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Thanks for all the kind support guys, I really appreciate it. I was also given a shot ( in Reception Center, Ft Leonard Wood no less!) to attend OCS. But I was 18, still had my long hair at that point, and scared. I could just see myself with the responsibility of 30 men's lives and me next to a radioman with that antennae sticking up! They also told me I had to take additional 3 yrs. I turned that down too. I could have ended up anywhere, who knows? But I really just wanted to serve my 2yrs and go to college with the GI Bill. Marry my girl and buy a home with the GI Bill. Have babies and live happily ever after! smile I got most of it...

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If I read your original post correctly, you volunteered for the Army in a time of war. That is more than most people did or will ever do for their friends and family.
I joined the Marine Corps Reserve prior to 911 as a 0311. I was part of one of the last grunt battalions to be sent to Iraq. It was awful watching Falluja on the news every night. I finally made it to Iraq and then back again a year later and then on to Afghanistan and a few other countries in the Middle East and then few other non-combat deployments. Now I see younger Marines, that joined a wartime Corps going through exactly what you described. They enlisted willing to go wherever the Corps sends them but have not been sent to Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria for that matter. They feel like less of a Marine that those that have been to a combat zone. I remind them that they joined the service in a time of war. I didn’t do that, I joined for drinking money while I went to college and a war just happed. My hat off to anyone who enlisted during a war, you enlisted understanding that you would very likely be sent to Vietnam. I didn’t do that.
You couldn’t help not making it to Vietnam; I can’t change being deployed so late to Iraq and these young Marines fault they have not been deployed yet. We don’t have a lot of control over the nature of our service. A Veteran that served honorably should never feel like less that other that happened to serve in a combat zone.
If people look at you funny or are giving you SH^T over Vietnam Era vs Vietnam Vet, remember that you served and tell them to faq off.


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Originally Posted by mgorm16640
If I read your original post correctly, you volunteered for the Army in a time of war. That is more than most people did or will ever do for their friends and family.
I joined the Marine Corps Reserve prior to 911 as a 0311. I was part of one of the last grunt battalions to be sent to Iraq. It was awful watching Falluja on the news every night. I finally made it to Iraq and then back again a year later and then on to Afghanistan and a few other countries in the Middle East and then few other non-combat deployments. Now I see younger Marines, that joined a wartime Corps going through exactly what you described. They enlisted willing to go wherever the Corps sends them but have not been sent to Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria for that matter. They feel like less of a Marine that those that have been to a combat zone. I remind them that they joined the service in a time of war. I didn’t do that, I joined for drinking money while I went to college and a war just happed. My hat off to anyone who enlisted during a war, you enlisted understanding that you would very likely be sent to Vietnam. I didn’t do that.
You couldn’t help not making it to Vietnam; I can’t change being deployed so late to Iraq and these young Marines fault they have not been deployed yet. We don’t have a lot of control over the nature of our service. A Veteran that served honorably should never feel like less that other that happened to serve in a combat zone.
If people look at you funny or are giving you SH^T over Vietnam Era vs Vietnam Vet, remember that you served and tell them to faq off.


Good post.


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I agree with most,wearing anything that says Vietnam on it tends to lead people into believing one served there .I volunteered for five years into the air force in 1962.Failed the physical.So I could say I volunteered in the early Vietnam era and leave it at that. I did my service. I spent the next ten years working at a national lab developing weapons used in Vietnam.Then another 20 years working in under ground nuclear test to develop hardening methods for Us weapons in nuclear environments.I have more radiation exposure than what would be determined unsafe.

However, I would never put myself in a class where all gave some and some gave all. I had close friends that never came back.
Thanks to all that gave that service.Vietnam or otherwise


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I had a partner who was commissioned a 2LT in field artillery and sent to Germany in 1968, then ETS'ed in New Jersey 3 yrs later. My other partners and I were all Nam vets. He used to say "The North Vietnamese never crossed the Rhine river!" He was right. He did his job as assigned and was proud of it. So should you be.

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Originally Posted by JMR40
. . . My dad was no hero. . .


Your dad is a hero in my book!


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Cecilb----- The Army personal screwed with your ---- Every week in basic they would start the rumor that we were on standby for Vietnam. " The Fall of Saigon, also known as the Liberation of Saigon, was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong on 30 April 1975. " In November 71 I tried to extend my time in Vietnam--- ( stupid of me ) --- flat out told no---- We are pulling out. By sometime in 1973 we were basically out. ---------- I've talked to more that a handful of Vietnam Vets at many a reunion that either flew first in country into the Reception --- Placement Center in Pleiku or arrived Via ship at the port of Pleiku .


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Let me throw my hat in the ring also Jim. Enlisted in '66 and spent my whole enlistment stateside. Told a real Viet Nam vet how I felt guilty for not having "done my part" in the war. He said you served honorably, that's all that matters.

