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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (248345)	11/13/2007 12:14:06 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Michael, you're right in some of the things you write. Many of us who experienced that war give each other a lot of room, and that's often true for those who supported that war and those of us who didn't. It may not seem fair to you but that old maxim, "until you walk a mile in my shoes" applies. We've walked similar trails and we share many of the same images, the same appreciations and the same sorrows. I don't think any of us can get over that and that's not all bad. The best thing about that war was the feeling of camaraderie that existed among men who lived miserable, fearful lives whispering their way beneath a green shroud of vegetation that walled us off from the rest of the world so completely that we could have been on a different planet. The green shroud is gone, the danger is gone and the rest of the world came back but that feeling of camaraderie still runs through us. That hit me right between the eyes this summer. I got together with 11 guys who served with me in the jungle for the first time and You can't imagine how right it felt for every one of us. It felt like coming home after years away. And you can't just get past that, even after 35 years. But it wasn't all good news. Most of the guys have significant problems from their year. About half of them are rated and disabled for stress related reasons and some who aren't rated are in as bad or worse shape than the ones who've been rated. My wife told me how thankful she was that I don't have the problems that were so common among my buddies and believe me, I am too. So when I run across an Unclewest I have a fairly accurate understanding of what he's seen, and done and lives with. And I give him the benefit of that understanding, just as he does with me. It's a combination of compassion and empathy and respect. It's the way it is. And that won't change in 3 decades, or 4 or as long as the 5% or so of us that served there and fought in the jungle are around. And, finally, you are right that a number of us came out of Vietnam with a negative view. With respect to my own experience I'd phrase it differently, however. I'd say that I came out of the service with a deeper understanding of the failings of human nature, a deeper skepticism of the motives and actions of our nation's leaders and a deeper appreciation for the wonderful freedoms and opportunities that the American system and the American dream afford us. It's incumbent on all of us to protect that dream and those opportunities and for me that means that we must be ever resistant to, and vigilant of, flawed leaders and poor policies. So, for me, Iraq is about Vietnam only to the extent that I pay more attention, have a better understanding of what it means to fight a war for the "hearts and minds" of the people in the country the war is fought in and am much more skeptical of "official" information and the veracity of officials. I think that's a smart way to view this nation's wars considering the terrible price that's paid when we fight them, a cost that continues for decades even after they're over. Ed