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Date Posted: Wed, January 19 2005, 3:20:51
Author: Larry Lusk
Author Host/IP: 66.214.61.174
Subject: Re: Welcome Home, Soldier
In reply to: Wayne Gregory 's message, "Re: Welcome Home, Soldier" on Tue, January 18 2005, 11:45:24

Wayne I agree with you completely about what the press did. I think in some respects I look upon telling about what I know happened in my small part of the war in a slightly different way than you do. I take great pride a hold a deep respect for those I served with and the many others who went beyond the call of duty when they could have done less and few to none would have known the difference. Almost everyone who served in Vietnam or flew missions over it got the short end of the stick as a result of inept management from the White House and the afore mentioned press. Some of us got the shorter end of that already short stick. Painting what occurred in Vietnam with only a positive brush may be good for our egos but if we as a people are to learn anything from that tragic time then they need to see both the good and the bad.

Vietnam Veterans are not “all brothers”. Many of the men whose jobs put them in the safer areas such as base camps and major installations like Da Nang, Cam Ranh or Saigon to name just a few had little understanding of what it was like to be a grunt stuck out in the boonies. I don’t think that many of them gave it much thought. Sure, at any moment and in any place death could come falling out of the sky or bomb could go off in a local restaurant or bar. But that didn’t happen all that often. Most of the men who served in Vietnam went home with stories to tell and bad memories of the fear they rightfully felt but nothing more. The fact is that most Nam vets had little trouble fitting back into the society they had left for a year or so. Many found out that all they had to do was NOT tell an employer that they had served in Vietnam to get and keep a good job. They only became Nam vets again when they saw that it was to their advantage.

Only a small percentage of Air Force and Navy personnel and a larger percentage (but still small in comparison to the total strength) of those in the Army were directly involved in any real combat. The Marines in Vietnam as a percentage of the total force saw more combat than any other branch due to the fact that much of their logistics and administrative support was provided by other branches of the Service. For that reason a Marine would most likely have seen less of the “bad” side of the way the war was conducted since they were for practical purposes all “grunts”. When everyone knows that their country has no intention of winning a war the “rear area” people in military branches with less esprit-de-corps than the Marines tended to “look out for themselves” and lose sight of the hardship and suffering that some of their fellow soldiers were having to endure.

For example the men at the logistics yard who loaded the trucks had little concept of what that driver was going to go through to get that truck to it’s destination. The supply clerks who kept track of what came into and left the yard never even saw the driver. If any of those men ran into a driver years later they might pretend to understand why the man couldn’t sleep at night, had nightmares and couldn’t hold a job, but in truth they didn’t understand. When I tell the story about the supply sergeant who was selling military supplies and equipment on the black market to many Nam vets most of the time I get a shrug and a “well, yes I guess that did happen”. When I tell that story to a man who I know was a grunt I get asked why I didn’t kill the guy. If that sort of corruption happened in the Marine Corp I’m sure it was very rare and often caught. The stories I heard while I was a “cop” on Okinawa only confirmed what I already suspected and added fuel to my anger.

This is what happens when your country goes to war but doesn’t really “go to war”. In Iraq now it’s civilian contractors that have taken over the logistics role and are the ones who are getting rich as a result. A far larger percentage of our troops are seeing combat now than in any other conflict this country has ever been in for this reason. Unless their “homecoming” is a lot better than ours was and lasts a long time there will be a lot of very angry and emotionally scarred men and women trying to figure out what went wrong in the years to come.

That’s why I think it’s important to show the students and others who read this board and the other stories all sides of what it means to go to war. How it brings out the best and the worst in people and what the real cost is to our society. He who does not learn from a mistake is bound to repeat it or so they say.

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