On PBS-TV Vietnam Vet Nurse says "The were 18, 19. Very unusual to see a 20 year old."

Appreciate your words, and I share your concern about the vets. Even back in the '60s I had no hard feelings for those who fought. To the contrary, I had nothing but admiration and sympathy for them. I helped to start a program in upstate NY to coordinate services and try to meet some of the gaps government services. So, no hate here. And not everyone in the peace movement felt that way. It's popular to assume anti-war folks all hate the soldiers. I personally saw relatively little of that back then, and I have seen less during the post 911 conflicts. For sure it was and is there, but to some extent it has been exaggerated. Anyhow, I grieve for all the soldiers and their families. My father lost many friends fighting in WWII. He rarely spoke about it. He supported my decision in Vietnam and that meant a lot to me. I am rambling, but certainly I don't hate those who served, far from it. They deserve our support and respect.

Yes, I am sure you are correct that the media / pop culture has overblown the vitriol that anti-war protestors had towards soldiers returning to the US in the 60-70s.

And, I wholeheartedly agree that our military men and women deserve our support and respect.

Pay the victims of US barbarism and genocide. Peace NOW!

I was a kid at the time and went to an anti-war protest in the early 1970s--one year after the Kent State shootings (look it up if you have not heard about it). I left soon after some yahoos drove a 1 ton pick up through the crowd of protesters and the students started rioting, blocking streets, and breaking things.

I lived in a liberal university town, with 25000 students. There was not disrespect towards veterans, in particular "grunts." There was plenty of disrespect towards the police and law enforcement, as well as politicians. Pretty much all of them.

I have no doubt that many veterans coming home did get shoddy treatment, but it was not all of them. Once again, so you understand. In my town, you did not see nor hear about anti-war students harassing and disrespecting vets. Understand? Your discussion and bigotry here is what's shameful and disgusting. Screw you.

Remember on Memorial Day wrote:

....Yes, I am sure you are correct that the media / pop culture has overblown the vitriol that anti-war protestors had towards soldiers returning to the US in the 60-70s.

And, I wholeheartedly agree that our military men and women deserve our support and respect.

I was not drafted. I went into the Navy after OCS and did special forces (not SEAL) stuff for 2 years and 7 moths in SE Asia (not always in Vietnam). I came off active duty and started professional school at a relatively conservative, nominally Catholic university. When I started back to school I still had a year of active reserve commitment and had to go to classes in uniform once a month on the Friday of my drill weekend to make it to my drill on time. From my personal experience being on a college campus in uniform in the early 70s was a very unpleasant experience. Students I didn't even know and who didn't know me (and some professors) said some very unpleasant things to me and spontaneously called me some very unpleasant names. My experience was that the media / pop culture has not overblown at all the vitriol that anti-war protestors had towards soldiers returning to the US in the 60-70s

Thanks, Robert McNamara! (Thank you JFK, LBJ, Nixon.)

Nonsense. No officers were even 18, nearly all were older than 22. Among the enlisted, nearly all were draftees, and couldn't have been drafted until they were 19 at the earliest. College students were deferred and couldn't be drafted until they graduated.

Sacfrifices for Freedom wrote:

1/2 of the Americans in Vietnam showed up at 17. Not like today where 1/2 of the Americans in Afghanistan/Iraq at 35.

Sacfrifices for Freedom wrote:

1/2 of the Americans in Vietnam showed up at 17. Not like today where 1/2 of the Americans in Afghanistan/Iraq at 35.

The nurse is 100% correct that most US KIAs were 17, 18, 19, just

teenyboppers. Vietnam was a jungle war in the tropics near the equator. The

Pentagon knew from the 1800's Phillipine colonial conquest that 20 year olds

and older raised inmid-lattitude climates don't have the mental and physical stamina to survive in the jungle. During the 1960's the Pentagon took in 16 and 17 year old delinquents and hoodlums, recruited 18 and 19 year olds, specifically to endure the jungles of South East Asia. The Pentagon would today discharge half the available active duty US infantry rather than suffer jungle warfare casualties

Your post does not seem to make sense.

'Those who did go' (maybe).

Tough to make a vitriolic point when you don't make any sense.

Agreed. If you are going to be a chicken you have to be a hawk once your own hide is not at risk, like Cheney, Newt and Rush.

Cheney, Rummy, Woolfie, Condie, St. Colin - war criminals through and through. I will not blame the ventriloquist's dummy in the White House, though; not the one then or the one now.

Any activity since 1946 has been all about U.S. Empire and furthering the financial interests of the multinational corporations.

Salute our AF AR NV Nurses wrote:

God Blass our US Regular Branches and US Marines for their sacrifices in Vietnam.

Those guys may have looked like teens to an old nurse. And ppls memories of events change over the years and are influenced by emotion. Shed be at least 70 now.

PBS has its hand wringing liberal ax to grind.

America will never come to terms with itself for constantly killing foreigners until it outgrows that juvenile expression of respect for that "service."

Yeah, it can be dangerous, sure it can get you killed, but grow up. You weren't really defending America against anything and it's not something to expect gratitude about.

Unnoticed under that current of respect is the struggle with lack of self-respect that happens to some vets who are haunted by their own actions the rest of their lives. It does them no good to praise them. It doesn't make it ok. Murdering foreigners is wrong.

Bullshit. The first draft since 1942 was on December of 1969.

notrump wrote:

Nonsense. No officers were even 18, nearly all were older than 22. Among the enlisted, nearly all were draftees, and couldn't have been drafted until they were 19 at the earliest. College students were deferred and couldn't be drafted until they graduated.

Sacfrifices for Freedom wrote:

1/2 of the Americans in Vietnam showed up at 17. Not like today where 1/2 of the Americans in Afghanistan/Iraq at 35.

That's not true. College students were only allowed to defer from being drafted until the end of their current semester.

birds of a feather wrote:

Bullshit. The first draft since 1942 was on December of 1969.

Incorrect the first Draft LOTTERY since 1942 was in 1969.

Prior to this, the Selective Service Act proscribed a draft policy

that started with the oldest registered males between the ages of 19

and 25, then worked its way down by age. So, for the draft years 1967

and 1968, drafting would have been based on age, not lottery. If you

were 25 in either 1967 or 1968, you would have been eligible for draft

in a random fashion. Once all the eligible 25-yr olds were drafted,

then it would have been the 24-yr olds, onwards to the 19-yr olds.

Trust me I was drafted- actually I volunteered for the draft--- I made a deal with my selective service board so I could picking the branch, Army, month and year of my draft. I worked with the board thru an an USArmy recruiter to do this.

I spent some time in Southeast Asia and was both exposed to enemy fire and returned it. My mission there was finite in scope and I was not detailed to fight the war . I spent most of my tour and an extension in South Korea near the DMZ in a very unique position for draftee because of an incredibly complex set of events with misrouted and incorrect orders, bizarre happenstances, propinquity and flat out pretty much stepping into a golden pile of sh!t because of my big mouth..

I classify my self as a Vietnam Era Vet not a Vietnam Vet.

That classification is reserved to those whose mission involved fighting or supporting the war mission in Vietnam.

Paul Hardcastle wrote:

Paul Hardcastle had a hit song on this subject back in 1985.

"19"

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hRJFvtvTGEkhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_

(song)

I remember this song! Nuhnuhnineteen

All I know is that if the draft is ever re-instituted, this card carrying liberal millennial is going to butcher every possible CO the moment a weapon with live ammunition is placed in his hands. It will be worth it.

N N N... Nineteen!