hermogenesm
11-11-08, 05:30 AM
:usmc:TO ALL VETERANS OF ALL WARS THANK YOU FOR YOUR SACRIFICE AND SERVICE TO OUR COUNTRY ON YOUR DAY......HAPPY VETERANS DAY WELCOME HOME
PLEASE THANK A VETERAN TODAY:iwo:
:flag: WHATS THE MEANING OF A VETERAN TO YOU ???
thank you my friend semper fi!! I will stand with you.
Captain Kirk
11-11-08, 06:46 AM
A college student posted a request on an internet newsgroup asking for personal narratives from the likes of us addressing the question: "What is a Vietnam Veteran?" This is what I wrote back:
Copyright © 1996 Dan Mouer, All Rights Reserved
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Vietnam veterans are men and women. We are dead or alive, whole or maimed, sane or haunted. We grew from our experiences or we were destroyed by them or we struggle to find some place in between. We lived through hell or we had a pleasant, if scary, adventure. We were Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Red Cross, and civilians of all sorts. Some of us enlisted to fight for God and Country, and some were drafted. Some were gung-ho, and some went kicking and screaming.
Like veterans of all wars, we lived a tad bit--or a great bit--closer to death than most people like to think about. If Vietnam vets differ from others, perhaps it is primarily in the fact that many of us never saw the enemy or recognized him or her. We heard gunfire and mortar fire but rarely looked into enemy eyes. Those who did, like folks who encounter close combat anywhere and anytime, are often haunted for life by those eyes, those sounds, those electric fears that ran between ourselves, our enemies, and the likelihood of death for one of us. Or we get hard, calloused, tough. All in a day's work. Life's a b**** then you die. But most of us remember and get twitchy, worried, sad.
We are crazies dressed in cammo, wide-eyed, wary, homeless, and drunk. We are Brooks Brothers suit wearers, doing deals downtown. We are housewives, grandmothers, and church deacons. We are college professors engaged in the rational pursuit of the truth about the history or politics or culture of the Vietnam experience. And we are sleepless. Often sleepless.
We pushed paper; we pushed shovels. We drove jeeps, operated bulldozers, built bridges; we toted machine guns through dense brush, deep paddy, and thorn scrub. We lived on buffalo milk, fish heads and rice. Or C-rations. Or steaks and Budweiser. We did our time in high mountains drenched by endless monsoon rains or on the dry plains or on muddy rivers or at the most beautiful beaches in the world.
We wore berets, bandanas, flop hats, and steel pots. Flak jackets, canvas, rash and rot. We ate cloroquine and got malaria anyway. We got shots constantly but have diseases nobody can diagnose. We spent our nights on cots or shivering in foxholes filled with waist-high water or lying still on cold wet ground, our eyes imagining Charlie behind every bamboo blade. Or we slept in hotel beds in Saigon or barracks in Thailand or in cramped ships' berths at sea.
We feared we would die or we feared we would kill. We simply feared, and often we still do. We hate the war or believe it was the best thing that ever happened to us. We blame Uncle Sam or Uncle Ho and their minions and secretaries and apologists for every wart or cough or tic of an eye. We wonder if Agent Orange got us.
Mostly--and this I believe with all my heart--mostly, we wish we had not been so alone. Some of us went with units; but many, probably most of us, were civilians one day, jerked up out of "the world," shaved, barked at, insulted, humiliated, de-egoized and taught to kill, to fix radios, to drive trucks. We went, put in our time, and were equally ungraciously plucked out of the morass and placed back in the real world. But now we smoked dope, shot skag, or drank heavily. Our wives or husbands seemed distant and strange. Our friends wanted to know if we shot anybody.
And life went on, had been going on, as if we hadn't been there, as if Vietnam was a topic of political conversation or college protest or news copy, not a matter of life and death for tens of thousands.
Vietnam vets are people just like you. We served our country, proudly or reluctantly or ambivalently. What makes us different--what makes us Vietnam vets--is something we understand, but we are afraid nobody else will. But we appreciate your asking.
Vietnam veterans are white, black, beige and shades of gray; but in comparison with our numbers in the "real world," we were more likely black. Our ancestors came from Africa, from Europe, and China. Or they crossed the Bering Sea Land Bridge in the last Ice Age and formed the nations of American Indians, built pyramids in Mexico, or farmed acres of corn on the banks of Chesapeake Bay. We had names like Rodriguez and Stein and Smith and Kowalski. We were Americans, Australians, Canadians, and Koreans; most Vietnam veterans are Vietnamese.
We were farmers, students, mechanics, steelworkers, nurses, and priests when the call came that changed us all forever. We had dreams and plans, and they all had to change...or wait. We were daughters and sons, lovers and poets, beatniks and philosophers, convicts and lawyers. We were rich and poor but mostly poor. We were educated or not, mostly not. We grew up in slums, in shacks, in duplexes, and bungalows and houseboats and hooches and ranchers. We were cowards and heroes. Sometimes we were cowards one moment and heroes the next.
