Well.....as a Vietnam vet I can tell you that national esteem for us really began when Ronald Reagan told the nation in 1980 that those who did go served in a noble cause.
In the 1970’s Viet vets were routinely depicted as down & out, psychotic, deranged sniper on rooftop (a favorite cop show theme), maladjusted, etc. Thank the Lord all that’s changed & better late than never.
Anyway, Obama & those of his political culture see vets as not only dislikeable but as a decreasing percentage of the population & therefore not part of the New Order.
I think this across the board slap at all vets with closing the memorials will ultimately backfire. See how many
Democrats running in 2014 will defend what is happening now (unless they are gerrymandered in office for life).
My dad served two tours in Vietnam (Marine chopper pilot), and I worked with a TON of ‘Nam vets when I worked offshore in the Summers of ‘82 and ‘83 while I was in college. Vietnam vets have always been my heroes.
>>I think this across the board slap at all vets with closing the memorials will ultimately backfire.<<
Every veteran that I know has a Mom and Dad, Uncles and Aunts, Grandparents who will all remember Barry barricading the War Memorials when it’s time to vote in the next election.
The other day at the office, one of my co-workers asked me how it was that I served multiple tours in Vietnam as a combat infantryman and I didn’t get PTSD. My rather flippant answer was “I didn’t get PTSD in Vietnam, I gave it.”
However, this PTSD question made me wonder what PTSD is and what the symptoms are, so I did a little research on the subject and found that I did indeed possess symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) concerning a traumatic and very stressful incident that occurred during my last tour in Vietnam. I was a professional soldier when the traumatic incident occurred and had accumulated over six years in Vietnam engaging occasionally in close combat with a vicious and cunningly capable enemy, but the traumatic event was not as a result of close combat with this enemy.
One day when I was totally focused on closing with and destroying the enemy, something caught my eye, I looked around and found a new enemy had unexpectedly appeared behind me; it was the American people. The same Democrat Party who had originally sent me to Vietnam promising that, “We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty,” had now sided with the Communists I was fighting. They were parading in the streets of the United States under a Viet Cong flag, were quoting from Mao’s Red Book, and were spitting on and flinging insults at returning Vietnam Veterans. Then, a Democrat led Congress cut off funding for the Vietnam War, American combat troops were withdrawn and we abandoned a valiant ally to their fate.
I was ordered out of the country in 1972, and when I arrived at Travis Air Force Base, California, purposely in the dark of the night, I was advised to change out of my uniform and put on civilian clothing to avoid being attacked by the American people when I entered San Francisco. I was not at all surprised when a few decades later these same people elected a Marxist-Communist as President of what was once my country.
Yes, the deep, burning hatred I feel for the Democrat Party to this day could be diagnosed as a symptom of PTSD, and I wonder how many other Vietnam Veterans feel the same way.