Those who died in Vietnam

[BOSSHOG]

should now be firing up the grill on their patio and enjoying their retirement or enjoying their children or their grandchildren or their great grandchildren. They should be wrestling with a last minute shopping list from the "war department." They should be checking out those Cialis commercials on TV. They should be aggravating their sons on the best way to fell a dead Pine Tree. They should be bitching about the price of mulch down at the nursery. They should be with us.

Yeah, lets stay the course, so some Hog will have something to bitch about in 20 years.

[knowbody0]

1. I've been thinkin hard about them too, BOSSHOG

My greatest disappointment in this long life is that NO lessons were learned from their wasted lives.

Peace

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. They did get to be immortalized on that nifty wall in Washington!

That's worth something isn't it?

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Damn you, Boss. Damn you.

I can't see my keyboard to type cuzza these damned tears.

[flamin lib]

4. From my Journal on Memorial day . . .

I was bloggin' when bloggin' wasn't cool. Back before the Internet. Back when all we had was 96 baud modems and bulletin boards. Back when we walked to school, through the snow, barefoot, up hill, both ways. And we liked it.

It was about 1982 that I was taken to task by a twenty-something about my obsession with the Vietnam war. The war had ended almost a decade before and she was incensed that I still held it so close, that it was such a big deal to me. She said I should just get over it. She didn't understand why Vietnam was so damn special.

So I told her about Vietnam.

I told her that Vietnam wasn't just another war. It was a time of change. A time of innocence lost. It was a time when our country was divided, half screaming "America, Love It or Leave It" the other shouting "Change It or Lose It" and neither side hearing the other. It was half a million soldiers in Vietnam and half a million protesters in Washington DC.

It was the first time that Americans had to come to terms with real defeat. A defeat not at the hands of a superior force or a mightier army but at the shear will of a people who simply would not quit. A defeat that touched every community no matter how small. A defeat that came into our living rooms on the six o'clock news every night. A defeat that brought a flag draped coffin into every village, every town and every community in America. A defeat that ended with a black obelisk inscribed with the names of more than fifty thousand fallen souls.

It was more than a war, it was a mistake.

A mistake based on lies. A mistake that killed fifty thousand Americans and three million Vietnamese. It was a mistake that lasted ten years. A mistake that dropped five hundred pounds of high explosives for every man, woman and child living in that tiny country. A mistake that poisoned the forests and water. A mistake that left us all asking "Why?"

I told her that if we all held this memory close, that if we just remembered how badly things can go, that if we just remembered that we were once lied to and that if we hold those who lead us accountable maybe, just maybe, her children wouldn't have to fight a war like we did.

I guess they all forgot . . .

[lyonn]

7. So well stated, yet so sad and true

How quickly that war has been forgotten. This war we are in is being covered up so neatly, no flag drapped coffins and the media helps keep the masses in the dark when it comes to truth.

[SharonAnn]

8. I didn't forget. It's why I knew this whole Iraq mess was a con.

I remember. I believed in the vietnam War at first, I thought we were doing good things. Then it seemed to take on a life of its own, eating my friends and schoolmates, those who came back were changed, somehow.

Then came the Pentagon Papers, and we found out how we had been lied to. Then Watergate, and we found out how we had been lied to.

That was a bitter lesson, that people in our federal government would lie to us about these things. It was a bitter lesson, that these lies cost the lives of my friends and schoolmates. It was a bitter lesson that America can be wrong, that leaders can ahve their own agenda, that citizens could have their trust abuse.

I haven't forgotten and I remind people that there was a time when I believed in my government and it sent our young to war and death based on lies. It can happen again. It has happened again.

[Sinti]

5. Amen n/t

[sarge43]

6. Thank you, Boss

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

[Catchawave]

9. BOSS, my husband didn't die in VN

but he's been a repuke asshole ever since. Should I kill him anyhow :silly:

[BOSSHOG]

10. He put his ass on the line for us

Dear. As I told a friend of mine I don't know who to love more, those who died in Vietnam or those who didn't. Please don't kill him, love him to death with your sweet liberal self.

[Catchawave]

11. Thank ya sweetie

I will :hug:

[BOSSHOG]

12. No, thank you

I wish I could vote for Jim Webb. Maybe this old fart will send him a few bucks. My sole purpose in life recently is getting santorum beat but that old buckeroo Allan is giving dogfucker a run for my money.