Many of us have never seen Vietnam. We waited at home for those we loved. And for some of us, our worst fears were realized. For others, our loved ones came back but never would be the same.
We came home and marched in protest marches, sucked in tear gas, and shrieked our anger and horror for all to hear. Or we sat alone in small rooms, in VA hospital wards, in places where only the crazy ever go. We are Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, and Confucians and Buddhists and Atheists--though as usually is the case, even the atheists among us sometimes prayed to get out of there alive.
We are hungry, and we are sated, full of life or clinging to death. We are injured, and we are curers, despairing and hopeful, loved or lost. We got too old too quickly, but some of us have never grown up. We want, desparately, to go back, to heal wounds, revisit the sites of our horror. Or we want never to see that place again, to bury it, its memories, its meaning. We want to forget, and we wish we could remember.
Despite our differences, we have so much in common. There are few of us who don't know how to cry, though we often do it alone when nobody will ask "what's wrong?" We're afraid we might have to answer.
Adam, if you want to know what a Vietnam veteran is, get in your car next weekend or cage a friend with a car to drive you. Go to Washington. Go to the Wall. It's going to be Veterans Day weekend. There will be hundreds there...no, thousands. Watch them. Listen to them. I'll be there. Come touch the Wall with us. Rejoice a bit. Cry a bit. No, cry a lot. I will. I'm a Vietnam Veteran; and, after 30 years, I think I am beginning to understand what that means.
DocGreek
11-11-08, 08:00 AM
Excellent! Your statement, puts a lot of memories, into perspective. Some Viet Nam vet's, will "bunker-in", today....like me. Some vets, will attend ceremonies at cemeteries, honoring fallen comrades. Today, is a very appropriate occasion, to visit a V.A. Hospital, and give emotional support to the brave, and proud, young MEN, who try to continue on with their physical, and emotional burdens. God Bless every one of them, you too, Bro!.....Semper Fi.....Doc Greek
I would like to happly thank all of you for what you have done, will do, and are doing for our country. =)
Captain Kirk
11-11-08, 08:55 AM
Excellent! Your statement, puts a lot of memories, into perspective. Some Viet Nam vet's, will "bunker-in", today....like me. Some vets, will attend ceremonies at cemeteries, honoring fallen comrades. Today, is a very appropriate occasion, to visit a V.A. Hospital, and give emotional support to the brave, and proud, young MEN, who try to continue on with their physical, and emotional burdens. God Bless every one of them, you too, Bro!.....Semper Fi.....Doc Greek
Thanks Doc,
Semper Fi Brother.
DocGreek
11-12-08, 06:52 AM
Didn't sleep worth a ***t, last nite. Went to bed at midnight, but was so worked up about the way the media reported events, of the day, I took some extra Zanax, to calm me down. Nothing, about Col. Ripley....NO interviews with vet's....AND, lot's of Veterans Day sales, at the big box stores. As a Viet Nam vet, AND a U.S. citizen.....I'm ashamed, and ****ed! On Memorial Day, and Veterans Day, EVERY business should be closed, honoring the Men, and Women, who served, were wounded, or killed, so that "Heather, and Jen", could go to the mall, and buy crap! Our society really has it's priorities *****d up! Just ask some High School kid's, what they've been taught about Viet Nam, and WHY our nation set's aside two days, a year to Honor Veterans! I apologize for my anger, but....Vets have to speak up!.....God Bless every one that served, and God help the next generation!.......SEMPER FI, BRO'S......Doc Greek
A Letter To The President
<?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O /><O:p< p O:p<O:p< O:p<>Dear President Bush
<O:p< p O:p<>I would like to start off by saying, “you have had the toughest job on earth for the last eight years”, and many are grateful; including, me. Your mission has been totally for filled with numerous re-construction polices to help protect our country from terrorist attacks, and those measures were desperately needed. We can only pray, that those reforms are not tampered with for self gain nor to bring harm to more Americans in the near future.
<O:p< p O:p<O:p< O:p<>Nine Eleven happened for reason’s beyond your control, and three thousand brave Americans gave their lives to protect the country that they loved most, “The United States of America”, and we all will be forever in their debt. Your Presidency alone, has been the strongest leadership that this country has seen in years, regardless of the criticisms and objections from others; we felt abundantly protected.
<O:p< p O:p<O:p< O:p<>I’ve come to realize the importance of a “United States Military”, and why one exist. Our history gives us this very information; Veterans, and we will never forget their sacrifices then and now.
<O:p< p O:p<O:p< O:p<>As a nation of triumph and tribulations, we have united drastically and quickly under your administrations leadership; remember, two hearts that beat as one are much better operatives than being self indulged. I have been most inspired and influenced by two leading ladies, Mrs. Bush, and Ms. Rice, for education, wisdom, and pride.
<O:p< p O:p<O:p< O:p<>God Bless,
A Writers Corner
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