U.S. Army, 1973-1978.
Hi, Mespo. I'm sort of on the cusp, I suppose: I was Vietnam draft age (Class of '69) but had a high lottery number. I was safe.
I was also a precocious protest marcher. Got my first big scar in Lincoln Park in Chicago in 1968, a 16 year old flower child charged by my masked fathers--little did I know that in 1976, the good citizens of Boston would be spitting on me when I marched in a July 4th parade in dress uniform.
Two things happened: I became disillusioned with a counterculture that was no more rational than its mirror culture, and I met some early Vietnamese refugees while working in a soup kitchen. The stories they told of cruel northern fighters seeking to impose an alien ideology did not match well with the postcolonial agitprop I had previously believed. So I decided the only way to find the truth was to go. I went. I was ready to fight like a demon or desert, depending on what I found. I wasn't ready for what I found.
Most gung-ho patriots out there haven't the slightest idea what a battle field looks like or smells like. Carnage is pixels on a TV screen. You have no idea. You just don't. I find it interesting that some of the greatest "peace-niks" are in fact the top brass of our military. They know.
Yes.
Drinking when we are not thirsty and making love at any time, madam, is all that distinguishes us from the other animals.
-Pierre De Beaumarchais (1732-1799)
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