Spitting on Vietnam Soldiers

i dont hate the soldiers, to me they're human like everyone else, but the fact that they killed is something that i dont respect. I don't care if it was under orders by the government or anything like that, wether they killed an enemy soldier or any other person. PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE, IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO THE FUCK THEY ARE DON'T FUCKING KILL OR MAME OR ANY OF THAT SHIT.

 

Most of you guys have NO IDEA what Vietnam soldiers have been through. Nor do I. But I thought being a hippie was about showing love and understanding to people of all sorts, no matter what they have done in the past or present. Spitting on anyone is extremely degrading, and does nothing to help a person at all. Love your enemy.

 

I can only speak from an outsider point of view. My father was 17 when he went to war he was a medic. My friend Marcus was also in the war and was very young. I have heard horrible things that happened. I don't blame the soldiers, most of them were young and didn't know what to do. I wouldn't spit on a soldier, I'd give him/her an ear and listen. They can't help what is going on in the world any more than the rest of us. Then is the same as now. It's sad all around.

 

As of today this thread is 3 years old.

 

This is directed to those children with all the answers, you know who you are:
I am not ashamed of anything I did. Children who speak without wisdom or experience should seldom be seen and never heard. Does that piss you off? Good. Now we are even.
On behalf of those who didn't return and can't speak for themselves, screw you.

 

ok so you think our responses don't deserve merit. why, you don't think we have a reasonable opinion, we are too young to understand things. Our opinions are just as important as your "almighty experienced" opinion. Or maybe you think we might be on to something and are scared that we're right.

I admit i don't know everything, but that doesn't stop me from putting in my opinion, that's how i gain information- i see all the sides and decide which is best, if i wasn't there then how else can i learn about it, this seems like a reasonable way, no?

 

atriot:I promised myself I wouldn't come back to this thread again, not from fear but from frustration and disappointment. Its frustrating to hear the same hate speech over and over from people who have no idea of what is was like to be your age at that time in history. Its disappointing that you are more than willing to remain ignorant of the facts of the time. There are accounts of what it was like available from a wide range of sources. You don't seem willing to take mine or anyone else's experiences into consideration so look into it yourself. Imagine being 12 and hearing that when you turn 18 the war will still be going strong and your going to go, forget college.
One point I feel obligated to bring up. It was stated there were no hero's in that war.
I don't know what your definition of a hero is but I feel that running across open ground while under fire to rescue wounded men you have never met qualifies as a heroic act.
You say putting in your opinion is how you gain information, that you see all sides. I only hear that you had your mind made up before you spoke. You made a statement as if your opinion was fact and never asked a question.
I don't want to go over all this again. Last night after reading the newest posts I filled a page with my point of view. I have little doubt that if I had not erased it I would be banned today. Instead I calmed down and tried to see it from your point.
I went to the journal hoping it wont have the same result of getting me banned. I did make an effort to clean it up.
Being in Canada you will never have to worry about being drafted. The young men here don't have that guarantee. Makes it easier for you to say what you would or wouldn't do if they came to your door. Dodging the draft puts you in a federal military prison, FT. Leavenworth Kansas, when the FBI catches you. Not someplace you want to be. A tour of duty is shorter and you get to go home on leave. The worst you have to put up with is being spit on by fakers who call themselves hippies.
~Peace

 

the nazis tried to say they were just following orders. I am not one to judge but i find it hard to make a distinction between US soldiers following orders, Nazis following orders and just plain murder. that being said i get along fine with the few Iraq war vets i know, and i truly do not want to judge those who decide to go to war or who were drafted its far too complicated for clear right and wrongs

 

NAZIS WTF we were kids in a place we did not want to be, we did not just decide to go to war, we were made to go, and we did what it took to get home in one piece, and I am so very glad that you get along with some of the Iraq vets, I'm sure they are very proud you get along with them, how the hell is killing some one who is trying to kill you murder, you need to check yourself out, you don't have a clue, we were in a war without the normal rules we try to follow, war is war you fight it to live, you know what I am wasting my time even responding to you, to acknowledge your very existence is ridicules. So have fun with yourself.

