How the fuck can people disrespect soldiers like this?

[Frackal]

I realize that there is probably no logical reason for this, but today in my psych class we were discussing the treatment of soldiers upon return from vietnam, my teacher was an army medical doctor and he spoke of being harrassed by liberal teachers in college and such for being a 'warmonger.'

We are all aware of the fact the 'nam vets were treated generally like shit when they arrived back home.

Can someone explain to me why they were targeted in this way? I don't understand, the politicians were the ones responsible for them being over there in the first place....so why all the spitting, the Jane Fonda-Cunt bullshit, etc...?????

 

[2 ton hoss]

SOLDIERS ARE HUMAN AND MAKE MISTAKES. THEY DO NOT DESERVE DISRESPECT FOR BEHAVING ADMIRABLY IN BAD SITUATIONS THEY ARE THRUST INTO BY POLITICIANS. THEY DO NOT DESERVE RESPECT FOR BEHAVING ABOMINABLY IN BAD SITUATIONS THEY ARE THRUST INTO BY POLITICIANS (MY LAI FOR INSTANCE).

SO, SOME SOLDIERS DESERVE DISRESPECT. THE MERE ACT OF BEING A SOLDIER DOES NOT MAKE ONE WORTHY OF RESPECT. HOWEVER NO ONE, SOLDIER OR NOT, SHOULD BE DISRESPECTED FOR MAKING THE BEST OF A BAD SITUATION.

2 TON HOSS (FORMER US ARMY)

 

[Frackal]

Please explain the things they did that brought them this disrespect...that is what I dont know and understand.

 

[smallmovesal]

i thought i'd look up a couple of articles...

I KILLED A
VIETNAM
VET

BY NOT DOING ENOUGH TO WELCOME

HIM HOME.





THIS PAGE IS DEDICATED TO THOSE WHO MADE IT HOME TO TELL THE TRUTHS OF THAT WAR AS THEY SAW IT,

FIRST HAND.


Newsweek June 1, 1998

MY TURN
BY ROBERT J. BRUDNO

Unfinished Business

I think it's time for anti-Vietnam War Americans to recognize the pain they caused.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, OUR POW'S CAME HOME FROM NORTH VIETNAM.

They looked better than anyone could have imagined, after what they had endured. Only months later, Air Force Capt. E. Alan Brudno committed suicide; he was the first to die. It was national news. How could anyone give up just when he had won his freedom after more than seven years of unspeakable torture? As his brother, one who feels the pain of his loss as deeply today as when it happened, perhaps I can provide some of the answers. Suicide never has simple causes, but his story reveals some unfinished business from the Vietnam War.

This young American flier had nothing to be ashamed about. Posthumously, he received the Silver Star, two Purple Hearts and other medals. He took the worst the North Vietnamese dished out, His fellow prisoners said he was "hard-core, tough ... he often mocked his captors and kept his honor ... he was one of us." He was one of the POWs who were paraded through Hanoi, called war criminals and subjected to incredible physical abuse. For his first 2 1/2 years of captivity, he was allowed to send no letters. His family did not know whether he was even alive. Later, he courageously slipped into one of his letters (we received fewer than 20 in 7 1/2 years) that the "problem with fags (burning cigarettes) on his skin" had cleared up a bit, thus providing the first evidence that our POWs were being tortured, That treatment was mild. On many occasions he was beaten senseless or hung from the ceiling by ropes tied to his arms, which were trussed together behind his back until his shoulder blades touched, leaving his arms paralyzed long thereafter. The pain is impossible for us to imagine, yet he held out hope for his return with honor.

He went to Vietnam in September 1965 because he was told to. He did not go bomb churches and hospitals, or because he hated the North Vietnamese, or because he was a killer. He went because his country asked him to, as it would have against a Hitler or a Saddam Hussein. He was not some hot-shot, macho Top Gun. He actually joined the Air Force to become an astronaut. Thirty days after he arrived in Southeast Asia, he was shot down. He survived until his release in 1973, because of his love of country, love of his wife and family and his belief that he sacrificed so much for something. But a warning of what awaited him came before he even set foot on U.S. soil. Someone close to him said to me, "He has to know that the war was wrong."

