These are interesting and meaningful stories from veterans across the USA.
We are now in troubled times, similar to the late 1960s-with the same flag-burning mindless liberal socialists.

My experience is one of close calls and good luck. After IOBC and parachute school, it was SFOC and snow jumps out of a C-47 with door bundles of cross-country skiis and snow shoes-the 10th Special Forces Group(ABN) at Flint Kaserne-Bad Tolz, Germany and Mass. In 1970 I volunteered for Vietnam and was rewarded with a long tour from late 1970 through 1972.
During that time I was a rifle platoon leader at Khe Sanh and later back to a 5th Special Forces Assignment with MACVSOG in close to the same area in I Corps.
There is a statement by an SFOD-DELTA NCO in Black Hawk Down-concerning the Sergeants repeated tours"Hoot-are you a war junkie? I don't say a thing-they would'nt understand.". Maybe this is close, for those who will never get it-but the sacrifices were made by those who did'nt volunteer-the folks who did'nt come back or the veterans who came back shattered in body or spirit. All veterans make or have made sacrifices. I personally think a period in the military is good for young people to help them get grounded and learn self discipline early. Every job is critical, as someone's life may depend on a working radio or a helicopter engine. Yes-I became a lifer. But I brought ALL of my people home safe out of a hot combat zone. Medals and awards are not important. Accomplishing the mission AND bringing your people home is the best reward a leader can earn.

I was talking with another Army officer friend who had been in combat in Vietnam and with the Old Guard at Arlington National-spent time at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier-We both agreed that if the current
group of individuals came to deface the Arlington monuments, we would fly to Washington in our dress blues and defend those memorials on hallowed ground.
Vietnam combat veterans know and understand taking an unpopular stand, or even abuse at the hands of our fellow undeserving "American citizens". But defacing the national flag or monuments to our war dead will not be tolerated as long as I am drawing breath.

Marriott
Lt Col-USA-R


De Oppresso Liber

"Retreat hell! We just got here" USMC officer in WW I
Audens! Audens!-Marat (Napolean's Cavalry Commander)

Last edited by 450Fuller; 06/24/20.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena-not the critic"-T. Roosevelt
There are no atheists in fox holes or in the open doors of a para's aircraft.....