Sondra K has posted a comment she received from a Vietnam vet. If you haven't read it yet, you'll want to do so. It's quite a fine piece of writing.
(Via On The Third Hand.)
UPDATE:
Since the author, Peter, has posted here, I've decided to repost his comment in full:
There is a reason that some of those veterans turned their backs to Kerry and that many others sat with arms folded, refusing even polite applause. A reason that non veterans can, perhaps, know intellectually but not feel in their guts.
Like all veterans of all wars, regardless of branch of service or duty stations, we all lost friends there. Some of those we lost were closer than brothers. Unlike other wars in our history we didn't go over together and come home together, our individual wars ended individually.
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There is a reason that some of those veterans turned their backs to Kerry and that many others sat with arms folded, refusing even polite applause. A reason that non veterans can, perhaps, know intellectually but not feel in their guts.
Like all veterans of all wars, regardless of branch of service or duty stations, we all lost friends there. Some of those we lost were closer than brothers. Unlike other wars in our history we didn't go over together and come home together, our individual wars ended individually.
Unlike other wars we came home branded by a large segment of our society as war criminals, by another segment as losers. Then, as most of us were already home, one of our own officers branded us all, including the dead that we were just beginning to mourn, as war criminals, murderers and rapists.
We later discovered that many of those that he was quoting as witnesses to our 'crimes' had not spent one day in uniform. Others had never served in Viet Nam. None of them, not a single one, would testify under oath, even if granted immunity. Yet our 'crimes' became part of the common knowlege. Our children were given that testimony as fact in their history classes. We all knew soldiers, sailors,airmen and Marines that had died, leaving children behind, we know that those children were taught those same lies as fact. Who sat with those children as we did with ours, explaining that those were lies told for political gain?
It's bad enough that we couldn't mourn our dead then. Now we see the same man that stood over the open graves of our brothers and pissed on their bodies is back. This time he's dug up those bodies and is standing on them to give himself the stature for high office.
I am no famous war hero, just one of the two and a half million guys who wore Uncle's suit for awhile in a place where the same truck would splash red mud on your trousers and throw a cloud of dust on your face at the same time. My service was entirely undistinguished but I stood shoulder to shoulder with some genuine heros. Those heros came home in shiney aluminum caskets, they cannot speak for themselves. I hope someone more famous and more eloquent will speak for them soon. Until they do I can only say that not only is John Kerry not fit to command the young men and women that inherited the uniforms but he is not fit to speak of my comrades, much less speak for them. I shall say this as long as I have a breath left in my body.
This isn't about George Bush or who has a Senate majority for me. It isn't about politics. It's about a bunch of young men who never grew old. It's about the families of some 58,000 men who cannot answer the slander that this War Hee-row has never retracted.
I tried to answer that slander in 1971, I had no one to hear my voice. No way to reach anyone but my family. I have that way now, if only commenting on other people's forums.
It isn't about me. It isn't even about politics. It's about restoring the honor to the 58,000 names carved in black granite.
Posted by floridacracker at August 27, 2004 08:30 PMI remember riding in the back of my Dad's old station wagon, very slowly getting through huge crowds of anti-war protesters in Washington DC, 1969, 1970. He'd finished 3 tours in Vietnam and was now stationed near the capitol. He completely ignored them, which for my Dad meant they had nothing worth hearing.
In the thirty years since then, the only people I've seen him listen to (and any patience for) when it comes to criticism about the military in Vietnam is other vets - - even if what they said was extremely opposite of his own opinions.
Dad did 23 years and hauled us all over the globe, and he never became a fan of the military. It existed for a reason and did a certain job, and he respects that (hell, he DID the job).
Too many leftys (and some on the right, even) talk and treat military people as if they're subhuman (or super-human, which is just as dumb). A soldier or sailor is just a civilian in a uniform.
Posted by: xire138 at August 28, 2004 09:44 AM Thak you, FC for helping to spread my words. I hope that anyone reading this excerpt will read the whole thing, especially the part about how ordinary and unheroic that both my service and myself was and am.
I wrote that out of anger for the slime that The Hee-row spread on the names of so many, mine included but especially those that did so much more than me, and those that sacrificed so much more than me.
There's more than anger, though, there's shame. Shame that in my weariness and perceived powerlessness and, yes, cowardice, I allowed the Haydens and Fondas and Kerrys to define us all.
I did not fight them then and was quite content to sit in my little hole of anonymity and leave those lies unanswered. I could, in defense, blame that in my eagerness to get on with my life and the fact that I didn't know how to answer. So I did, and said nothing. That is a shame I will carry beyond the grave for I believe I will meet those men again. Those men (and women) whose names are on the Wall, I mean. I shall have to answer the question of why I sat silent so long. All I will be able to do is to beg their forgiveness. Most, because they're better men than me will give it.
Gee, we're all little fountains of memory on this topic.
Xire, we're from a small town. The nearest base was McDill in Tampa, 120 miles away. We didn't have protesters in our town, they were just all over the television. That's some memory you have of your dad and that drive. He sounds like a very solid guy.
I have to say that when I was in the Army, I felt very different from before I was in, or after I left. Not at all like a civilian in a uniform. I would never have sucked it all up if there hadn't been a fundamental shift in my identity. There was a girl in my unit who was disturbed by her loss of freedom in Saudi. She said "I can't get a bus. I can't get a plane. I can't get a train. I can't get a taxi. I can't even get a bicycle. I can't get anywhere. I'm stuck right here."
And I said, "Yeah...?" LOL.
I think she might have been a civilian in uniform. ;)
Peter, thank you for writing them. Good job. Your feelings I can't address. It's as you said, everybody went over individually and came home individually. Then they just got on with their lives like normal people do.
The media played a big part is helping to make stars out of people like Hayden, Fonda, and Kerry. It would have been pretty tough for one guy to go up against a juggernaut, so don't feel so bad.
My own dad got most of his satisfaction out of WWII. He didn't particularly care for Korea, and Vietnam didn't rate hardly a mention. Although out of all the war memorials in DC, the Korean War one was his fave. Because the artist had managed to make the soldier figures look so damn cold, and cold was his primary memory of that war.
So anyways, thank you for your lovely writing, Peter. And your service.
Now get yourself a blog. I'll be the first to link you.
Posted by: Donnah at August 28, 2004 02:21 PM"Civilian in a uniform" - - I mean that as a kinda biological fact, soldiers don't grow an extra set of organs. They're human, much to the contrary of some of the stateside propaganda put out by the luney left. Y'see, soldiers are 'brainwashed killing machines' - - gee, not so sure about the brainwashed part.
The military has its own culture, though, and the people who come out of it (or stay in it) are certainly different.
Posted by: xire138 at August 29, 2004 10:09 AMDefinitely.
Posted by: Donnah at August 29, 2004 11:03 AMKerry spoke out about autrocities committed in Vietnam.
Would it have been more American to sweep it under the rug and not bring it up in polite society? Or more American to denounce it as an aberration that needed to be addressed?
I mean do we want the world to think of Agu Araba when they think of America? Or liberty, justice, and freedom?
Posted by: IXLNXS at August 30, 2004 07:04 PMKerry did no such thing. The tales he told were from the "Winter Soldier" thing they did. A lot of those guys weren't even veterans. Hell, his right-hand man, Al Hubbard, was a fake Viet vet. He made bogus accusations. We could do the same about you, if not having any proof doesn't matter.