Tuesday, May 03, 2016

Vietnam Vets and Trump

From day one of the Trump saga, I have constantly sought to know: "who are these people" supporting Trump. I have discovered at least a possibility and this pains me. VIETNAM VETS. 

Most of us have accepted the idea or at least I thought we had, we fought a war in Vietnam, returned home and fought another one. Americans who cared,  hated the war and extended it to hating the soldier. The good news is that because the country officially treated the soldier so badly, now everybody loves the soldier. Look at all the big sports events, always honoring the troops even if the military foots much of the bill. 

Vietnam vets are not immune from being bigoted like the draft dodging Trump. But, we ought to be. I
s it lack of hindsight? (I have to wonder what they have been smoking). From where I stand, Vietnam was a sorry war. Stopping communism was a ruse. (1) "Ho" was dedicated to uniting his country. He fought the French, and we stupidly replaced them. (2) We underestimated the tenacity of the Vietnamese to engage in guerrilla warfare in their own country. We did some stupid things in Vietnam but the smartest one was getting out, even if it took us ten years.  

One vet in this article I read quoted Richard Nixon. This is laughable. Nixon ran and won by saying he will get us out of Nam.  At the time of the election, we had about 6000 American soldiers who had lost their lives in Vietnam. By the time he left office, it was 58,000 plus. (This reminds me of Trump, like something he would say and do).

What is very discouraging to me is I honestly thought that Vietnam would have taught us a lesson. It didn't do a thing. We have been as stupid as ever with Afghanistan and Iraq--Involving ourselves in impossible situations and continuing to do it. (A soldier was just killed in Iraq. We are suppose to be out of there). 

This is all perspective, of course. I will have to admit that I thought these old tired views of Nam were gone and here they showed up. LOL. Things like the "Domino theory." Why the f..k are we still talking about this discredited political bullshit. Damn crazy. Wè don't need to justify ourselves. It was a sorry ass war. We did our duty. Next case. 

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