Peace

 

murder is murder, wether in a uniform or not.

a man kills another man, what is it called..murder

suppose I tell you those men were soldiers from opposing sides, what is it now..heroic? it's still murder

 

Your not worth my time either.

Peace

 

i would have done the same thing but there are many different reasons why they would do that. me i would do it cause they gave drugs a bad name. For example 1in4 soldiers where hooked on Heroin and they grouped in that drug problem with other drugs to make the sacrament cannabis look all evil and also psychedelics which help the mind become free rather than control it and the body. The soldiers where the drugies not the hippies, thats what killed the whole freeing the mind revolution.

 

If your mind is so damn free then why is this rant so ridiculous, not to mention misspelled?

Hippies weren't druggies? There were plenty among the hippies who turned to harder drugs, and many fell into addiction. At least when a soldier became a junkie it could be blamed on post traumatic stress disorder. Soldiers gave drugs a bad name? What drugs were you on when you wrote this, you're giving them a bad name!

 

Thanks Newo I couldn't reply to sunyatwhatever without becoming brain damaged. Its an example of the failure of our education system that a 26 yo can actually believe such garbage. The Free Clinic in the H.A. district was overflowing with addicted kids. That's why it was established. But again that isn't what they want to hear, it doesn't fit the stereotype they have.
~Peace

 

i was drunk as shit and it was cuz all the addicted soldiers that the War on Drugs started and killed off the hippy way of life.

 

I'm sure the battle hardened veterans during the Vietnam War who were tough enough to duck bullets and artillery were equally tough enough to evade and ignore a few stray droplets of spittle.


Besides, I'm quite sure some of them even deserved it.

 

Are you really 50? You don't sound that mature.

I'm sure some of them deserved it too, but why lump them all into one category: war criminal?

Yes the Vietnam war was a mistake, ill-conceived on poor intelligence, mismanaged from the beginning, and ultimately it was morally wrong. But that's the government's fault, not the soldiers.

Have you listened to some of the stories told by Vietnam Veterans against the War? A common theme is going off to Vietnam naively thinking you were out to save the world from the commie menace, only to have your eyes opened by the harsh realities of the war.

Should we spit on returning soldiers because they were naive?

 

Spitting or not, the bigger issue is that we as a society supporting a government who is supposed to care for our interests, send young men and women off to wars based on lies, deceit and manipulation, all to benefit certain politicians and enrich the coffers of certain corporations who make millions of money (blood money) out of wars.

In a way, waving the red, white and blue, stars and stripes supporting your naive soldier being manipulated as a pawn off to fight and defend corporate interests is akin to giving him or her a death sentence.

Having your son and daughter ending up coming home in a box, with a broken body or mind is much harsher to face than a stray spittle.

Maybe, those fathers who sent their sons or daughters to Nam' or even Iraq, could spit on themselves in the mirror too.

 

None of you die hard haters know your history, The war on drugs started at the end of prohibition with the formation of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. The first law passed against marijuana was in Texas in 1914. VietNam was quite awhile later.
Whether a soldier/sailor/ marine or airman was naive or not, whether you support(ed) the war or not, it does not give you the right to spit on them or me. It is not an act covered by the freedom of speech.
Just because you believe dying is worse than being spit on doesn't make the disrespect we felt any less painful. And it added to the PTSD that most of the guys suffered from. Thanks.
We went because we had to. We were not junkies, or murderers, we were kids with long hair, who may or may not have been stoners, greasers, frats, or the dozen other names we were called depending on where we were from. The military cut off our hair and made us look the same on the outside, but we were still the same kids inside.
Now its easy to judge and say what you would have done, it doesn't take any courage to be an armchair hippy. Oh that's right, your not hippies, your wannabees. I'd say Peace but the meaning is sure to ecsape you.
~Today is the anniversary of Kent State

 

Whoa! You sure get offended by a couple drops of loose spittle, while actively participating in the death and suffering inflicted on millions of people including some of your own in a war you had no business getting yourself into, in the first place.

I guess, you cowboys didn't mind blasting away a couple thousand men, women and children in Vietnam, burning their homes and villages with napalm, but confronting a few loose droplets of saliva smack in your face, it's sure to let that murderous primal urge out of you to kill.

Nice job of allowing yourselves to be brain-washed into unthinking killing machines.