Vietnam…..The Bad War

I just got through watching a “Full Metal Jacket” on T.V.

We were the wonder boys and girls…the greatest generation treated their children like gold…in fact too much…we were special, and spoiled.

Until Vietnam. Vietnam tested the WWII heroes against the special generation, the baby boomers….

We were special and precious, given that their parents lived through and sometimes died in WWII.

Vietnam was different. I joined the National Guard, admittedly to avoid going to Vietnam….I served for about 2/3 of my time, and was let go due to a football injury.

But I served…Trump did not…he used a doctor and a lie to avoid service.

Most of my friends were veterans. Some of my friends were killed in a war that most Americans hated.

Vietnam was not WWII. It was a revolution of Vietnamese against colonialism; NOT part of the Red Scare.

But politicians in Washington used it as if the Commies were going to take us over if we didn’t win Vietnam.

We didn’t…Vietnam is now a successul state…the North won over the South…and the government is “communist” and peaceful…not the Communist hoards that were going to take over the world.

Americans go to Vietnam as one of the best vacation spots in the world.

All this for nothing…..all the 60,000 or so American Soldiers killed in a war that was for nothing.

Many of my friends dodged the draft…some joined…a small few died.

Again, Trump dodged the draft…the coward that he is. However many of my friends did the same thing, claming rightly that Vietnam was NOT any threat to the United States.

Today, as I have already said, Vietnam is a favorite vacation spot to the world…

However many of the Vietnamese were lost due to a war that never should have happened.

I suppose that is normal in war. After it is over, we find that it was a breakdown of humanity, not stars and stripes forever.

Happy Veterans Day!