After the euphoria of his release wore off, he realized that a lot of the propaganda that had accompanied his torture sessions was true. His own countrymen went beyond being against the war; many supported those he understandably viewed to be the "enemy." This was not some philosophical or political concept for him. The enemy were the people who had beaten some of his comrades to death. His idealized image of what would follow his return began to crumble. I begged the person who set out to tell him that he "needed" to know the "truth" about the war to not do so, or at least to give him some time. I said he had to believe what he endured was worth it somehow. Despair, then selfdoubt, then a feeling of failure set in. Then disaster struck.

He became a victim not just of the North Vietnamese, but of the inability of so many in his own country, during that horrible war, to separate the war from the warriors.

Many returning soldiers before him were spat upon and branded as murderers, often just after surviving their own harrowing experiences. No wonder there was a "Vietnam Syndrome." Like my brother, few wanted to go to war, yet Americans on the left did not respect their sacrifice, because it somehow conflicted with their passionate antiwar beliefs. Draped in the freedom of speech this country provides, self-righteous and designating themselves as true patriots, they waved the Viet Cong flag and justified their silence over the treatment of the POWs by saying that all that has to be done to help the POWs is end the war. Unfortunately, that took a while. Today, many antiwar protesters proudly claim that they were right about the war, in part as a result of Robert McNamara's belated admission that he was wrong. Whether the war was right or wrong, these were our boys. They deserved our support whatever the cause, whatever the result.

The antiwar movement has yet to recognize the pain and heartache that it caused. My brother had no say in the politics that sent him to war. The lack of appreciation for what he had done, combined with the rationale of those who gave aid and comfort to the enemy, helped destroy the will to live that had kept him alive for all those years.

All that was needed then was for the most vocal American antiwar spokespersons, the ones Hanoi was clearly listening to, to say that while they believed the war was wrong, our POWs must be treated according to the Geneva Convention. History has now documented Hanoi's great sensitivity to the swings of American public opinion. For years, my family and I begged these leaders of the left to do this, but to no avail. To do so would have been "pro-war" somehow. As a result, the North Vietnamese had years of free rein to torture and kill our men. When the POWs' families were finally able to get attention in 1971 and 1972, the treatment dramatically improved. For many of the POWs, unfortunately, the damage was done. This is the unfinished business of that war. Few Americans who were silent then have acknowledged much responsibility for the consequences of their actions on the home front. Whether the war was right or wrong, then or now, is irrelevant.

Years ago, I tried to get my brother's name added to the Vietnam Memorial wall. I was told that I could not, because the wall was for servicemen who were killed in Vietnam or died later from wounds received there.

Technically, I guess, Alan Brudno was mortally wounded back here.

BRUDNO is a management consultant in Washington, D.C.

---------

January 26, 1998

Lessons of Vietnam -- 30 years after the Tet offensive

by Howard Zinn

On Jan. 30, 1968, Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest and poet teaching at Cornell and I, once an Air Force bombardier but then a historian teaching at Boston University, traveled (illegally) to North Vietnam. Our mission was to pick up the first three captured American pilots to be released by the North Vietnamese government and bring them home.

It was the time of the Tet offensive. We spent a week in Laos, waiting for the battered World War II plane that flew six times a month from South Vietnam to Cambodia to Laos to North Vietnam, to be able to leave the besieged airport in Saigon, South Vietnam's capital. Then, there was a week of intensive observation in North Vietnam, after which we flew back with the three airmen to Laos.

They returned to the Air Force. We returned to the anti-war movement -- Berrigan to a series of civil-disobedience protests that landed him in prison, I to a crowded schedule of teach-ins and demonstrations against the war.

Now, 30 years later, this is a good time to reflect on what we might learn from that longest of our wars -- a war that has brought agreement from both its opponents and some of its masterminds (including then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara) that it was a shameful episode in our nation's history.

To me, the war was a disaster, but not for McNamara's reason, that it could not be won. The dispatch of a huge army to a small country, the merciless bombing of both "enemy" and "friendly" territory, the deaths of perhaps 3 million people and the destruction of a beautiful land, the brutal massacres at My Lai and other places -- these were all morally indefensible, win or lose.

None of the reasons given to explain what we did -- stopping the spread of communism, defending an ally, fulfilling our "treaty obligations" -- could stand up under examination. And even if any element of that explanation had been true, would it have justified the mass slaughter of Asian peasants and the deaths of 58,000 Americans, to say nothing of all those left blind, maimed and paralyzed on both sides?

