Re: What would you have done in Vietnam war?
I too was of the VietNam era. I did not vote in this poll.<br /><br />I was a student during the heighth of the war, but in those days you would lose your student deferment if you were not on track to graduate with your class. As I earned every penny to put myself thru school, and I was not eligible for any sort of financial aid because my family refused to provide any financial information to the schools, it was financially impossible for me to stay on track with my class.<br /><br />I managed to avoid service in VietNam, even though my lottery number was 96.<br /><br />I didn't do it with the smarts that Clinton had, being a Rhodes Scholar, or with the skill that Cheney did, or with the political connections that Bush had, but I did it--legally and honorably.<br /><br />I had lots of friends that were not so lucky as I.<br /><br />Lots of bad things happened in that war. I knew many that were killed, and I knew several that came home with stories of what would be generally considered atrocities.<br /><br />One I knew boasted about them--He was a helicopter pilot and he would tell stories of landing in and around villages, and many locals, in a desperate attempt to escape their situation, would grab on to the runners of the helicopter in a futile attempt to flee. The official Army policy was to raise a few feet, shake them off, and be on your way. What they mostly did was to raise a few hundred feet, and shake them off then, in the hopes that would discourage others. It didn't.<br /><br />Most would not talk about what happened over there unless you got them drunk enough.<br /><br />Some would pass out drunk, and still not talk about it.<br /><br />Some would come home so high on drugs of one sort or another, they did not remember what they did over there. I recall my absolute best buddy from childhood, and my constant skiing companion as kids (we were members of the Stevens Pass racing team, and liked to ski fast) returning, and had fried his brain so much on drugs that he could no longer do anything that involved any sort of fast movement.<br /><br />And he, like myself, never did any sort of drugs prior, and both of us were deathly opposed to them before he went. I would have bet anything he would never have got involved in drugs ever.<br /><br />I'm sure there were some that came back the same as they left, but I did not know any of these people.<br /><br />I will never hold it against anyone who managed to avoid service in that war--Cheney, Clinton, Bush, or anyone else.<br /><br />And Kerry, in my book, was a hero, no so much for what he did in VietNam, but for coming back and speaking out against that war publically.<br /><br />There are wars that clearly need to be fought, and no doubt there probably always will be. WWII, the first Gulf War, Bosnia, Afghanistan, come to mind.<br /><br />But they better be done only when all else fails, and we need clear and irrefutable evidence why it is absolutely necessary. And we ought to go in with a clear executable plan for what we are doing, for winning the war and winning the peace, a clear exit strategy, and an overwhelming force (ala Schwartzkoff) to get the job done quickly and effectively.
