Never Forget!

[willingtocope]

Agreed. Kids had nothing to do with this...other than being the ones shot at.

[DaleB]

Originally Posted by willingtocope

Agreed. Kids had nothing to do with this...other than being the ones shot at.

'The kids', or 'responsible grown men', as I like to refer to them, are also willing to do the shooting, regardless of why they are ordered to. I have a hard time seperating shooters from orderers. It takes all kinds.

To treat them as the defenders of our freedom when we KNOW they are being ordered to fight for resources and economics is a form of lying, mostly to help us feel better about the righteousness of our global military Empire.

Why is it honorable to volunteer to kill people for resources under the LIE of defending 'freedom'?!

[SCIfor55yrs.]

It was a sobering experience watching that on the TV news back then. I had been in protests at Pitt just a few years earlier. Sadly, when I came to South Carolina, I learned that just two years before Kent State a similar event occurred at South Carolina State University, a historically Black school. State police opened fire on a campus protest against local segregation. Three were killed and another 28 injured during the "Orangeburg Massacre." Most had been shot in the back.

[LindaT]

Originally Posted by willingtocope

I'm puzzled by something.

First, let me say I supported the troups that went to Vietnam. I thought the war was wrong from the beginning, but that was the fault of the political leadership...not the guys on the ground. I was saddened to see the way the grunts were treated when they came home. Again, I had some friends in that group, including some that didn't come back.

Now, we're engaged in wars that are even more stupid than vietnam (again, politics..Yeah, okay, Bib Laden...30 seals took him out...why didn't that happen 10 years ago?), but this time, the people coming home get the respect they deserve.

How come? Why was a vietnam vet scum, and an iraq/afghan viet a hero?

It was a different war and different era. The atmosphere was a lot different then. I remember the graphic film on the 6:00 news every night during supper.
The Mai Lai massacre fueled a lot of trouble.
It was terrible the way some of the public and government treated the returning troops. Not owning up to agent orange being one of them.

[PN]

What happened at Kent State is etched into my brain like acid onto metal.

[Patrick Madsen]

We vets from the '60's weren't victums. We went in because that is what young abled bodied men did after high school.

It was "suggested" that we not wear our uniform on the way home after discharge. I had no idea that there were those types of protesters outside the gates til we were outside the gates. I know that if any of them came up and harrassed any of us, they would have been taken care of swiftly. A lot of the guys were less than 48 hours out of country; their natural reaction would have been to strike back. After discharge, I just wanted to get home and wear civies for the rest of my life.

[all-buggered-up]

in every war the winner gets to write the history and therefore the justice of the victory. a little known but very important as we celebrate the first major defeat of japan is that it wouldn't have happenef f mac arthor had his way he was forced to commit his forces if australia and new zealand hadnt threatened to withdraw all troops from every where, this forced the battle of the coral sea we were in africa and the middle east so dont think a history of war is a simlistic

[SCIfor55yrs.]

There were those who thought it unpatriotic or anti-American to speak out against the war and others who saw any support of an unjustifiable war as immoral including serving in the military. It was these extremists who provoked incidents against both protesters and our troops. In the end, most people tried to forget it and ignored our service men and women. No one wanted to rekindle the divisiveness and so the Viet Nam vets were largely neglected. Had it not been for my SCI, I would have likely served in the war considering that I was looking forward to a career in the military. For me, it would have been doing what I agreed to do. As it turned out, I was unimpressed by the "domino theory" that propelled and perpetuated the war and was an active protester. However, for most of us, the protests were about a misguided government, not our servicemen and women who were doing their duty. Having been sometimes mistaken as a wounded vet, I felt the wrath of the few extremists from time to time. That understanding compelled me to serve as a volunteer in the VA hospitals in Pittsburgh. Their needs were just as great as those of our current veterans, but because of people wanting to forget the disastrous debacle resources for services never came. 2-3 men and women served in Viet Nam, nearly 60,000 were killed, and hundreds of thousands were injured. Indeed, a sad episode in our history on both in the war front and home front.

[trekker6]

I was on riot duty for the marines in memphis in1969, we got called off just before it happened, we were locked and loaded with m-14s, we were just a bunch of kids out of boot camp and itr, it could have been a very fatal confrontation. I have watched films of people inciting the riots, they are in front cranking everybody up, then when everyone was pumped up they would disappear back into the crowd.