Most Americans finally concluded that the answer was no. Their basic sense of decency came to the fore when they learned what was going on. As writer Kurt Vonnegut has said, in responding to the claim that violence is basic to human nature, there is such a thing as original virtue, as well as original sin. The surveys of public opinion showed a steady growth of opposition to the war. In August 1965, 61 percent of the population approved of the American involvement in Vietnam. By May 1971 it was exactly reversed -- 61 percent thought our involvement was wrong. Perhaps the most dramatic evidence of the change was that veterans coming back from Vietnam organized to oppose the war.

What have we learned from the war that might be of use in our world today? I suggest the following as starters:

That with the indiscriminate nature of modern military technology, all wars are wars against civilians, and are therefore inherently immoral. This is true even when a war is considered "just" because it is fought against a tyrant or an aggressor. The "good war" against Saddam Hussein has succeeded, for example, in bringing about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, according to U.N. reports.

That no political leaders should be trusted when they urge their people to war. The North Vietnamese leaders asked enormous sacrifices of their people on behalf of national independence and socialism, both of which may be in jeopardy. The recently released tapes of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson show a terrifying common thread: They were willing to watch soldiers and civilians die in large numbers while they calculated the effect on their re-election of stopping those deaths by withdrawing from Vietnam.

Vietnam War veteran and novelist Tim O'Brien said it right: "If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue."

If we have not learned that, after reflecting on Vietnam 30 years later, but also on the history of modern warfare, we are poor learners.

Howard Zinn is the author of the best-selling "A People's History of the United States"(HarperCollins, 1995) and "The Zinn Reader" (Seven Stories Press, 1997).

 

[2 ton hoss]

Please explain the things they did that brought them this disrespect...that is what I dont know and understand.

SOME SOLDIERS BEHAVED THEMSELVES VERY POORLY AND EVEN CRIMINALLY AND BRUTALLY (NEEDLESSLY BRUTAL, KILLING CIVILIANS AND SHIT) IN VIETNAM. THESE WERE A DEFINITE MINORITY OF COURSE.

AND OF COURSE OUR BOMBING AND USAGE OF AGENT ORANGE CAUSED HELLA LOT OF CIVILIAN DEATHS AND CASUALTIES.

HOWEVER, VERY FEW PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY GUILTY OF ACTING IN AN ABOMINABLE MANNER THERE. THE YOUNG LIBERALS DID NOT UNDERSTAND THAT. THEY BLAMED THE LITTLE GUY INSTEAD OF THE BOSS.

THE FUNNY THING IS THAT NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT HOW WE KILLED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS IN GERMANY AND JAPAN IN THE COURSE OF OUR BOMBINGS.

IT JUST GOES TO SHOW YOU HOW FICKLE POPULAR SUPPORT CAN BE. THAT IS WHY IF I EVER HAD THE CHANCE I WOULD FUCKING BUTT RAPE SOCIETY UNTIL ITS RECTUM BLED LIKE A FOUNTAIN. SOCIETY CAN KISS MY ASS.

 

[smallmovesal]

Vietnam veterans still fight memories
Education has prevented other vets from facing similar public mistreatment

By ALLEN MOODY of the East Oregonian

It was a war they weren’t trained to fight, against an enemy they couldn’t understand. A war that was fought over the division of a one country and ended up dividing another in the process.

It was a war fought not only in the jungles but also in the arena of public opinion, where the United States was ill-prepared to put up much resistance.

It was a war where returning soldiers did not return as conquering heroes but instead were treated with contempt and disdain.

It was a war that ended more than 25 years ago, yet even today many who served in it do not want to speak about their experiences, instead wishing they could purge the memories from their mind.

It was a war that took the lives of more than 58,000 Americans and saw more than 300,000 U.S. servicemen wounded, half of them seriously.

The Vietnam War was different than any other conflict the U.S. had previously found itself engaged in and not only changed those who fought, it changed the attitude of a nation.

Setting the stage

During World War II Vietnam, which had been under French control for 60 years, was invaded by Japan, who occupied French Indochina. Seeing the war as an opportunity to break free of French rule, the League for the Independence of Vietnam, or Viet Minh, was established in December 1940, with Ho Chi Minh the principal leader.

The United States demanded Japan withdraw from Indochina and entered an alliance with the Viet Minh, even making Ho Chi Minh a special government agent.

Following Japan’s surrender in 1945, Minh declared the independence of Vietnam, calling it the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

France, however, refused to recognize Vietnam’s independence and re-entered the country, driving the Viet Minh to the northern part of the country.

