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I think I can understand, and I am not a veteran at all. But I do know that even the guys who came back from Vietnam alive often felt guilt about having survived. I have heard guys say that they were not in the heart of the battle so they didn't deserve the honor that some deserved. I think it is the same thing....some sort of guilt for not having faced the things others had to face. You were safe drinking beer in Germany and probably feeling somewhat guilty or inadequate because other guys were out there facing real horrors and trauma. But even the guy who sits holding the dying body of a buddy in his arms might feel that same sort of guilt because they didn't see the very worst of it. I think I understand what you are saying and I am sure it is valid because so many people seem to feel that way. My uncle even said something similar about landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day. He made it. Others all around him didn't. But he has horrible guilt about having traded duty with a guy who wound up getting blown to bits. He still believes the guy's wife would be really upset with him for having traded duty that day. Survivor's guilt. It's very sad.

I served here in the states in the Guard and watched the PC BS bring the military to a pitiful point. I'm hoping that maybe someone in a good ranking position with the stripes and bars to do something about it will read some of these and do something. (I guess that's what I want to do with this. Like I said. I have no idea how to try an dmake things better for the next guy.)

Not so much survivor's guilt here.. probably more along the lines of "Hey, this is my country and you just hurt it."
My family calls me the 'super-patriot' of the family. When everyone was calling Clinton a perjuror (which he is) I was calling him a traitor (which he is). Didn't make myself popular, didn't try to. But I did do my best with the guys I was assigned with. On advanced party, I was the senior guy. I had more years doing that than the Gunny did. So I did my best to keep 'my' troops in one piece. More or less I succeeded. One of the guys I trained went on to become gunner for his section. The rest did other things like prime mover driver and ammo team chief. (Nothing funnier than a SPC-4 doing the job of an E-5.)