How nice it must be.

the fact that the students against the war were protesting the special draft exemption granted to those who scored highly on a test. The male protestors who were students at Stanford were actually jeopardizing their own deferments by protesting. Of course Romney would benefit from any extension of using test scores to defer students (Stanford had claimed that their student was smarter than normal so that they should not just get the same percentage of deferments as their public school counterparts but get more because they were smarter).

So it goes beyond merely being a chickhawk.

Then you also have getting special Mormon clergy designation.

and was promptly drafted. Genuine ulcers he and his mom developed, agonizing over his father's war kept Craig out of the military.

http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/other-mr-mcnamara/content?oid=29189

That photo of the boy soldier made me catch my breath, and cry. Then I got really angry. Those were some hard times, for anyone who had a heart.

Don't wanna go there. Whoa.

Did you make it back in one piece?

Many of us did.

Last edited Mon Nov 5, 2012, 08:23 AM - Edit history (2)

I was a 20-year-old Infantry platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division.

Near Firebase Bastogne, Vietnam, October 1969
L to R: pinboy3niner, Dan Albrecht, Russ Shields. I was wounded the day after Russ was KIA.

I never had anyone thank me for 16 years after i got back.

Among ourselves, we don't talk about "coming home." We just got back. Coming home took a lot longer...

I spent 18 months in the hospital, but I was one of the lucky ones. I knew more than 60 guys who didn't make it back. Two of them were my roommates, and one of my roommates was awarded the Medal of Honor--posthumously.

It was a fucked-up war and we never should have been there. Those of us who served were affected by it profoundly--while chickenhawks like Romney went on with their comfortable lives. And he doesn't even have a fucking clue about the amount of contempt I have for him...

To tell you the truth, I don't think any of us ever were looking for thankyous. We just wanted someone to understand what that was like for us, and what we went through. That's all. I just wished somebody would fucking understand...

But if we can't understand, we can at least work to prevent future fucked-up wars.

I have a massive amount of contempt for Romney myself. We all have to get out and vote him into insignificance.

If that were true, we would not have much of the creative arts. Why would vets or others who shared their experiences even bother to write books or screenplays or poetry or paint or sculpt?

People do convey understanding of experience through artistic expression.

Oh, and one more pic...

I turned 21 in the A Shau Valley on a night that I was sure we'd be overrun and I was going to die. That didn't happen, so I was able to celebrate Thanksgiving in Vietnam...

Photo of the Company Commander (CO), Executive Officer (XO), and 3 platoon leaders

Thanksgiving 1969 at LZ Sally, Vietnam



Rear L to R: Russ Shields (KIA), CO
Front, L to R: Mark Rivest (KIA), pinboy3niner, Dan albrecht (XO)

After I was wounded and Medevac'd, of the 4 platoon leaders who succeeded me in the next 3-4 months, one was relieved of command and 3 were KIA.


We have a story, and if we tell it, others will get it.

I have a good friend who conducts writing workshops for veterans -- any veterans, any war -- in the New York City area (including the suburbs.) And they have produced some amazing work; I have a couple of the anthologies. Don't know where you're located, but I'd be willing to put you guys in touch if you ever want to throw some ideas around.

Incredible picture, pinboy3niner. Glad you made it through, glad you're on DU.

I had a friend, Rod, whose VA shrink encouraged him to write down his experiences, so he did.

And he kept writing, sitting in the coffee bar at Kramerbooks in D.C. The owner of the bookstore took an interest, and published my friend's work in a series of softcover pamphlets--before hooking him up with Random House.

RH published a hardcover edition of Rod's Vietnam memoir, 'Veteran's Day.'

We lost Rod to a hereditary lung condition about 8 years after he got the lung transplant that kept him going for that long. During that time, I used to drive from VA and pick Rod up in MD to take him to his appointments back at the hospital in VA.

Rod had served in VN as a paratrooper medic in the 1st Cav--and thanks to the encuragement he had, he got to tell his story--about his experience in combat in Vietnam, and afterward, working in Vietnam Veterans Against the War in D.C.

The last time I visited there, Kramerbooks still had a brass plaque marking Rod's booth in their coffee bar.

R.I.P., Rod

to the plight of the majority of Americans. The only thing going in his favor now is the ignorance that pervades so much of the American consciousness today. The kind of juxtaposition so blatantly laid out in this comparison is no where near on the radar of too many Americans today.

You had hair?!

That clown looks on top of his world.

Edited to add: I missed Stinky's photo when I posted -- I meant the young man in the OP.

is that not the most motherfucking pathological shit you have seen?

Not withstanding that he's a rich, nasty little fuckwit....

but since its their side they don't care….

My husband was in the army then. Forced to, he couldn't afford college until after the war when they helped him. No church or school to keep him out.

Instead of beaches and fun paris he saw arms and legs missing and friends die.

How they managed to do that to Kerry is still beyond me...

Makes you want to shove Kerry's Silver Star down Rove's throat until it pops out of his ass. "Fear, smear, queers" was the plan. Terrorism, Swift Boaters, and the Gay Agenda were coming to convert your children into gay atheist Muslim terrorist cowards, or something.


Read it about 4 years ago, picked it up again at a used bookstore and began reading it recently.

Pair o' khaki pants and his shoes shined black
Got a bunch of money, walk that street
Tellin' all the French that it can't be beat...

(Sorry. I first read it as "Willard the Pimp".)

I'd like to go back in time and slap the smiles off their arrogant rich-kid faces.

Life is dandy when you can buy your way out of going to war.