Ed
wow - please accept that as a multiple ‘welcome home.' They were going to make some field mods to those ‘Roundabout' electric chairs to make us not-so-young armchair Generals mobile - but the .50 kept knocking it over and the M60 spun it around in circles. They had a whole Div of VN vets good to go, especially since DRAFT is really a four letter word and nobody wants to use it!
Enuff politics - you'll have to fill us in on what your helo's looked like, since Nam.
Ray - I guess not enuff politics just yet. What you see going on today is similar in any ways, re the ‘press' distorting the truth and on a mission to grab defeat out of the jaws of victory. Few listen to the vets coming home, and take all the bad news that's blasted at us as gospel truth. The biggest difference is that there's no draft this time, though according to the statistics, the vast majority of those who served in Nam volunteered and weren't drafted. But we have Congress trying to cut off the flow of money, stating that there is no war on terrorism that that's simply a false slogan, but ‘we back the troops', of course. After the VN war VN communist leaders openly admitted - and still do - that the West's press and protestors helped them win that war. They said that they manipulated and used them and knew from the news that all they had to do was hang in there, just a little bit longer. They admitted total defeat during Tet yet we reported it as our defeat! And so on and so on. ‘Same-same' very much as today except with our computers and alternative news sources, much of the good news does get out and it's getting harder and harder to con the people. From either side, actually!
Even so, we haven't fought to win, and our leaders today are desperately looking for the exit door, possibly regardless of repercussions. Like you said, most people "...are too lazy to do research for themselves or don't care enough..." sad to say.
In my humble opinion, "Vietnam didn't cause such dissention" in reality: it only did in the media which made it appear a lot worse than it really was! Only because that made better news than GI's building a school or orphanage. So every bit of bad news was jumped on and blown way out of proportion and every bit of good news was buried. You would think that virtually every young American back then was protesting but I'd bet in fact they represented maybe 1 or 2% of the population, and many of them did it out of cowardice/fear for their lives (if the war is right or wrong, I refuse to risk my life!), selfishness (nobody owes their country a thing - I'll just take whatever I can from it), and free love (if you hung out with girls who protested, you were guaranteed to get laid). And for politics - for one party to blame the other for political advantage - regardless of repercussions.
Andy, I appreciate your support, but don't beat on the UK! It's been our best ally especially this last decade or so. It's a shame both countries are so intent upon blindly granting our freedoms that they risk losing all - letting their media be not only irresponsible, but subversive. We never would have won WWII with a press being so blatantly subversive. If they cried about the losses on D Day we would have packed up and cut our losses, gone home before many more would die. But that's what happens in war - people die! Our schools are just as bad, either teaching nothing, or teaching nothing good. I really think that in the USA the vast majority of baby boomers did nothing during Nam. Neither went to war or protested. And in their guilt have gotten on the bandwagon to portray Nam and Nam vets as wrong, evil, murderers, rapists and all. To paint it so, paints them as being in the right. For if Nam was (and it was) like JFK and LBJ said, to bear any burden to help other peoples be free, then they were cowards for not joining and fighting the communists. Again, if it was US imperialistic domination for oil or rubber or whatever resources we selfishly wanted, and would rape, pillage etc for it - then they look like heros.
BTW, I don't recall many countries coming to the UK's aid after WWII to put down communist insurgents in Malaysia, Indonesia and elsewhere in the Pacific. If you look at the big picture, all of that and Korea, and Vietnam - were all battles in the Cold War on communism. Communism wouldn't have fallen if you and we hadn't stood firm, as long as we did.
That's my humble - and minority opinion! And just touches the surface of it. God help the West if we 'cut and run' in the Middle East...
Howie