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and Vietnam vets against the war is a great organization.
Too bad all the "extreme patriots" who have bumper stuckers "support our troops" - don't support the troops by demanding that when they return with PTSD, or addicted to drugs, or no legs, or traumatic brain injury - don't insist on the care that these people deserve instead of waiting on line for months for health care from the VA.
broadcast over a few days you can see the Winter Soldiers--
it is very moving.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Inquring81
I'd recommend that you read a little more about the diversity of people who resisted military service, rather than lumping them all as spineless cowards who should be shot. It might also be useful to read up a little on the draft regulations.
People who are conscientious objectors are opposed to armed conflict for reasons both of organized religion and individual conscience. They are given a number of options -- serve in the military in an unarmed role (medic), do alternative service outside of the military (often of longer duration than military service) or go to prison. One of the most influential teachers I had in high school was a conscientious objector during World War II, for reasons of personal belief, not because of organized religion. He served as a combat medic throughout the war, and was attached to one of the units which liberated Dachau. Those experiences changed his life completely. He was an atheist, did not believe in God, but was one of the most knowledgeable Bible scholars I've ever met -- because he believed that the Bible was a great work of literature. He also was a scholar of the Holocaust, because he said that it was the duty of all ethical people to remember those whose lives were stolen, and to actively work to fight present day genocides.
You probably also don't know that many conscientious objectors in World War II and during the Korean conflict volunteered from prison to take part in medical experiments run by the US military to determine human endurance. To research how long downed pilots could live, many of them were immersed for long periods of time in freezing water. To research the recovery time for military units subjected to poison gasses of various varieties, some were repeatedly exposed to different toxic fumes. Others were dropped off high towers, experimenting with parachutes and water landings to figure out the best way to design ejector seats from air craft, and to determine how high a pilot could survive if he had to ditch at high altitude. There were experiments underwater to determine what could be done if submariners had to abandon ship, and whether there were techniques or safety designs that could be built into submarines to increase the chances of some of them to survive. Many of the men who participated in these experiments were permanently maimed or killed as a result. They viewed it as their patriotic duty to volunteer to participate in these experiments, and saw it as in line with their beliefs in the sanctity of human life. They were contributing what they could to help other people live.
Finally, you seem to believe that the people who were marching and protesting in this country against the Vietnam war had not served. I urge you to research Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In the documentary Hearts and Minds there is coverage of a demonstration at the Capital where decorated veterans threw their combat metals on to the Capital steps. If thousands of combat veterans, who have seen their comrades die in the field, who have sacrificed limbs, sobriety, and mental health, feel so bitter about that service that they need to take to the streets to speak out, and are willing to throw their medals on to the Capital steps to try to turn around the policies of this country, those are not the acts of cowards.
When you dig beneath the surface of history, it is amazing the things you find. If you want to read more about this, I recommend checking out the the Winter Soldiers, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and the history of conscientious objection.
I would say that the "spineless cowards" are the politicians who do not speak up for the veterans.
There are hundreds of thousands of veterans who live on the streets, bec. they cannot find affordable housing-- this is the shame of a nation!
Whenever I have read or heard about the way anti-war protesters acted and especially treated vets it makes me sick to think people can be so horrible. Sure they may not have to like it, but they seemed like they were spineless cowards who's only real value would be to have been used as meat shields. It's a shame an anti-war protester could not have taken a bullet or two rather than a soldier.
To me they didn't even deserve to call themselves Americans. Just a bunch of selfish scum bags as far as I'm concerned.
1. First, you're not asking a question. You're stating a position.
2. When someone doesn't agree with you, it's often not objective to refer to them as spineless cowards, or hurl other insults at them.
3. Who turned out to be more "right" about Vietnam? It's a mixed bag, but in the end it was a Republican president who pulled us out, despite his having a history of being a fervent anti-communist. So I'd have to give the edge to "rightness" to your spineless cowards.
4. Did the dominoes fall. Yes and no. Some did. Some didn't
5. The American people did treat soldiers poorly in that area, and that was not fair. No question about it. My father, who was in the Air Force at the time, stopped wearing his uniform except when on base simply because of the hassle he sometimes felt from the public. But then again we had incidents like the My Lai Massacre, which made it far more difficult to respect our military.
6. It was the first television war. Every night on Walter Cronkite (as well as Huntley & Brinkley and other network news broadcasts) we saw the death, we saw the destruction, we heard the casualty reports. War was suddenly in our living rooms for the first time ever. Almost every adult that I knew at the time eventually evolved to disagreeing with the war.
Communist sympathizers my ass..........a lot of us simply saw Nam for what it really was, a total lie. And the facts are, not a lot of Senators Sons were the ones being drafted, but, rather, the poor and black who could not afford to buy out of the draft or go to college to avoid it.
That is the reality of what went on, and history has proven it.
Don
And it wasn't even really about Vietnam. It was a proxy war between the US and the USSR.
I was of draft age during the Vietnam War. I wound up getting a high draft lottery number in the draw and was never called. I certainly wasn't going to volunteer for that war, so I never saw service.
