A Veteran on Vietnam Veterans

A veteran comments on my article about not honoring most Vietnam veterans:

I would add one more reason not to honor them anymore, namely; how many times do we honor or recognize them for what they did?

I remember watching a July 4th or Veteran’s Day parade in 1983 (while I was in the military). A bunch of unwashed, obviously intoxicated, drug addled, or both Vietnam veterans were stumbling along in some parade and the announcer said that they were finally “getting the recognition that they never got”. The problem for me was, I had been seeing and hearing this same thing for about 5 years. Here it is 30 years later and we are still doing the same thing. When does it stop?

Additionally, what makes them so special? If I recall correctly, more soldiers died and went missing in action in Korea than in Vietnam, yet those veterans never whined and pitched a fit like the Vietnam veterans. I, for one, am tired of their constant, narcissistic whining. Notice how, in your article, a Vietnam veteran was was jealous of the attention that a returning veteran was getting and asked “Where is mine?”. Where is yours? Your have been getting it for about 35 years. Again, when does it end?

In a perverse way, there is something good coming out of the various Middle Eastern conflicts. We have a new, growing group of Veterans from a conflict who perhaps (hopefully) will overshadow the Vietnam whiners and drown out their constant cries for attention and backside kissing.

As I said in the article, we can’t honor any of them for what they did, but we can honor those who renounce what they did.

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4:03 pm on April 30, 2013