PH CIB

When I started with the Military Order of the Purple Heart in Des Moines,,,We had three Combat Wounded WWII Vets,,,all Great Guys and all in Heaven now,,,We have one Korean War Veteran and the rest all Viet Nam era and one from Iraq and A-Stan,,,Thank You for Your Service in Korea,,,a Brutal War sandwiched in between WWII and Viet Nam and You Guys do not get the Recognition You so Deserve....Thanks Again for Serving our Country and our People....!!!

tropics68 Loc: Georgia

Thanks and may God bless all who served. I was among the lucky ones. A year in the Michelin rubber plantation without a scratch. I took a picture of this beautiful sign on the day I left.

blackhorse 1-7

Nice sign....I must have missed it. But your picture caused a little lump in my throat.

Wingpilot Loc: Wasilla. Ak

Yes.

Wingpilot Loc: Wasilla. Ak

The term DEROS meant lots then.

blackhorse 1-7

DEROS is what we all LIVED FOR. After all, that's what we based our "short-timer" calendars on. For the non veterans, DEROS stood for Date Eligible Return Over Seas...the day we got to go home. It was actually a date given to each of us the minute we arrived in Vietnam.

Wingpilot Loc: Wasilla. Ak

And the best moment was the moment we stepped into that "Freedom Bird" that took us back home.

traderjohn Loc: New York City

That's a crock!!! What the F did that have to with those were in the military?? Did they have any say? So, if it were a "declared" you would have been OK with it. That's BS.

Wingpilot Loc: Wasilla. Ak

Declared formally or undeclared, we were at war. The fact that we were in Vietnam killing and getting killed would certainly suggest that war was declared, even unformally. That decision to be a participant in that conflict was not made by the military, but by our administration, by a president or presidents that ordered troops be deployed. One can hardly hold that against the GI who was sent there. Nevertheless, people were unsupportive of it because there didn't seem to be a real good reason to be there and because our government consistently lied to us about it, and the fact the politicians wouldn't allow us to win. Winning might have been bad for business--I think there might have been some of that. In any case, people's anger was misplaced and they took it out on the GI's, unfortunately. I also think there was a lot of misunderstanding about that situation. Had they allowed our forces to pursue and elilminate the enemy in the first place, which they could have, I wonder what people's attitudes would have been. Anyway, even though the thanks are late in coming, I'll take everyone I get. I don't hold angst toward those who protested or avoided service. That was their decision, and in some cases their actions demonstrated their stupidiy or ignorance. This something they will have to live with, not me. I also think that there was a sense of defeat, long before it was over, because we weren't winning and it was apparent that we weren't going to win, so Americans felt defeated. Good reason to protest. The problem is, people went about it the wrong way, changing protest to riot and disrespecting returning GI's. Nowadays, it seems there's a bit of repentence as folks tend to respect our military more than ever, which, as a veteran, I appreciate. As veterans, we need to respect each other, too. Hang in there guys, and have a great day.

Alafoto Loc: Montgomery, AL

I don't know how much respect people have for the military, even today. The disdain of Hillary and the previous president were obvious and I am not sure that the present president sees the military as more than a club to be used to demand his way in the world. One thing is sure. When the terrorists began running amok in the world, nobody ran to the local liberal organization or their neighborhood college professors to hunt them down and exterminate them.

Wingpilot Loc: Wasilla. Ak

Any way you look at it, it's politics and a mixed bag.

Paladin48 Loc: Orlando

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

I actually ran into very little trouble when I came back. Probably had something to do with spending all my time in blue collar or lower middle class areas and jobs. Plus I went to California State University Los Angeles - an urban commuter campus with little in the way of dorms (a few apartment complexes near campus) just about everyone drove to campus, drove home and worked at least part time. Very few of the full time, non working, Daddy & Mommy pays their way students with time to be radical protesters. Add in the fact that nearly 7000 of the 24000 full time students were veterans and the protesters tended to not stir us up. We tended to hang together (I even made friends with some prop stoppers, jar heads and squids) and cooperate in things like fooling the more radical professors into thinking they had "converted" us. Feed them back their semi-Marxist bull, get a good grade and get together to read the books, learn the subject and laugh about them thinking they had changed us to the "true beliefs".
The campus police came to regard the vets as an asset. Once a semi-brain dead radical put a "bomb" on the window ledge of the first floor office of the Police Science Department. Everyone freaking, bailing out of the building and one of the cops told a bunch of us eating lunch in the quad nearby to clear the area because there was a bomb. One guy, former EOD, got up-still eating his sandwich, walked over, looked at the bomb, stuffed the rest of the sandwich in his mouth, picked up the "bomb" and pulled it apart. Walked over to the nearest cop and handed him the parts and said "Broom stick pieces painted to look like dynamite and the fool didn't know how to do the wiring. Even if it was real dynamite it couldn't have gone off, not even the blasting cap." Came back over to his table, took a drink of coke, picked up the other half of his sandwich and resumed his conversation. About 4 tables of us had been slowly getting ready to move if it was real. We went back to our lunches. Some of the non vet students were having near melt downs. The Police Science Department started to recruit heavily from among the veterans.

no nameJoe

Amen to that bro

Wingpilot Loc: Wasilla. Ak

I do have to say that aside from that idiot minister opening his mouth and be found a fool, I had no other instances of disrespect. Then again aside from a couple years in Houston, Tx where I was a firefighter, I spent the rest of my time in Alaska, and, at least back then, Alaska was largely conservative anyway, and there were no protest, riots or people assaluting or disrespecting service men and women because they were in Vietnam.

In any case, THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE! to all who have served, wherever they served.