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Originally Posted by mgorm16640
If I read your original post correctly, you volunteered for the Army in a time of war. That is more than most people did or will ever do for their friends and family.
I joined the Marine Corps Reserve prior to 911 as a 0311. I was part of one of the last grunt battalions to be sent to Iraq. It was awful watching Falluja on the news every night. I finally made it to Iraq and then back again a year later and then on to Afghanistan and a few other countries in the Middle East and then few other non-combat deployments. Now I see younger Marines, that joined a wartime Corps going through exactly what you described. They enlisted willing to go wherever the Corps sends them but have not been sent to Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria for that matter. They feel like less of a Marine that those that have been to a combat zone. I remind them that they joined the service in a time of war. I didn’t do that, I joined for drinking money while I went to college and a war just happed. My hat off to anyone who enlisted during a war, you enlisted understanding that you would very likely be sent to Vietnam. I didn’t do that.
You couldn’t help not making it to Vietnam; I can’t change being deployed so late to Iraq and these young Marines fault they have not been deployed yet. We don’t have a lot of control over the nature of our service. A Veteran that served honorably should never feel like less that other that happened to serve in a combat zone.
If people look at you funny or are giving you SH^T over Vietnam Era vs Vietnam Vet, remember that you served and tell them to faq off.


well said

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Thanks again guys...I really appreciate the comments.

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Everyone has a job to do in all the services.
If they aren't done then someone else suffers in some small way.
Yes there are horse's a$$e$ in all POsitions/levels, and the Navy pilot described above is but one example.

A heartfelt THANK YOU to all vets, you served your country well.


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Has anyone here meet a WW2 Marine that was not on Iwo Jima? I meet just one out of about 70. That island had to be green for all the Marines on it. In the late 70's I meet a old Marine that said he was on Iwo. He said he was wounded and they sent him stateside for the rest of the war. I asked when that was and he said Oct 44. I didn't have the heart to tell him that Iwo was Feb 45. I was in the Army from Oct 66 To Oct 69 but I had two foreign assignments Germany and Oklahoma.


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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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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
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Audens! Audens!-Marat (Napolean's Cavalry Commander)

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i wanted to go.
I was too young.
in 74...I signed up.
while I was in training, frequent wind kicked off. I met my ship as it was returning out of the combat zone.
didn't get any medals. cant say I didn't try.
its just the way it goes for some.
some didn't want to go and did.
some wanted and couldn't.
fact is I was one who stepped to the plate.
call me era. fine. never shot at.
but don't ask me to respect all nam vets.
I know plenty who checked out a revolver from the ship armory...flew into Saigon. spent 24+hrs in country drinking...just to get the medals.
then flew out.
its the intent of the heart that matters.
and apparently my hometown feels that since I was signed up prior to june 75....I was rated a nam vet. the marble stone with all the town vets names in the town square that SERVED by not retreating to college or a factory job, reflects it.
I didn't ask for it, it just happened.

for the record, because I couldn't be in country I felt like I let down my country.
so....to make up for it, I stayed in 22 years. it may not have had bullets flying, but it was proud service.
im sorry for those that were injured or maimed in nam. it wasn't my calling....but for the 22 years I did serve, hopefully it saved many from that fate.
in my retirement speech I said to the crowd...that I served one for myself and 4 more for those that wanted but couldn't.
it drew applause.


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Bobski thank you . you have my up most respect for what you did .no apology needed on your end

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for all of you that was in you was lucky you did not have to go. As a Army brat but joined the Corp that blew a long tradition of Army lineage. Joined in 66 did 3 and 1/2 tours got the million dollar wound came home spent 5 months getting better or over what happened. found out why we was not liked spit on and called names but that happens. you should not feel guilty about not going you did your service and did it good walk tall proud and eyes straight. And remember the only easy day was yesterday


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I went to a book signing for a book written by a SEAL one day. Talked to him a bit as I didn't go to VN either. Went on sea duty but not there. I told him about like what OP wrote. He said simply, "You did your part". It surely did make a difference as to how I felt about it.

And, a man who was a friend who was truly 4F told me about 25 years after the war that if his sons got drafted he'd take them to Canada. That did not sit well.


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It is a difficult situation. I know people who never left the wire in Bagram, who like to make a big deal of being in country, but by their own admission where never in danger. I know people who have never been in country, but have been in real pucker factor situations. I know someone who is a Vietnam Era Vet, but logged actual combat time as a DMZ pilot in Korea. People know about Vietnam though, so he just goes with saying he is a Vietnam Era Vet. The problem is trying to judge people based off of a shallow metric that tells nothing about what they actually did. What about people who where in combat, but ended up with a BCD, you know some of them go around touting their service, yet ignoring the fact that they where a problem, rather than an asset.

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Service is service. I thank you for yours wherever it was and whatever you did.

I also served, every day I prayed for action; now I thank God I didn't get any.

Allowing yourself to be judged on where, when and how you served is IMHO wrong.. You served - f#ck whoever judges you - if they're a true vet they won't and if they're not.......

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