Veterans
- Thread starter Ben
- Start date
Petrol & Powder
Well-Known Member
Not all of them get to leave the war.
richhodg66
Well-Known Member
I was reflecting on this a few days ago. It's not long now before we won't have any WWII vets anymore. More than any other event (if you can consider it a single event) shaped the world than WWII did and we really can't fathom what we owe American vets and also our allies from that war,
It's gonna be a sad day.
It's gonna be a sad day.
RicinYakima
High Steppes of Eastern Washington
Of the 2,709,918 Americans who served in Vietnam, less than 850,000 are estimated to be alive today, with the youngest possible American Vietnam veteran's age would be 67.
462
California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
At some weird point in time it became fashionable for 7-million people, who never stepped foot in Viet Nam, to say that they had.
Petrol & Powder
Well-Known Member
It is strange how that transformation occurred.
It has been my experience that the people that actually saw combat, in any war, seldom bring up their service unless asked. Particularly when speaking to people that were not there. Even then, they don’t talk much about it and you must pry the information out of them.
It’s not that they are ashamed of what they did or are suffering from some stressful memory. I think they hold their cards close to the vest because they don’t want to be defined by those events.
I’m always suspicious of people that claim combat experience and volunteer the information freely.
The ones that brag about their service (in any war) either were not there at all, or they were, “in the rear with the gear”.
Vietnam was unusual in American history for many reasons. America’s involvement was lengthy, there was intense turmoil within America concerning the war, the backlash against America’s involvement was deeply complicated and there was general societal unrest at home that went beyond the issue of war, just to name a few reasons. There was a time in the late 1960’s and throughout most of the 1970’s when it was unpopular to be a Vietnam veteran. If any good could come from that experience- one thing did for certain. We, as a nation, learned to never blame the soldiers for the sins of the politicians. I think we treated the veterans of the Gulf wars and Afghanistan far better than we (as a whole) treated Vietnam vets.
RicinYakima
High Steppes of Eastern Washington
The "factoid" was invented by the VA in the late 1970's. It is the "Viet Nam era" number, as in anyone who was in the military, active or reserve, and served anywhere in the world. I have read that this was done to increase home sales with VA loans, at a small rate discount instead of the normal 10% house loans of the late 1970's.
Fannie Mae, 1938, was created by the government to insure loans in the depression.
Fannie Mac, 1970, was a private company to compete with Fannie Mae. By the late 1970's, the government chartered it to be the only private mortgage packager.
RicinYakima
High Steppes of Eastern Washington
In actuality, it was very easy to avoid combat duties. Enlist for four years with a guarantee of assignment as a finance clerk. The closest you would get to combat is a division headquarters. However, you still had to worry about mortars and rockets, in unlucky enough to be assigned to RVN. We had lawyers and guys with MS degrees filling sand bags with us as PFC's; two years of labor was better than four years in the green machine.