Before the lottery determined my fate, whether I would be drafted and sent there was of course a major source of concern for me. The biggest supporter in my family of the draft, the war, and of my serving, was my grandfather. He was all rah rah America, the commies are on the doorstep, it is your duty to defend America etc.
His war service? He was of draft age during WW I. Through influential connections, he managed to get himself appointed assistant sergeant-at-arms for the US Senate, a glorified page. Happily for my grandfather, this job was deemed vital and thus he was exempt from draft. He spent the war facing down the Kaiser's Huns from his vantage point in the US capitol.
My cousin, my grandfather's nephew, got caught in a check kiting scheme and was convicted in court. My grandfather had a lot of political influence and he arranged for the judge to give my cousin a sentencing choice. It would be either 3-5 years in prison, or he could join the army. He opted to enlist.
He was sent to Vietnam and wound up getting killed in an accidental helicopter crash, unrelated to combat. My grandfather than retroactively decided to promote him as a war hero, a man who died because he loved his country etc. My feeling was that he died for the same reason most people die in war...they couldn't help it, and that my grandfather was doing the big hero number for him to downplay the role he played in getting him killed.
Very good post. I was in a similar situation. I was eligible for the first draft year of the Vietnam War, but got a number of 339, and they never got that high. My father was in the Air Force, although he wasn't the rah-rah type.
Only when our objective became winning, under Reagan, did matters improve. In between the U.S. became a doormat; as it has under Obama.
How by invading freaking Grenada, and Panama… boy now there was a show of force!
It is utter nonsense unsupported by any historical evidence that the any policy of Ronald Reagan brought about the "downfall" of the Soviet Union. If anyone is to be credited it was none other than Mikhail Gorbachev and a younger generation of Soviet who helped usher in his leadership and supported his reforms.
As for the U.S. being a "doormat" where on earth do you people get this from?
Very good post. I was in a similar situation. I was eligible for the first draft year of the Vietnam War, but got a number of 339, and they never got that high. My father was in the Air Force, although he wasn't the rah-rah type.
My father was a naval combat veteran of WW II, and while he favored my serving rather than any of the more drastic alternatives, he did not indulge in any of the rah rah stuff my grandfather was always staging.
Since I got a high draft lottery number, I will never know exactly what I would have done had I been called. I was strongly opposed to the war with or without my participation, but I had never reached a conclusion about what I would do. My father was aware of my position but never gave me any grief about volunteering after I learned that I would not be drafted.
Oddly though, he held the same reluctance to go against my older brother. The key difference is that my brother actively avoided the draft while I never had to do so. My brother had been a seminarian, studying for the priesthood and thus had a religious exemption. That expired when he left the seminary after six years. What my brother never did was to report his change of status to the draft board as the law required. He was gambling (and it worked) that by the time they finally became aware that he was no longer eligible for a religious deferment, either the war would be over or the draft ended as Nixon had promised in his '68 campaign.
So, there was bad blood for a time between my father and brother over this, while I got a pass simply through the luck of the lottery.
I'd recommend that you read a little more about the diversity of people who resisted military service, rather than lumping them all as spineless cowards who should be shot. It might also be useful to read up a little on the draft regulations.
People who are conscientious objectors are opposed to armed conflict for reasons both of organized religion and individual conscience. *************They viewed it as their patriotic duty to volunteer to participate in these experiments, and saw it as in line with their beliefs in the sanctity of human life. They were contributing what they could to help other people live.
Finally, you seem to believe that the people who were marching and protesting in this country against the Vietnam war had not served. I urge you to research Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In the documentary Hearts and Minds there is coverage of a demonstration at the Capital where decorated veterans threw their combat metals on to the Capital steps. If thousands of combat veterans, who have seen their comrades die in the field, who have sacrificed limbs, sobriety, and mental health, feel so bitter about that service that they need to take to the streets to speak out, and are willing to throw their medals on to the Capital steps to try to turn around the policies of this country, those are not the acts of cowards.
When you dig beneath the surface of history, it is amazing the things you find. If you want to read more about this, I recommend checking out the the Winter Soldiers, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and the history of conscientious objection.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Calvert Hall '62
Some of the protestors were vets with combat medals earned in VietNam. They were not cowards. I was a vet at that time, but was discharged from active duty to reserve status stateside before my unit went in country, and took no stance one way or the other regarding the war.
The most upsetting thing to me was the protestors spitting on troops.
Both of these posts illustrates one problem that no one will touch. Unless the system is oriented in a "classist" way, i.e. recruiting and sacrificing a disproportion of lower economic or educational classes the country is putting in harm's way people with expensive higher educations. Society tries to find ways to avoid that even if it is manifestly unjust.
My thought is that we need to go back to the use of mercenaries to adequately staff wars. No society is going to put people with $300,000 (in today's dollars) of education, whether privately or publicly paid for, onto a faraway battlefield.
Even during WW II many educated people (my father and a close friend's father included) enlisted in such a way as they went to college first. V-E day intervened to prevent actual service. Some such as my father went on to serve in Korea.
But still it's a circuitous route to the battlefield for the relatively affluent and educated. And I'm not sure that's fixable other than by using Third-World mercenaries.
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