Robyn, I too have seen claims of being Special Forces, Green Beret. Funny thing, when I would query them about JFKCMA (John Fitzgerald Kennedy Center for Military Assistance), they never heard of it. Oh, that's the official military designation for the Green Beret. It can even be seen in the background in the opening scenes of the movie, The Green Beret.
It simply amazes me that some know that I actually was there, and they still try to BS me. No wonder it seems there were no cooks or company clerks in Vietnam, all want to claim to be big heroes. Of course, had they actually gone, maybe they would have been.
I grew up hearing what a big hero my Dad was in WW2. When he died, I went through all of his stuff and ran across his DD-214. He was in the Navy for 11 months and received a medical discharge. He never left Pensecola. My daughters want to elevate me to a hero at times, but the truth is, I was scared to death too often to count, but hid it, as did others.
Clarification on the LSD. I would imagine it was available to the Air Force, with their daily flights to and from the states, but I was in the Army and it wasn't readily available to us. In fact, the December 2002 issue of Vietnam magazine did a writeup on drug abuse in Vietnam and it wasn't even mentioned. But, like I said, I would guess the guys in the Air Force had more accessibility to it than we did. Like I previously said, drug abuse was very prevelant throughout society during the sixties, not just amongst people that served in Vietnam.
For Realist, you can dissect our motives, read whatever any anti-war lobbyist prints or do whatever you wish. Your claims about us are meaningless. Even the so called "noble wars" can be interpreted as being about something they weren't. Revisionist Historians would like us all to think that the US Civil War was fought solely over slavery. A big problem for them, though, was all the Black Confederates that joined the Confederate Army. The debates of the whys over Vietnam are endless and probably always will be. Also true is that the Democratic led government of the time wasn't totally honest about their motives, but we will never know for sure what motivated Johnson. But, I ask you to remember that after Saigon fell in 1975, two years after the US troops left, many millions fled the country seeking asylum in democratic nations, mostly the US. Boat People, we called them in the 70's. Apparently, the benevelot North Vietnamese Communists weren't as popular or loving as the likes of Hanoi Jane would have us all think. There were almost twice as many casualties in Southeast Asia (primarily Cambodia, which the Vietnamese invaded after they took over the country) the first two years after the fall of Saigon in 1975 than there were during the ten years the U.S. was involved in Vietnam. ([1996 Information Please Almanac] 1995 Information Please Almanac Atlas & Yearbook 49th edition, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston & New York 1996, pages 117, 161 and 292.
You are welcome to think anything you wish, but that doesn't make you right.
Myth: Draft Dodgers Protested Against The War
The fact is they protested because they did not want to be inducted into the military. It is worth noting that when the draft was ended by Congress in 1972, anti-war protests almost ceased entirely. Protests after this period were conducted mostly by the hard-core anti-war movement that had close ties to the North Vietnamese Communist Party. For these people, protesting was a job. They derived their income from donations to the movement so despite the fact that the average American male no longer cared about the war (because he was no longer in danger of having to serve), the anti-war cadre continued to protest.
While protesting against the U.S. involvement in Vietnam made some sense for those who were desperately trying to avoid military service, it is not clear why they displayed Viet Cong flags at their rallies and protest marches. People who today claim they were only expressing their conscience cannot explain why they needed to display the flag of the enemy, and burn the American Flag.
The anti-war movement has been often and erroneously referred to as the "Peace" movement. This is a non-sequitar since despite their rhetoric to the contrary, they never actually called for "peace" per se, only an end to American involvement in the war. They actually did not seem to care very much about the poor Vietnamese peasant that they accused American soldiers of killing. Especially if the North Vietnamese and the VC did the killing. And when Pol Pot went on a killing spree, they uttered not a sound. When the North Vietnamese invaded Cambodia, they said not a word. When the Soviets invaded Afganistan the did not protest. Why? Ask them.
The Vietnam War lasted for over 10 years. During that period 58,202 Americans lost their lives in an attempt to preserve the sovereignty of the Republic of Vietnam. To put this number in perspective, approximately 56,000 Americans are killed every year by drunk drivers. Yet Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda do not lead violent demonstrations outside the Seagrams building.
http://www.rjsmith.com/cowards
Lew W
