So What is There to Say about Viet Nam

SO WHAT IS THERE TO SAY ABOUT VIET NAM 

You know the only people that talk about Viet Nam are those that were alive during that era.  I hear people talk about the Viet Nam War.

 

1.   I hear reporters talk about the roll of regular army and the roll of reserves and the national guard during that period.

2.   I hear reporters discuss the issues of the era.  Most don’t know what they were. 

3.  I see the attitudes of the day being created by he misinformation that is projected by those same media people.

 

Now, a story about the Viet Nam War.  Most of us were college students or college bound.  At the time of the late 60’s and the early 70’s the draft was dictating to the youth of America what to do and where to go.  It was a true test of American values.  There was such a sub culture movement with the hippies, the anti war group, the Black Panthers, the anti capitalist groups, the anti establishment groups. 

 

Each of these groups had a “new set of ideas and ways for the American society”.  I remember that you went to college to avoid getting drafted.  I know that many of our High School Buddies went to Viet Nam immediately.  They went to Viet Nam because the United States believed it was fighting the evils of communism and its expansion.  In fact those efforts indirectly helped the fall of communism  in Russia because of the expense that the Russian government poured into the war effort on a world front.  Now, history will show that those who served in Viet Nam were directly linked to the fall of communism. 

 

Will the media of the world ever concede this fact.  No, it is doubtful, why?  I will give you one example.  When the Viet Nam War was going on I was in the middle of college, on a wrestling scholarship and wanting to win a national title.  All my energies were consumed yet the thought of the draft and the war brought me to join the United States Army Reserves. 

 I found out that in the reserves you could be a high school teacher and wrestling coach and skip the Unit Meetings for the winter months (during wrestling season).  Oh, my did I just describe President George Bush? 

 Do you see what I am talking about,  it is hard to separate fact from fiction because most people alive today don’t know what it is that was happening.  Make no mistake.  We spent many a night discussing the effects of all the opposing sides and philosophy of thoughts.  And………………..today we are suffering the results of a society that has changed dramatically. 

 

I would like to leave you with a paraphrase that a friend of mine wrote to me just recently!

Dorman wrote, I don’t know how I survived Viet Nam.  There I was standing as a marine in the jungle of Viet Nam and the three guys in front me were shot.  Then the two guys on the side of me were blown up,  then the two guys that were behind me were blown up.

I can’t believe that there are so many people that want to make Americas policies that have never seen the blood or shed it!