Ohio Homecoming Events to Mark Vietnam War

[Khephra]

DAYTON, Ohio -- When Mike Jackson came back from Vietnam in 1972, he was met by ant-war protesters -- not exactly a warm and fuzzy hello.

Now, 30 years after the war ended, Jackson is helping organize an event to finally welcome Vietnam veterans home.

"You've got a whole segment of the population that went through the same thing I did," said Jackson, who wrote a war memoir titled "Naked in Da Nang."

"I just want somebody to say thank you, somebody to say welcome home. It would mean a lot."

Jackson is spearheading Operation Welcome Home, a four-day celebration to be held Veterans Day weekend in Las Vegas. A similar event, Operation Homecoming USA, is set for June in Branson, Mo. A highlight of both will be a parade.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-vietnam-homecoming,0,5957462.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

[Journeyman]

1. Haven't we done this, a couple of times now?. . .

Speaking as a Viet vet, I'm home. Came home a long, long time ago. There were some belated huzzahs & a well met fellow hail, and I was appreciative. But anything more at this late date is naught but a slap in the face.

If the nation wants to do something, how about adequate medical care for everyone, vets included? A little help with housing? A promise to never do something so stupid again (and though its a little too late for that, it'd be a 'meaningful gesture'. . . something better than a stupid parade).

[Khephra]

2. I didn't want to say anything, as I was nothing but a pup when

the war was going on...but...

I don't think I'd ever consider Branson and Vegas to be the places I'd want to hold a "Welcome Home" parade. Those two cities are primarily tourist attractions. Wouldn't DC be a much more suitable place? Vegas and Branson seem like more of an insult, imo.

[Mountainman]

3. We all came home to different types of welcomes or none at all.

I came home to Dayton, Ohio in March of '68 to no kind of welcome or thanks. It bothered me a long time until the Wall was built and over time I accepted the fact that things were what they were back then.

Over Thanksgiving I went to my sister-in-law's house in Orange County, CA and she took all of us to a park were there is a memorial to American and Vietnamese vets of that war. The younger family members started asking me a lot of questions about my time there and I didn't want to talk about it but it felt nice to know that we are looked upon in a much better light than were were 30 years ago. I think it is because the younger people are not aware of all the hate and strife that was in the country back then.

[Kolesar]

4. Did this harassment really happen?

I know the spitting-on-veterans lie was disproved. This is broader. I still doubt if it was common for draftee soldiers to be harassed when returning.

"Jackson, 57, vividly recalls his June 25, 1972, return to the United States. Anti-war protesters were at the airport in San Francisco to harass him and his fellow soldiers as they caught flights home.

"We walked a gantlet through these guys on either side of us, putting signs in front of your face and screaming at you," recalled Jackson, who flew 210 combat missions during the war. "This was our welcome home." "

[Massachusetts]

5. It happened

A shitty time but people were plugged in to their country, and there was plenty of OUTRAGE.

[Mountainman]

6. Nothing has been disproved. You can't prove something didn't happen

anymore than you can prove it did. You dicided for yourself how you want to think about it that's all.

On edit,

One of the reasons I hear said that this could not have happened is because people say it was anti war people who did it and anti war people don't do things like that.

Also it was said that the the stories were made up to discredit the anti war people. Well I was anti war in the airport in San Fran in 1968 too. Only I had a uniform on and they didn't. I was anti war and I was in the war. Not all anti war people did this but some did. To some we were the face of the war the only ones they could react to.

You made up your mind and I can live with that, but it happened to me.

[Kolesar]

7. Spitting story debunked

..."But in the rush to inflict damage on John Kerry for his peace activism, historical truth is sacrificed. The February 17, 2004, story by Plain Dealer reporter Sabrina Eaton, “Kerry's Bid Ignites Vet's Interest,” is a case in point.

The story quotes Ted Sampley, a Green Beret in Vietnam whose website has led the charge for some veterans against Kerry. Sampley says, “I truly believe that John Kerry's testimony before Congress had a big role in people who were supposedly peaceniks spitting on vets and calling them baby-killers when they got home.”

There are two problems with Sampley's “belief,” as reported by the Plain Dealer . First, guilt by association is always a weak argument and more likely a smear tactic that is unfair to the subject. America has learned this before, during the Palmer Raids of WWI, the McCarthyism of the Cold War, and now during the Ashcroft era of the War on Terror and the Patriot Act.

More important, however, is that the charge is simply not rooted in reality. It is both unfair to Senator Kerry and to the Vietnam-era peace movement. The fact is, there is absolutely no record of any peace activist taunting or spitting upon returning veterans. It is myth, and like most myths, it is hard to dislodge.
"

Patrick Coy

I cannot figure out what is the "this" you are referring to in your paragraph 3. Are referring to spitting or harassment?

[diamond14]

16. NO....people of my generation comforted the sick and wounded and

mentally deranged troops coming home from Vietnam....there were NO victory parades, like WWII, because there was NO victory, and the troops did NOT come home all together, like in WWII....

it was just troops coming home in small groups...

during the LONG AND TRAUMATIC era after their return....Americans remained sympathetic to Vietnam Veterans, even as they went POSTAL....many families did their very best to keep their lives together, despite that their husband/father/brother was not the same as the person who left for Vietnam....for many Vietnam Veterans, suicide was the ONLY way out of their guilt and anguish....


I saw nothing but empathy and help extended to OUR troops coming home from Vietnam...it was OUR government that let the troops down....failing to fund physical/mental health benefits, failing to help their families overcome insurmountable obstacles, failing to provide jobs, housing, rehabilitation for OUR troops....

and the PUBLIC RELATIONS TRICK from the pentagoons is to BLAME THE WAR PROTESTORS....and make up the 'spitting story' and all that garbage to show the American PUBLIC that anti-war Patriots are definitely UN-PATRIOTIC SPITTERS....


the 'baby killer' accusation was actually the reality of the Mai Lai Trials(which SHOCKED the Nation)...where MILITARY GENERALS tried to evade and avoid a trial, claiming that the American Public would get the impression that OUR SOLDIERS KILL BABIES....only one low-level guy was CONVICTED for the mai lai massacre of over three hundred innocent Vietnamese, women and babies mostly....AND colin powell covered up the massacre, thereby gaining his first BIG promotion.....AND, nobody called OUR soldiers 'baby-killers, except themselves, haunted no doubt by their own deeds....

babies KILLED by American Troops in Vietnam....Mai Lai massacre


his older brother tried to protect the baby...but American Troops KILLED them without mercy...

[imenja]

8. kck

[Tweed]

9. double kick!

[gardenista]

10. kick for Khephra

[KitchenWitch]

11. Another kick

[koneko]

12. Kick!

:kick:

[miss_kitty]

13. kick for Khephra

[Misunderestimator]

14. kick

[Lisa]

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[Scout]

17. kick