Viet vets, how were you treated.

[nf1e]

Sign of the times I am afraid.
I had started to talk about this in an earlier post and thought I had better leave it alone " again ". I was on a Braniff sp flight from Danang. We stopped at Guam and then onto LAX. Before we were allowed off the aircraft some MPs gave us a welcome back to the world speach. They let us know we were going to meet some people in the airport that, did not like what we had done in Viet Nam. I don't know how anyone would know, but these MPs said that for any of us Marines, if we even touched anyone of the protesters, we would spend the rest of our lives in Portsmouth and the Army guys would be going to Leavenworth. What a wonderful greeting. I think most of us felt like kicking the doo doo out of the woosie MPs, but we understood they were just doing their job.

[Vern Humphrey]

Sign of the times I am afraid.
I had started to talk about this in an earlier post and thought I had better leave it alone " again ". I was on a Braniff sp flight from Danang. We stopped at Guam and then onto LAX. Before we were allowed off the aircraft some MPs gave us a welcome back to the world speach. They let us know we were going to meet some people in the airport that, did not like what we had done in Viet Nam. I don't know how anyone would know, but these MPs said that for any of us Marines, if we even touched anyone of the protesters, we would spend the rest of our lives in Portsmouth and the Army guys would be going to Leavenworth. What a wonderful greeting. I think most of us felt like kicking the doo doo out of the woosie MPs, but we understood they were just doing their job.

The reason they said that was the Army and Marines realized what would happen if combat veterans defended themselves against those scumbags.

[nf1e]

Yep, exactly. I had way more against them than the gentle Vietnamese farmers we trampled over. Screw political correctness.

[Vern Humphrey]

We don't say they're "Politically Correct." We say they're "Anal Retentive."

Spread the word.

[nf1e]

I will try to remember that, but the memory ain't was it used to was. Now , what was I thinking? Couldn't have been very important.

[Griff Murphey]

It is unfortunate that geography meant that everyone arrived home on the West Coast and were subjected to its cesspool. Bad enough to go to war, then to be treated like that.

I never saw anything like that in Texas. In Fort Worth when I was in high school we sent care packages to units in Viet Nam. I was in college in San Antonio 67-71 and the boot medics from Fort Sam and the Lackland kids were all over downtown tourist attractions and treated with full respect.

[Vern Humphrey]

I experienced that crap in Batesville, Arkansas in 1969. I was wounded, with my arm in a sling and all my ribs broken.

[ridgerunner]

Penny for your thoughts, if you sneezed, Vern.

[Griff Murphey]

I sincerely regret hearing of these incidents of gross disrespect and ignorance by the low information civilians of the time. A friend of mine who was an Aussie RAAF Wing Commander at GD in Ft. Worth, on the F-111 program in the early-mid 70's, comes over here with his wife nearly every year. Had dinner with him last year (now a retired 2 star AVM) and he made an interesting statement about those times..."America was tearing itself apart..." Maybe that describes the far reaching negative results of the war which I think you could argue are causing many of our problems today.

For what it's worth, I can only imagine how crazy that was for you returning combat vets and painful, physically and mentally.

[IditarodJoe]

Three words come to mind . . . "lyndon" "baines" "johnson". (What kind of person would name their kid "Lyndon" anyway? )

[Vern Humphrey]

Penny for your thoughts, if you sneezed, Vern.

Ouch!

I stayed on after I was wounded the first time -- we had no replacement company commanders. So when I was wounded the second time, they didn't even ask.

But the Brigade Commander would come out every day in his helicopter to see how I was doing.

I was a Mech Company Commander. You know how a man with his arm in a sling and his ribs broken gets down off his APC to greet the Brigade Commander? OUCH!

[ridgerunner]

Very carefully.
I also had scar tissue form over where my ribs were busted, 40 some odd years ago, that had to be removed last year, because of cancer. I think it was more of a pre cancer issue.

[Vern Humphrey]

Don't scare me like that!!

[Griff Murphey]

Since IditarodJoe brought up LBJ I can't resist recounting his Silver Star award. Basically he rode a B-26 Marader out of New Guinea on a raid against Rabaul. It was actually a pretty hairy mission as his plane was attacked by Saburo Sakai, a top JNAF ace, fortunately for LBJ Sakai broke off his attack. So LBJ got the Silver Star, the B-26 aircrew got nothing. LBJ proudly wore that Silver Star on his lapel ever after. Here endeth the story. Take a ride, get a medal.

[Clark Howard]

The worst thing about those who abused us in the old days is that they are now abusing us in Washington DC. Regards, Clark