Originally Posted by JMR40
This isn't just a Vietnam era situation. My dad was a WW-2 vet who served from 1942 through all of 1944 state side working in hospitals on bases where bomber crews were being trained. There were lots of accidents, injuries and deaths in training. He was transferred to the infantry for training in the fall of 1944 and finished his training just in time to go to Europe in January 1945 as a replacement during the Battle of the Bulge. Once in Belgium they took his rifle, painted a red cross on his helmet and assigned him to a field hospital. He spent the rest of the war driving an ambulance picking up wounded and bringing them back to the hospital. Dad never fired a shot. The only time he was shot at was crossing the Rhine on a pontoon bridge while the Germans were taking blind artillery shots at it.

Before his death dad pointed out something to me that I'd never thought about concerning WW-2 vets. Back in the 1940's 90% of the soldiers were in support roles just like my dad. Many were cooks, truck drivers, mechanics, clerks, and a large number never left the USA. I had an uncle in the Navy who spent the entire war in Seattle loading cargo ships. In the Pacific the number of servicemen actually in combat was closer to 5% of those who served. I've since verified those numbers, dad was correct. Dad was always honest about the role he played in the war. But the thing that bothered dad was that he had never met another WW-2 vet that hadn't fought somewhere. He had never ran across anyone who would admit that although they did serve during WW-2, they served in a support role and were never near combat. Considering that only 5-10% of those who served were ever actually in combat the odds just don't seem possible.

My dad was no hero. But he did the job he was assigned to do. Just as you did. I'm still proud of my dads service, and I thank you for your's. Be proud of what you did. There was a real threat from the Soviets in the early 1970's.


A lot of those guys although not in combat operations were in the theater of operations and could be subject to enemy action/gunfire/artillery, ect even if unlikely. I spent ten years active duty in the USAF during the Vietnam era, as a pharmacist. Back in 1969 at McCoy AFB, Fla our bomb wing deployed to Guam to bomb Vietnam and I stayed behind, My job and that of our physicians, nurses and technicans was to support the remaining active troups there, the dependents of those deployed so that those folks did not have to worry about medical support for their dependents, and the hundreds of retirees in the area. Dangerous, no, needed, yes, it was still honorable service. A couple of years later I was posted to Turkey, and was under blackout conditions when the Turks invaded Cyprus fighting the Greeks over some problem, of which I cannot remember. I got recalled and posted to England to man a contingency hospital during Desert Storm, Our big danger was being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the IRA, as a couple of their terroist attacks occured nearby when I was in London doing a bit of touring.