07-20-2017, 09:00 PM
(07-20-2017, 07:01 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Interesting. My father didn't talk about it much but he was always angrier at the people who self-righteously sent him over there than anything that happened when he got back. He died of brain cancer, too so double points for relevance in this thread.
Then again, I do recall a certain Vietnam vet who ran against Bush getting lambasted by people.
Kerry made the "unforgivable mistake" of speaking his mind once he left the military. My issue with Vietnam is less that we fought there but more how we fought. I know others have different opinions on this, but the North was the invader in that scenario. Regardless, you don't send troops into war with one hand tied behind their back and the other around their balls. You go to war you do everything in your power (short of nukes) to end the war as quickly as possible. Having every restriction in the book on our soldiers had to be more demoralizing than anything that happened back home. Hard to imagine a military can soundly defeat the enemy in every battle of consequence and still "lose" the war, but we managed it.
Sorry about you dad. My father was there early in the war, '66 to '67 and then went back in early '72, being one of the last units to leave in '73. Consequently, he didn't get exposed to agent orange or anything like that.
