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Date Posted: Sat, January 29 2005, 12:05:20
Author: Larry Lusk
Author Host/IP: 66.214.61.7
Subject: Re: Priorities?
In reply to: George Fryett 's message, "Re: Priorities?" on Sat, January 29 2005, 8:12:36

Hi George. I agree, young and naive is not a bad thing unless you are in a time or place that makes being that way a liability. The 1960’s and the present are two of those times. In looking back at all the conversations I’ve had with other Vietnam veterans many had fathers who served in WWII. Of those Nam vets whose father had seen combat in WWII (or Korea) only a very few were encouraged to enlist in a Combat Arm. The exception to this was those who’s fathers were Marine Corp vets. The Nam vets whose fathers did not see any combat tended to indicate that their fathers neither encouraged or discouraged their sons enlistment or made an effort to keep them from being drafted. I think they didn’t understand what they were sending their sons into.

My own father is a good example. He was in the Navy in the Pacific during WWII (he was drafted) but never came anywhere near any combat. He spent much of the war running the movie projector at night on Guam. He had no personal experience to pass on to me about what it was like to be in combat. The only concept of what I was in for came from WWII movies and books. When I enlisted all he said was take care of yourself. After I got home my father had no idea why I was acting the way I did and why the way I looked at the world had changed so much. He did say something once that gave me some insight into both my father and most of the rest of the people who stayed at “home” or some who were Nam vets that never saw any combat. My father said that after he got home from the war he met an old High School friend who had been an infantryman in Europe and saw heavy fighting in France. My father said that his old friends attitude was disturbing and after that one meeting he never saw or attempted to contact that person again. They had been in the Boy Scouts together and my father had mentioned his name a number of times when talking about his childhood. It was only after I came home that he made any connection to his boyhood friend’s war time experience and why his friend had changed so much.

That is why I tell my story here as I have on other web sites and newsgroups before I found "War Stories” and to anyone who is willing to listen. I think I will amend my earlier statement. Being naive is never a good thing in this world we all have made. It causes you to sometimes hurt those who need your understanding and it can put you in harms way to further someone else’s purpose. Perhaps that’s why I was allowed to come home alive while so many of my friends did not.

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