VIETNAM VETS..FOR 41 YEARS I BELIEVED THE USA GAINNED NOTHING FROM FIGHTING THE VIETNAM WAR UNTIL TODAY?

Well done. I couldnt have said it better myself.

I think, for me, Vietnam was the first war where folks at home kind of knew more about what was going on, unlike WW 1/2. However, it was also the war that showed how the guys in the suits that sit in the political seats are the ones that really run the war. I see the same thing with the Iraq war now. I don't mean to offend anyone, least of all those brave men/women who were/are there, but there is a line in the GnR song Civil War that says it best: ' you're power hungry, selling soldiers in a human grocery store'

For a moment I thought that the officials [speech writers] have done yet another job but why would they mention 'starting during the Gulf War'. A soldier is trained to look out for an ambush always so you must forgive me for thinking as I did.

I do hope other countries think about their warriors the way Americans now do rather than treat them as bullet proofing or fences on their border, paid for by citizens by filing their tax returns and nothing more.

In India, a warrier is born into one of the four castes and therefore respected automatically. Probably why we hate going to war unless it's an absolute necessity.

God bless you all and keep you safe from that stray bullet.

You shouldn't have regrets about Viet Nam era service. I don't. I was confused about it until I remembered from high school the Mekong Delta was then the only place in all of Asia that grew a lot more rice than it ate. Russian cargo ships in Haiphong Harbor then, and the development of rice strains with triple yield just before we pulled out told me the truth (see my "source").

Viet Nam was a cold war mission to retard rice flow into Soviet hands. They needed it to cover the disastrous productivity, including agriculture, they always had, and to buy friends in hungry Africa and Asia. Triple yields ended the problem and our interest in the Mekong Delta.

That could change. Asia and Africa stupidly tripled their population since then and they are getting hungry again. That's why there is so much strife and emigration there again.

I had a very liberal professor of Asian history once tell me in a class that he had changed his mind and said that the US actually won the Vietnam War (this was about 5 years ago). He claimed that the original goal was to prevent the spread of Communism - it did. Also, the Vietnamese have a hybrid style of Capitalism that is more akin to ours than hard-core communism. So...in the end, this distinguished professor declared that the US were the long-term victors.

I not only believe you, I'll go as far as to say the USA did NOT lose in Nam. Those fine young men did their job and were sold down the river by the politicians at home.

When my daughter graduated from Basic about six years ago, my cousin's husband and I made it on base the afternoon prior to graduation to go to the museum. He handed his military retirement identification to the young man at the gate. That lovely young man stood at attention and saluted and said, "Welcome home, sir."

Bruce and I both cried our way to the museum.

That's all fine, but NOT every returning Vietnam vet faced those problems.

Most of them came home, adjusted, got jobs, and raised families with little or no difficulty at all.

And they most certainly WERE NOT all scorned and insulted by the public.

That has always been a load of crap.

Now the left claims that they support the troops but not the war.

WTF?

Without our full support they cannot be victorious.

Sounds good right on!

From this I think that you can clearly see why he's a soldier and not an academic.