Going from Right to Left
I first wrote this as comment, but was asked to put it in as a post. This is in response to a commentary by some person on the Left, who was upset that Barack Obama is reaching out to those served in Vietnam. The person felt that Barack was slighting those that protested so hard against the war.
I just missed the war, but I did get spit on, In 1976, a couple of years after the war was over. And I did volunteer for the military out of a sense of duty. I supported the war then, but if I knew then what I know now, I would not have joined the Marines for the Vietnam war. But we were not all draftees forced into it.
I do remember that in 1976 nobody wore their uniform off base, and people hid the fact that they were in the military.
I think there are many former military people like me, and I think Obama is right to say something about us. Frankly, I did not expect anything.
I went to high school in the state of Wisconsin, conservative support for thee conservative government was taken for granted. In a place like that, East and West coast cities were regarded as anti American hotbeds of “Commie Pinko Fags” who were plotting to destroy America. And I totally believed that Communism was trying to conquer the world. I was 18 then. Time, exposure to different ideas and people, well I changed my mind.
Service overseas and learning other languages like Japanese, caused me to broaden my viewpoints, and so I also became an “Enemy of America”.
But if I wore my uniform off base, I also did get spit on, fists shaken at me, and so on. Yet if I had conversations with people on the right, they would praise me for being in the military, yet I had to very careful about what I said. If I alluded to anything like that people in other countries were human and decent and might oppose joining America in attacking the Soviet Union, I would have a serious problem.
Of course, you could never allude to Russians as being decent people, just having a different kind of government.
So at the age of 20 I left America, I just did not feel that anybody wanted me there. I was too different.
And that is why I firmly support Senator Obama for President. I believe he is the last chance for the US.
Posted: May 13th, 2008 under Vietnam.
Comments: 2
Comments
Comment from Pat
Time: May 14, 2008, 7:54 am
My brother was another soldier who was not drafted. He signed up for the Marines when he was 17, and my parents had to give their permission for him to join. While he was in vietnam he was told that if he signed on to fight for 8 more months, he could get an early discharge from the marine corp, which he did. After serving 20 months in Vietnam, he came home to a country that treated him like a traitor. He died a few years ago, but if he were alive today, he would agree with everything Obama said.
Comment from timr
Time: May 14, 2008, 10:33 am
Max, I was a volunteer, enlisted in the Air Force when I was 17, the day after I graduated from HS. I was in Vietnam in 1970, and while stationed in Sacramento Ca at Mather AFB from 1973-1975 I had to run a gauntlet-like everyone else-almost every time I tried to enter the base. The road from the freeway to the base was a straight3 mile road, so I could see from quite a distance when the prosters were trying to block entrence to the base. At that time I had an MGB-GT, and when winding it out you could hear the engine from quite a distance. So, what I did was to accelerate as fast as I could, so that I was going about 100 or more by the time I reached the area where they were blocking the road. The protesters, for some reason, always ran like hell to get out of my way, and every time I stopped at the gate I was greeted with smiles by the gate guards. Back in 71 or 72, when I was stationed in the DC area, a friend had to take his sick wife to Walter Reed hospital, she lay in the back of the station wagon, while my friend drove and I was just a passenger. Unfortunately for us we arrived in DC during the “days of rage” where anti war protesters were all over the city attempting to disrupt traffic. We stopped at a red light, and a man jumped out in front of us and popped the hood, looking to pull the distributor cap off, thus making us into a traffic block-anyone looking close could tell we had access to a military base because we had base permits on our windshield-what I did not know was that my friend had brought along both his 12 ga shotgun, and his .357 magnum revolver. He jumped out of the car with his shotgun in hand, and racked a round-a pump shotgun makes a very distinctive sound when a round is being chambered-the prostesteer almost fainted on the spot, he very carefully closed the hood of the car, and backed away, as did the others gathered at that corner. I never expected to have that kind of thing happen, it was pretty obvious that we had a sick woman in in car, but they did not care.
As for being spit on, I never saw that happen to anyone, altho when I landed at McCord AFB in Seattle on Jan 12 1971-in my summer uniform, as were all the others who were on the plane, that day there was about 6 inchs of snow on the ground-we were told to stay in groups while at SEATAC waiting for our flights. People did yell at us, called us baby killers, and other more nasty names altho no effort was made to attack us.( my best friend was also returning from Vietnam a couple of days later-he was in the Army-and he and 2 others from his Vietnam unit were attacked in downtown Seattle, both groups beat the crap out of each other-he and his friends were out numbered, the other side had about 10 guys-, both groups were arrested, but my friend and his 2 friends were released right away-he arrived home with a black eye, a busted cheekbone, 25 stiches in his head, and a concussion, along with 3 broken ribs, one hell of a welcome back home) When I got to O’Hare in Chicago, I went to the USO area and waited there-8+ hours- for my flight home, there were fewer people protesting at O’Hare than at SEATAC. When I arrived home-Traverse City, Mi.-there were no protesters, in fact some people welcomed me home and thanked me for my service.
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