Eugene city government. When US forces went into Kuwait to drive out the Iraqis, a motel on Coburg Road put out its flags. They were forced to remove them because it was an illegal display of the American flag. When a National Guard unit returned to Eugene, I went to the airport to greet them and the police made me leave a small American flag in my truck, because if I took it into the terminal, I might use it as a weapon.