Posted on 01/31/2012 9:52:29 AM PST by SZonian
A few weeks ago, we warned against an increasingly prevalent narrative in news: That war Veterans are violent, unstable, and dangerous. I explained why that simply isn’t the case, and how those aspersions can hurt Vets and deepen the divide between us and civilians.
Thursday, the national media moved a step closer to establishing this unfortunate characterization as conventional wisdom in the newsroom. USA Today, a national newspaper second to only the Wall Street Journal in distribution, published a story with a headline brimming with violent imagery:
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.va.gov ...
Thank you.
Very, very much! It’s been a long journey . . . .
During Desert Shield, I saw many folks who saw what VN vets went through or were vets who went through the type of “welcome” you describe, “insist” that we wouldn’t be subject to the same when we returned.
When I got home, my unit commander tried to order me to parade through downtown LV with the rest of our fighter wing. I refused.
Why? I didn’t feel that I deserved such. I didn’t face enemy fire and with the exception of the pilots, I don’t recall that there were any real risks our unit faced.
I felt that I had done the job the American people had paid me to do and called it “even”. Having my bride (we were married less than 6 mos. when I deployed) welcome me home on the tarmac and the subsequent thanks of many friends and family was enough for me.
It’s kind of funny though, a person who is not real welcome on FR, Gen. Colin Powell and the genius behind Desert Storm, Gen. Schwarzkopff mentioned a few times that DS would not be another Vietnam.
The American people seemed to do their best to try and heal the wounds of Vietnam while we were deployed and when we returned. The yellow ribbons, videos on tv stations, newspaper articles, radio stations having special call in segments and dedications, etc. It did mean a lot knowing we had their support.
Welcome Home for VN vets via proxy? I don’t know.
Only you and your fellow VN vets can answer that.
FRegards,
SZ
Welcome home Brother, I spent two tours in country never encountered any of that crap, except once, maybe my experiences were different, then again everyone wants to be loved.
I think, with the exception of family members and close friends, the persistent stereotyping of veterans as you describe and as the article does, dulls the general public’s senses.
They become numb to the truth. That that vast majority of veterans are quite able to integrate back into society.
The left is quite adept at marginalizing groups of people through this type of stereotyping.
Only recently has the American people rejected their premise. DS/DS is an example of the majority of Americans rejecting the left’s agenda with that regard.
As you adeptly pointed out, it’s coming full circle. The media is now once again, stereotyping our troops. They’ve been doing so since the beginning of the Iraq War. Using anything to tear down the respect people have of our troops.
Korans in a toilet (patently false) to pissing on the taliban vermin in Afghanistan. It’s demoralizing, it’s exactly what they want.
Eff ‘em.
Welcome home.
FRegards,
SZ
I was Navy also. I was a black shoe line officer, and a ship driver in the Blue Water and Brown Water Navy. I remember after active duty going to the University of Oregon for graduate school. I allied myself with three other present and former military officers also taking degrees in the Business Department. When any of us were together in a class we thrashed the other students. I think they put me on the road to keep looking military, if for no other reason than to ruin some liberal’s day.
A few years ago I came up with the saying, “You need to live your life in such a way that you can take as much comfort in the enemies you make as the friends who surround you.”
Welcome home. Even if you are still on the outside, you and I are getting old enough to claim eccentricity and to take some joy in irritating people.
Thank you.
Welcome Home, my brother.
Welcome home.
Thank you. I’m beginning to feel like I am really back home.
Thank you, sir. You sound a bit like my dad. He would have loved your saying.
Unfortunately, he was career AF (and, NOT Navy AF! LOL!). But, he was a helluva man.
I was brown shoe Navy. When I was looking for a branch of military to join, oddly enough, the Navy was the only service that would guarantee that I might have the chance to fly. And, I wanted to fly and be around aircraft. After that, it wasn’t hard to choose.
No matter what the press and the politicians did to us, I have always been proud of my military service. For the lifetime friends and shipmates I made, I’d do it again in a heartbeat! People who have never spent a minute in the military have no idea what they are missing!
May you always have calm winds and following seas!
May God bless all your future years.
Thank you, kindly, sir.
And may you always be blessed!
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