I may be a little late to this....

My stepdad as an Air Force pilot, spent 49 months in Vietnam.. all in combat.. Most of it he flew C130s on BlackBird Missions.

Myself I was drafted in the very last draft call of 1972... due to head injury the previous spring,( intramural sports at college) and spending 2 weeks in Chelsea Naval hospital in Boston, them concerned I might go blind)...stepdad told me if I could avoid Vietnam to do so...his big concern being a career AF officer, is that they were not fighting the war to win it...
Growing up as a military dependent, Vietnam was real to me... I had a lot of friends whose dads and older brothers went over there and did not come back, along with military friends of the family.... Spent from June1966 to June 1968 at Ft Bragg.. in those days at Ft Bragg seemed everyone was either there to go to Vietnam or had just got back from Vietnam...... Lost my best friend over there when I was 16.. Mike was 19... joined up the day he graduated High School, to go over and avenge the death of his dad who had died over there in 1966 as a helicopter mechanic...

I was in the very last group drafted in October 1972....there were 200 of us.. out of Boston...I was the only one that did not get on the buses sitting there marked Ft Dix NJ.. they were shutting down the induction station as we cleared each room, movers were moving everything out and putting in moving vans...This was at the Charlestowne Naval Yard in Bean town...Student deferment ended in July 72.. no more 2-S....I was given a paper that I could sign, to delay enlistment until I graduated college, and I will not lie... the only reason it was shown to me and in private was by a Marine Colonel that knew my stepdad in Vietnam....As a college kid I didn't have much in possessions, but what I did have I had given it all away.. to include my car....my folks were living in Hawaii as my stepdad was assigned to PacAF....

Fast forward in time, graduated college with dual major in 1975.. signed up.. and wanted to go get all the medical training the Army would give me... had two people at car accidents die in my arms during those two times, and i didn't know what to do to save them.. that is the most empty feeling I've ever known.... and never wanted to experience it ever again....

that's my enter the military story... growing up as a dependent, I was sorta programmed that it is everyone's duty to serve, so it would have happened anyway....

My time on Active Duty, I served at Madigan Army Med Center, Ft Lewis WA.. major hospital at the time...I had many patients who were combat vets, from Vietnam all the way back to WW1... we had plenty of the later, those guys would have been in their 70s and early 80s in that period... I started to feel a little guilt for not having been a combat vet....when I voiced it to patients, whom I had gotten to know, taking care of them for a week or two.. especially the Vietnam crowd, I got the same answer over and over, like they had all rehearsed it.... " you didn't miss a damn thing!".. I still hear it to this day....

Metro Washington DC ( Northern VA) was always home...I'm 17th generation Virginian....when the Vietnam Memorial Wall was finally constructed, it took me a few years to be able to go to see it.. having to take a wife and a few kids in tow...I was really taken in by it... especially finding names of people I knew growing up.. some of my friends Dads, or their brothers, friends of my parents and our family.. the last one I found was of my best friend who was killed in combat at 19 years old, when I was 16... I was touching Mike's name on the wall, when I turned to my wife at told her that I felt so guilty about serving and never going to Vietnam, like the rest of these people had....just about that time, I felt a big slam between my shoulder blades, as I face planted right into the wall.. before even being able to figure out what just happened, he is one of this veterans that just spends his day hanging around the wall... he had to be 5 ft 1......he grabs my collar and pulled me down looking up at my face... and sticks his waving finger under my nose... "Listen Ass ole... their are 58,000 families in this country that wish to hell that their loved one never went to Vietnam... because if he hadn't he'd probably be here today.. so don't you EVER regret not going to Vietnam... because there are 58,000 brothers names here who wished they had never gone there.... So F. U.. ass ole... " he just walked off...

What could I say, he was 100% right.. that perspective took away most of the guilt I've had since over that.. I now thank God now that I was not sent over there... guess he had other plans for me in this world.....

The second thing happened here in the late 90s here in Oregon....I was out at a restaurant to eat... there was a line.. and I was standing in line with a Marine buddy, and 5 of his fellow Marine Buddies... we all had veterans hats on, Mine just said US Army Vet.. so this Obama/Hillary voter type looking guy comes over, and asks me was I a Vietnam combat vet like the other 6 guys I was with.. and I told him no, I served stateside.. so he starts giving me schitt about even wearing a Veterans hat.. Before I could even respond, everyone of these Marine vets were on his ass like bees on honey...."Listen Butthead, he still served? Did YOU?".. the guy kinda stuttered a NO I didn't.... One of the old Marine guys, shoved this guy right on his ass in the line...and told the guy to just STFU... you didn't serve, so you have no right to open your mouth at a Veteran about what they did or didn't do....

My friend Warren, then stood over the guy, with a statement I have borrowed to this day, as I see this happen to this day to other veterans by some wise ass....'listen ass ole.. every damn one of us, did what ever other veteran has done.. we went where we were told to go, and did what we were told to do, and what we were trained to do.. we all can't be Rambo!"....

This guy scampered away...then here I have 6 Marine Combat vets apologizing to me, for what this asshat has said toward me...
Hey, ya served, ya served.. end of story, was pretty much their point....

I'll pass it on to ya Jim.. I outwardly don't feel guilty about not doing my time, in harms way.. certainly would have gone if sent.. and I do put myself a little further down the Veterans list behind those that did put themselves in harms way.. and yeah, inside I still feel that guilt.. but I don't let it get me down.. and the few times anymore I say it to a combat vet from Nam, their normal response is to smack me in the back of the head, like a big brother would and ask WTF is wrong with you?

I don't feel any lesser in life.. but I certainly have no delusions about what each and every one of us in this Nation owe these folks...most of these guys who have served in harms way think the rest of us who might feel guilty about not having to, think we are idiots...at least that is what they have no problem letting me know about...

Last edited by Seafire; 01/04/20. Reason: lots of spell checking...

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