Re: Defending Our Freedoms—in Vietnam

Here is a Vietnam vet on defending our freedoms in Vietnam:

As a Vietnam vet, I can definitely tell you that we didn’t defend any freedom in Amerika—just made life miserable for a bunch of rice farmers who wished we would just leave them alone. I’m thinking that the only war we ever fought to honestly protect American freedom was that one that started in 1776. Meanwhile, back in the USSA, police were mugging kids in Chicago and numerous other cities, and the national guard was assassinating students in Ohio. Even then, the notion of “American freedom”—that quality all those other folks supposedly hate us for—was proving to be the “big lie.”

I can tell you that many of my fellow veterans (I meet weekly with a group) feel that the only thing we accomplished there was to line the pockets of numerous defense contractors—ironically many of the same ones having their pockets lined today. 58,000 young Americans, and god only knows how many citizens of the 4-5 SE Asia countries we tried our best to destroy died for pure greed. And in the end, nothing changed except for all those lost lives. Most of us do not want any 40-year too late gratitude and thanks. All we are looking for is a little peace (no one goes off to war that doesn’t come home with a “wooden leg”), and we are finding it to be very elusive—considering the current foreign policy our so called leaders in DC are intent on following.

Only good my service did for me was change a naive young believer in the American way into a harden S.O.B. who has known since 1970 not to believe anything that government ever says.

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7:13 am on June 23, 2012