Minh wrote numerous letters to President Harry Truman asking him to accept Vietnam’s independence, which ultimately he would not because Minh was a communist and government policy at that time was driven by fear of the domino theory — that if one country fell under communist rule, others would follow suit.

“The Vietnamese asked us for assistance and we should have granted it, but did not,” said Steve Mason, president of the Vietnam Veteran’s Association Oregon State Chapter. “We were the ones who went back on our word.”

In 1954 the French and Vietnamese signed the Geneva Accords, calling for France’s withdraw, but the United States, out of fear of a communist regime, would not recognize the agreement, instead creating the fighting force of the non-communist faction of the country — the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) in 1955.

The same year the United States picked Ngo Dinh Diem to head the non-communist movement, a man who was so corrupt and repressive that he eventually caused thousands to embrace the communist regime.

What began with a small number of military advisers to the ARVN — there were 800 in January 1961 rose to 27,000 by the middle of 1964. Yet it quickly became obvious the ARVN were no match for the Northern Vietnamese and by the end of 1965 there were 80,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam - a number that swelled to 543,000 by 1969.

U.S. opposition to the war

Opposition to the war began almost immediately in 1965, primarily on college campuses, and continued to increase steadily as the war dragged on. The draft was quickly criticized as being racist and, with student deferments, designed to keep the children of upper, and middle- class citizens from having to serve.

“The war was perceived as what it was — the sons of poor men fighting the other sons of poor men,” Mason said.

As casualties mounted, opposition to the war increased, reaching new heights with the 1969 revelation of the My Lai Massacre, the killing of 500 unarmed civilians, mostly women and children, by elements of the Army’s Americal Division.

The release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 was responsible for another decline in support of the war, although by that time it was the number of veterans protesting the conflict that played a critical role in the anti-war sentiment.

Vietnam Veterans Against the War was formed in the United States in 1967 and those who had served were soon speaking at anti-war rallies throughout the nation.

Eventually, President Nixon had to accept what the polls were reporting — 70 percent of the American wanted an immediate end to the war and on March 29, 1973, the last U.S. troops left Vietnam.

“At that time it was obvious the war was wrong,” said Brian Wizard of Wallowa, a helicopter gunner during the war. “The Vietnamese were known to be as corrupt as anybody. Too many died, too many were wounded and too many were freaked-out for all the wrong reasons.”

A rude awakening

Perhaps the harshest blow received by many Vietnam veterans was their return home. There were no ticker-tape parades or heroes’ welcome: as those who fought in previous wars received. Instead, the returning soldiers were frowned upon and expected to justify their actions by a large portion of the population that had grown agitated over U.S. involvement.

No single factor can pinpoint the dramatic turn in the perception of the return soldier. It was a complex combination of items, nearly all of them out of the soldier’s control.

“One of the things is they came home alone,” said Chuck Coate, a history professor at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande. “I remember picking up my brother at the Walla Walla Airport. He was a single soldier. ... we celebrated his survival.”

Coate said the plight of the Vietnam veteran who returned home was a direct contrast to the triumphant return of 200,000 Union soldiers as they paraded down Washington, D.C., following the Civil War.

“They didn’t deserve the treatment they got,” Elmer Edvalson, a World War II veteran from Milton-Freewater said. “They did the best they could.”

Mason said the perception of losing the war also played a role in determining the sentiment reached by many in the public.

“It was a highly sophisticated military power unable to defeat an unsophisticated enemy,” he said. “We didn’t understand the nature of the enemy — his work ethic and cooperation. We fought on their ground and with their weapon of choice. They fought not to lose.”

Bob Zaklan, who served in the Navy during World War II, said the treatment of the Vietnam veteran after their return home was in part due to the country’s change of attitude.

“Since World War II the country’s attitude has changed,” the Pendleton resident said. “It hasn’t practiced patriotism or respect.”

A change of opinion

Like many Vietnam veterans, Milton-Freewater’s Jim Morris appears slightly uncomfortable speaking about the war. His appearance at a Veteran’s Day parade is not only for himself but to pay tribute to a childhood best friend who was killed in Vietnam.

Yet, he said to see community support shown towards the Vietnam veteran is meaningful because it shows how the country’s attitude has slowly changed.

“When I first got back home, I was spit on,” he said. “Now, we’re becoming Americans again instead of fighting each other.”

Wizard agreed, saying while there was a ways to go before the Vietnam veteran received his just due, things were certainly improving.

“Today people appreciate the veteran more,” he said. “It’s come a long ways. They’ve come around and said, ‘It’s not your fault.’”

Coate, who teaches about the Vietnam War in class, said it’s sometimes difficult for today’s college student to fully grasp what things were like during the height of the war.

“Most of them have heard about it from parents or uncles,” Coate said. “For them, it doesn’t have the emotional significance it does with the older generation.”

Lasting effects

The differences surrounding the Vietnam War have had an everlasting effect on those who served time. Exposure to Agent Orange, an extremely hostile environment and the unknown fate of fellow soldiers all contributed to the onslaught of problems faced by Vietnam veterans after arriving back home.

The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that more than 20,000 Vietnam vets have committed suicide since the war’s end.

“It was a harder war to fight,” Coate said. “Our soldiers had a hard time knowing the point of view of the civilians. In most wars we’re seen as the liberators. There, you couldn’t know for sure.”

Coate said the rotation method used, where individual soldiers would join a unit for a period of time before returning home, as opposed to coming and leaving as a unit, also took a toll on soldiers.

“Leaving the people that you fought with would be pretty tough, he said.”

Wizard said veterans shouldn’t be afraid to seek any help they need, either through counseling, attending reunions or joining veteran’s groups.

“I don’t know if there’s anything anybody else can do — it’s up to the veteran,” Wizard said. “The Veterans Administration could do more to help, but that’s a bureaucracy.”

Mason spends much of his time trying to obtain the benefits earned by Vietnam veterans in the state of Oregon. One of his primary concerns is the lack of mental treatment available. Of the 3.8 million veterans who receive services, one in five is for mental illness. Of the 172 Veterans Medical health centers, not one is for long-term mental illness, he said.

Mason said a major aspect of the Vietnam Veteran’s Association is trying to make the veteran feel like part of his community, not separate from it. The web address for the Oregon chapter is www.vvaosc.org.

“The Vietnam vet has earned benefits that have been denied him primarily because of the money involved,” Mason said. “The Vietnam vet is due more than the parades or Memorial Wall that he finally got. He was the best his generation could produce.”

Bringing closure

Wizard said his latest weapon — education — reigns supreme above all others and has authored a series of books detailing his experiences. The books have been praised by many veterans for helping them come to terms with their own personal problems, realizing they’re not alone.

“Educating the public has been a key ingredient in preventing anything like that from happening again,” he said. “Books like mine have helped.”

He also said it was a return to that country that helped him deal with his feelings.

“That brought more closure and resolution to my mental turmoil than anything else,” he said, “Having the Vietnamese say ‘Thanks for being here before’ and ‘Thanks for coming back’ meant a lot.”

Wizard, who chronicled his 1999 return to Vietnam in the short story, ‘Make Friends Not War,’ available free of charge at www.brianwizard.com, understands that a trip back to the country of bad memories is not for everybody.

“It’s an individual choice,” he said. “If you want to see what it’s like without war nipping at your heels you should go. If you come back with just one friend you can write a sequel to your own chapter of life.”

 

[huntmaster]

they were treated like shit when they came back b/c of all the damn hippies that didnt have the guts to go. Those hippies felt the need to lash out at the cause to personally justify their lack of attendance in the war.

All them liberals back then. they were all just a bunch of hippies looking for a reason to rebel.

 

[smallmovesal]

lol nice assessment.... lmao @ huntmaster and "damn hippies"

Townsman: God damn, that's a big fat ass! Cartman: Hey! Wendy: Hi guys.
Cartman: Oh look, another hippie. Peace Wendy. Stan: Shut up Cartman.
Cartman: Ohhh, Two little hippies sitting in a tree....

"....if you do drugs you're a hippie, and hippies suck."

 

[Whiskey]

Hey Frackal, first off love the avatar, Vin Diesel is the man, loved that movie too, "pitch black" I think the answer you are looking for is this...

This is a short answer that I have recieved a couple of times.....
because pictures of burned and killed women and children were published in magazines and newspapers. most of the burns were caused by Napalm.

What these articles don't say is that these are the enemy. If there is a person alive today that doesn't believe that the women and children fought against us, they are living one hell of a misinformed life.

Just what I have been told, as short as possible.

Whiskey

 

[huntmaster]

lol nice assessment.... lmao @ huntmaster and "damn hippies"

I was wandering why I couldnt find Curling's post! lol

Thats cool though, Curling is a good guy that I should be lucky to be confused with.